Out of Sight Games launched the Kickstarter campaign for their premier title, "A Hero's Call" on January 5 and immediately attracted backers to meet their fundraising goal just after two days from launch.
"A Hero's Call" is a fantasy turn-based RPG game on PC that is accessible to blind and visually impaired gamers. Development of the game is mostly finished at this point, according to MMOExaminer, but the voice acting isn't done yet. It requires a lot of voiceovers since it is an RPG, which is normally dialogue-heavy and there are over 17,000 words to be voiced out in the game. Out of Sight Games needed additional funding to secure the voice actors they need, hence the Kickstarter campaign with a modest goal of $2,850.
With the launch of the campaign, Out of Sight Games released an audio demo of "A Hero's Call". For players with sight, it also offers an experience on what it's like to play a game relying on sound alone.
"A Hero's Call" was originally slated to be released for blind players only, but as the project went along, they decided to have the game both for the blind and those with sight as part of their goal for inclusion for everyone. It's an impressive feat considering the studio is founded by writer and composer, Joseph Bein and lead programmer Ian Reed, who both lost their sight as young adults. While growing up, they enjoyed playing video games. They realized the lack of accesible games for blind gamers. Along with sound designer Drew Becker and a second programmer, they decided to come up with a full-featured RPG that can be enjoyed by blind players.
"A Hero's Call" takes players to the world of Farhaven, with 17 maps to explore and a turn-by-turn beacon system for navigaton. The player is tasked to stop the impending invasion of Farhaven by an unknown enemy. There are 6 classes to choose and 4 allies to accompnay the player and over 40 NPCs to encounter. The NPCs are dynamic and affected by the choices made. There are plenty of features for everyone, with over 80 options available for skills to be developed and more than 70 unique enemies to be defeated. The game will also have more than 24 side quests as well.
Watch the audio trailer of "A Hero's Call" here:
