Mobile Gaming : [part 1]

Blindfold games

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Mobile Gaming Month : [part 1]

Blindfold to some people this is almost a dirty word. Get your minds out of the gutter! We are talking about Blindfold games by Kid Friendly Software. You might want to buckle up for this one.

Series Introduction

For the next few weeks I am going to be exploring the world of Accessible mobile games, everything From Blindfold games to dice world. All June I will be talking about these mobile games reviewing a different one each week.
This week our focus will be Blindfold games. I have played a bunch of these over the last year or 2. I know many blind people have strong feelings about Blindfold games but I will be talking about my experience not someone else’s.
So with that in mind let us dive in!

Introduction

The blindfold games series is a group of games developed by kid friendly software. They are accessible games to be played on the Iphone for the blind and visually impaired.
They offer a wide selection of games from dice and card games, To things like bowling, air hockey, word games and many others.
When you talk about Blindfold games in the blind community you usually get a pretty strong reaction. Often people say they are shit, They call them a waste of time and many other things beside. So is this anger justified?

The games themselves

I can say that while I have tried a number of these games, I have actually really not played that many considering how many games are in the Blindfold series.
Honestly in my opinion these games often don’t offer a hole lot in the way of playable content. Take blindfold Breakout which of all the titles in the blindfold games series it is the only 1 I enjoyed on any level.
It was interesting for a few days Playing it here and there. But after that I don’t think I have really touched the dam thing.
The game is simplistic with the aim being to smash the bricks in rows. All you have to do is tilt your phone to hit the ball as it bounces back.
I don’t actually see anything wrong with a simple little game, but the game is certainly not worth what you have to pay if you want to keep playing after your free play runs out.
I think this can be said for allot of the blindfold games. Bowling is another, I played it for maybe a few days but it really wasn’t that interesting to me and I could never truly get in to it.
Others however are just bad in every respect. Blindfold Fireworks is an example of a complete waste of time! Why any one would want to be able to make a fireworks display that was just sound, that could only have about 3 different sounds and only go for 30 seconds is fucking over my head!
But if these games are just time wasters what’s the problem I hear no one asking.
Well that’s even easier. Everyone of these games, From Breakout to Fireworks has 1 thing in common. The amount of time you can play it for free is limited.

Pricing.

Now if anyone here remembers any of my older blog posts you will know that I have talked about paying for games and supporting developers, but this is not the case for all games.
I can’t extend that advice to the Blindfold games series. As I said above these games are time wasters. Just the type of thing you can knock out half an hour here and there playing. So fine if it is a couple bucks. Maybe you can buy a full version for lets say 4 dollars. If that was the case then sure fine I would have no issue.
The problem is most are not that price. Many of them go for ten or more dollars if you want to get unlimited access. Sure 10 bucks isn’t much. even 15 doesn’t sound like much. But when you remember it is for a game that in all honesty isn’t very good and won’t entertain you very long it really isn’t worth it!
Take RS games on the App store. A client which is free for all games on computer, Will set you back over 60 Australian dollars to get everything. That is just some grade A bullshit right there!
I hate feeling like I am being cheated and when I have to pay 30 dollars for a pack of games that I only want 1 or 2 of. Keep in mind I can play these same games for free on my computer. No that is a hard fuck that right here!
On top of that when you aren’t being taken for large amounts of cash for this stuff Some of what you can buy is worded so that it seems like you are getting more then what you actually get.
Take blindfold deal. This game you can buy packs of cities which allow you to play for more imaginary money. Fine but the first city pack says unlimited play in 2 cities. What it fails to take in to account is that the 2 cities include the first free city so you are only really buying 1.
So in the end waste your money if you wish. But honestly you could buy more interesting things with it.

The number of Blindfold games

I could go deep in to this part but I really don’t think I need to.
Most people reading this already know about apple changing part of the policy that allows developers to upload things to the App store.
This change was to reduce the amount of clutter on the App store. But as we all know a fuss was kicked up over blindfold games of which there are to fucking many. To keep them on the app store they would have to be combined from dozens of individual games into apps with several games in them.
Now any level headed person would have accepted this change. Perhaps with a little grumbling and groaning but accepted it. Instead this was seen as an almost personal attack and in the end the fuss that was created over these changes convinced apple through some loop hole bullshit that blindfold games should stay as it is.
The irony here is in my opinion Blindfold games could actually be made better, if instead of having to download each game individually you could get an app that had say 5 to 10 games in it. That way you wouldn’t have to have a folder on your phone filled with all the fucking games.
You also might find that people like me who enjoyed Blindfold Breakout might keep the app with Breakout in it. Hey guess what I might even play some of the other games in it.
Now maybe not, But just maybe I might even in a weaker moment spend money on some of these games. But then again what do I know about marketing so fuck!

Final thoughts.

We have talked about this now and I don’t recall saying a hole lot of positive things so far, but in the end it doesn’t matter. If you already know about Blindfold games I doubt my words will make much difference. So what are you to take away from all this.
If you play a game and like it, grate that is grate. If you don’t well delete it and get on with your life. If you want to pay for it, go right ahead. But remember what it is you are paying for.
In my opinion most of the games aren’t worth playing and the ones that are, aren’t worth paying for. And I wouldn’t recommend these to anyone.

Rating

I really wasn’t sure how I would rate a hole series of games. In the end I thought I would just be fucking honest.
2 out of 10.
Not worth it!

Conclusion

Disagree with me, let me know in the comments below. Stay tuned next week as I look at another accessible mobile game.