Max Jack Whiteley
MAX JACK WHITELEY
NO WORDS NEEDED
A PUZZLE GAME WHERE TWO PLAYERS MUST WORK TOGETHER USING CHARADES TO COMPLETE LEVELS
Video games are becoming more and more accessible to wider audiences, this includes people with impairments what would normally not allow them to play video games. No Words Needed is a game designed around an impairments rather than adding accessibility features afterwards, and in this case the impairment was Deafness and Hard of hearing.
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The game at heart is a puzzle game, but unlike your standard puzzle game if you was to play alone it would be very difficult to complete without cheating. This is because the game is two players, it works by having one player take control of the character, they can move around, interact with items and most importantly, observe the level. This person is known as Observer. The second player doesn't play the game on the computer, instead their screen is sent a series of instructions on how to complete the puzzle, they must then relay that information to the person trying to solve the puzzle. This player is known as the Actor. This seems very easy right? Well here's the thing, the Observer can communicate freely to the Actor in any way they need; talking, signing, writing etc. The Actor can not communicate at all other than through acting out the solution to the puzzle.
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The game starts relatively easy to get the players accounted for the unique style of gameplay, go through the left door and go through the right door, things like that. But as the puzzles start to get harder it gets very interesting. You see, the Actor may have the instructions but they are brief, obscure instructions. The two players need to figure out how to solve the levels together and this is done by the observer relaying as much information as accurately as possible to the Observer who then must compare that to their instructions to fully understand how to complete the level.