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Signatures:
Andrei Porfireanu Bjarke Rauff Deividas Tamoiunas Filip Turcu Emanuel Frederik Samuelsen Mikkel Sbye Tobias Brodersen Date: 2013-12-18 Date: 2013-12-18 Date: 2013-12-18 Date: 2013-12-18 Date: 2013-12-18 Date: 2013-12-18 Date: 2013-12-18 ________________ ________________ ________________ ________________ ________________ ________________ ________________

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A game about understanding

Theme: Designing from both sides of the screen.

Project group: MED1 B318

Members of the group: Andrei Porfireanu Bjarke Rauff Deividas Tamoiunas Emanuel Filip Turcu Frederik Samuelsen Mikkel Sbye Tobias Brodersen

Supervisors: Karl Kristoffer Jensen & Line Gad Christiansen

Date: 18th of December 2013

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Abstract
The purpose of this project was to develop a sound based game from which people without visual disabilities can experiment and understand how it is not to be able to see. We thought our approach was different, because we did not want to create a game only for the blind people, but a game for everyone who wants a sneak peek of the life of a blind person. We began our research gathering information about audio based software and also played several games based on this approach. Our prototype consisted in trying to accomplish basic tasks in the game environment being blindfolded. We also organized an interview with a group of blind people in order to gather real insights of their life. The testing part took place only with people without disabilities, but in the future we plan to test our game also on visually impaired. We used qualitative and quantitative methods to collect feedback from our testers and the results proved that our game was a little bit confusing and had some design and programming flaws. In the future we want to improve the game, to create a more realistically and enhanced sound system and offer people a better understanding of how it is to be blind.

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Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................. iii Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................1 Problem analysis .................................................................................................................................................2 Related work.......................................................................................................................................................3 BlindSide: ........................................................................................................................................................3 Tims Journey: .................................................................................................................................................5 The Blind Monks Society: ..............................................................................................................................6 Afonso Blumes Experiment: ..........................................................................................................................7 Theory .................................................................................................................................................................8 Blindness:........................................................................................................................................................8 Imagination:................................................................................................................................................. 13 Perspective: ................................................................................................................................................. 14 Orientation: ................................................................................................................................................. 14 Methods .......................................................................................................................................................... 16 Design: ......................................................................................................................................................... 16 Interviews: ................................................................................................................................................... 21 Testing the game: ............................................................................................................................................ 24 First part of testing: ..................................................................................................................................... 24 Second part of testing: ................................................................................................................................ 24 Eyesight testing: .......................................................................................................................................... 25 Results ............................................................................................................................................................. 26 Discussion ........................................................................................................................................................ 29 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 31 References ....................................................................................................................................................... 32 Appendix:......................................................................................................................................................... 34 Coding: ......................................................................................................................................................... 34

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Introduction
After the P0 project which made us understood the basics of brainstorming, researching and presenting a project in front of a large audience, we were given another project based on the theme: Designing from both sides of the screen. We found a common interest in people with visual disabilities and chose to work in the favor of visually impaired people, because we had the possibility to meet and interview them. Since we also have a common interest in video-games, the decision was to make an audio-based game. We wanted to test our game with the blind people too, but because the majority of them are old and do not have experience with computers, we blindfolded our sighted testers thus the results were not as accurate.

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Problem analysis
The following questions represent the main goals we planned to find an answer to, during our project development. How can we make people without visual disabilities understand the daily challenges in the lives of visually impaired people? How can we combat the discrimination of visually impaired people? How can we find our way in an audio-based 3D environment?

According to the Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities, published by the United Nations in Geneva, people with disabilities remain amongst the most marginalized in every society. An estimated 20% of the worlds poorest people are those with disabilities; 98% of children with disabilities in developing countries do not attend school; an estimated 30% of the worlds street children live with disabilities; and the literacy rate for adults with disabilities is as low as 3%. The aim of our project is to create an environment for a better understanding of people with visual disabilities, because, as stated in the Convention, visually impaired are often directly or indirectly prevented from attending school, having a job or having an independent living. Our target group consists of people without disabilities that know the English language; those who are interested in understanding and relating to visually impaired people, whatever the age, ethnicity or race. Based on our questionnaire, we found that all the students who tested our game were open and willing to understand them. Reference: Byrnes, A., Conte, A., Gonnot, J., Larsson, L., Schindlmayr, T., Shepherd, N., Walker, S., & Zarraluqui, A. (2007). From Exclusion to Equality: Realising the rights of persons with disabilities. Handbook for Parliamentarians. Geneva: United Nations. Retrieved November 14, 2013, from United Nation's website:http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=212

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Related work
BlindSide:
When we were looking for related work to associate our game with, we have found BlindSide, an audio-only adventure game where users have to explore an environment relying only on what they hear around them. The creators of the game are Michael T. Astolfi and Aaron Rasmussen. Michael is an awardwinning game designer and researcher who uses evolutionary psychology to make and study video games and theres Aaron who describes himself as being somewhere between an inventor and a mad scientist. He graduated from Boston University and he is the first one who invented the sentry gun (a gun that is automatically aimed and fires at targets that are detected by sensors). The game experience is supposed to engage both visually impaired people and people without visual disabilities in the same way because it offers an identical gameplay. On the iOS version, the game experience is enhanced by an innovative gyro control scheme, which allows players to rotate the character in the game just by rotating their body in the real world. The game was inspired by Aarons temporary blindness which occurred during a high school chemistry accident. BlindSide tries to simulate the experience of being blind by navigating in a 3D environment with 3D audio through standard stereo headphones. The action in BlindSide begins in a normal apartment and you control Case, an assistant professor and his girlfriend Dawn who both wake up blind and realize there are some kind of monsters outside who attack people. The task is to escape from danger and discover the reason they can no longer see, find out what are those people-eating monsters and also figure out how to do all of these. BlindSide was fully created in Unity 3D. The environment consists of a physical 3D grey block world in which the players can stumble through box shaped objects. The players must find their way in realistic environments like an apartment or a classroom and they also explore the outside world in a quest to find the way to Cases work place.

Fig. 1, Example of a level layout in BlindSide

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Every time a player touches or stumbles over and object or a surface there will be a specific sound and sometimes an inner voice which tells us what the object is, just like a narrator. These features ensure an easy and realistic way of understanding the environment in the absence of real touch. Another measure taken by the game creators is the Help option which occurs every time the player presses the h button. It consists of the inner voice of the character which tells you your exact current location, gives you some reference positions and also the next objective you are supposed to reach. You control the character only by using the keyboard arrows. Theres no special button for using objects. You accomplish every objective by simply bumping in the objects you are supposed to reach. Another feature of the game is a visible compass in the middle of the screen, which can be active or inactive only with the pressing of a button. The purpose is to aid players in finding their way around in case of confusion. Even though, the creators of the game recommend disabling this feature for a much realistic gameplay.

References: Astolfi, M. (2013). Biography, BlindSide. Retrieved December, 03, 2013, from

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http://michaeltastolfi.com/#/blindside/, http://michaeltastolfi.com/about/ Rasmussen, A. (2013). Biography. Retrieved December, 03, 2013 from http://aaronrasmussen.com/about/

Tims Journey:
Tims Journey is an audio game developed by Stockholm International Toy Research Centre (SITREC) as part of the TiM project (Tactile Interactive Multimedia). This project has two main goals: 1. To show that games for visually impaired players can also be complex, advanced and aesthetic just like the mainstream games are 2. To point to new areas of development for mainstream games, by giving more attention to audio-based gameplay The game allows the player explore a complex three-dimensional world, made up of sounds. The main objective is to move the character around 3D soundscapes and to discover a hidden mystery. The game environment is an island divided into several areas such as a forest, a mill or a harbor. Each of these areas has a specific, easy to recognize musical theme. All the sounds are played through a surround sound system to allow the player experience a first person perspective. This game aims to offer the player an idea about moving freely in this island environment with continuously changing music. The numerous sound objects are positioned in a way to reect musical structures such as themes, choruses and bridges so the music is generated from the combination of all present sound objects in the game space. This allows the player to create music by exploring around with the character in the 3D sound environment so the player becomes a co-producer of the soundtrack in real time. This approach is very dierent compared to other audio games. The trend for most games designed for visually impaired players is to reduce the number of simultaneous sounds to a minimum and avoid other ornamental music for an easier navigation.

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In Tims Journey, it is exactly the opposite. There are a large number of sound objects active all the time. The sounds have different meanings and importance and this fact is reected by their character, intensity and how often they appear in the background sound loops. Navigation is also an important part of the game. Often, the player needs help to nd out where the character is or the location of different objects and theres also the need to know what objects in the game environment the character can interact with. For satisfying all these needs, the game creators have implemented a few help systems and non-player characters that provide hints and guide the player throughout the more confusing parts of the game. Even with all these helping methods, SITREC has tried to create a balance to allow the intended mysterious gameplay. The aim is to help with basic navigation but still keep the sensation of being lost and not knowing what to do next. The help system consists of: 1. The Ambience Reductor: a device that allows the player to temporarily reduce the volume of all sound that he/she cannot directly interact with. 2. Footsteps: lets the player know the kind of surface his character walks on 3. Helpers: dierent NPCs that the player meets. They guide the player in accomplishing the objectives. 4. Foghorns: in every quarter point of the compass there is a foghorn that can be heard at any distance.

Reference: Friberg, J. (2004). Audio Games: New perspectives on game audio. Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI ACE, 148-154. Retrieved November, 2013, from from Cite Seer Xs Website http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.108.5572

The Blind Monks Society:


The Blind Monks Society is a mod for Half-Life 2, created by UCLA students Kyle Audick and Erik Carlson, which allows the player to enjoy the game without any video graphics. A pair of headphones is obviously necessary for a better understanding of where the sounds come from. The game will be much more difficult to play with a standard two speaker configuration, but not impossible.

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With this innovative approach, the creators aim create a world in which must learn to see with your ears, using only the sounds around you to navigate. According to the story, the character has had his eyes tragically plucked out by some ravenous birds. You begin the adventure at the monastery of the Blind Monks Society, and you are taken care of by Brother Pancy Fants, who has always dedicated his life to helping the blind in their world of darkness. He is supposed to be the guiding hand along the journey and he offers his services for free, but asks for a favor in return for teaching the character his skills. While playing, the screen stays completely black throughout the entire game. The main task is to follow the course of a river and find different objects, locations, or people relying on your audiodirectional skills. The volume of the sounds will grow louder or fainter depending on how close the source is, and you must constantly turn your head around to prevent disorientation. Most of the goals are accomplished by following a certain sound, like a woodpecker or a fountain. The gameplay of The Blind Monks Society with all the tasks and objectives offers a very entertaining experience. The 3D sound system is thoroughly done, featuring soft breezes, babbling brooks, birdsong, and random chatter between the residents of the monastery.

Reference: Goldsmith, D. (2008), Blind Monk's Society. Retrieved December, 03, 2013, from http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Reviews.Detail&id=69 Pearson, C. (2012), Unseen University: The Blind Monks Society. Retrieved December, 03, 2013, from http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/19/unseeing-university-the-blind-monkssociety/

Afonso Blumes Experiment:


Afonso Blume did in 2010 a studies with a setup very much like ours. He used congenitally blind, late blinds and blindfolded individuals without any visual impairments. These people where then asked to get familiar with a small-size setup of rooms, through either a verbal description or learning the setup by exploring a miniature version of the setup through touch. The result suggested that congenital blinds were not able to create an accurate mental image of

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the environment as it was presented to them, while both the late blind and the sighted people succeeded in creating this picture. The second experiment he made gave however other results. In this experiment he had like us, made a virtual environment, with an immersive audio virtual reality system, in this environment there were placed some landmarks that the participants had to find and learn their position. After this, they once again had to do an image-scanning task, but this time all of the participants were able to accurately generate the environment with the right spaces between the different locations, from the verbal description. But when it came to the virtual environment the seeing individuals had a harder time generating a proper image of the surroundings, both the late blind and the congenital blinds were able to create an image of the environment but it took the late blind longer than it did for congenital blind.

Theory
Blindness:
By looking at the statistics we can find out the amount of Danish people who suffer from a visual impairment. A number that is used over and over for many years, says that approx. 1% of the population is either blind or visually impaired. In other words, we expect that approximately 65,000 (Kennedy Center, 2012) Danes suffer serious and irreparable loss of vision. It may seem strange that in a country where every person is provided with a code number, and how each of us is registered in dozens of records that do not have a global view of those of us who have a severe visual impairment. There are many reasons, but one of them is that this information has currently interested only very few politicians, administrators and researchers. However, it is apparently due to a change. In the newspapers we see regularly blindness and visual impairment treatment methods, mentioned in the debate on public policies against certain diseases. The term visual impairment is a very vague term that is often used interchangeably to denote a need for strong glasses, astigmatism or simply an eye disease. When ophthalmologists are talking about a visual impairment means it is a permanent, serious impairment of vision in both eyes. There is a distinction between moderate degrees of visual impairment, called visual impairment and harder degrees that are called blindness. But also within blindness, there are several categories, and most people who are blind have fortunately retained a greater or lesser

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part of the vision. Most people who get affected by blindness are older people; it can be seen in the number of people who join the organization of the Danish blind society. From there you can see that there is an increased percentage of people over 60 years. A functional impairment may be the result of inheritance, environment, old age, disease or accident. Visual impairment or blindness can therefore either be inherited or occur - suddenly or gradually - in later life. Well 50,000 blind and visually impaired are aged over 70 and approx. 15,000 are less than 70 years. The vast majority of those who have a developed visual impairment are over 70. The most common cause of visual impairment in the elderly is agerelated changes in the eye. Age spots (also called AMD - age-related macular degeneration) are the cause of visual impairment in nearly 2/3 of all visually impaired. Other generally frequent causes of visual impairment are consequences of diabetes, glaucoma, hereditary diseases and cataracts. (Kennedy Center, 2012) Another major causes of blindness, the retina disorder that occurs as a complication of diabetes. This group includes both type 1 diabetes (juvenile diabetes), and type 2 diabetes (age diabetes). Increased blood sugar, either because of too little insulin (type 1) or due to decreased sensitivity to insulin (type 2) affects after many years, the small blood vessels in particular in the retina, so that the blood vessels become leaky, resulting in hypoxia. In a minority, this leads to the formation of new blood vessels, which in part can rupture and cause bleeding and also may grow into the vitreous. Finally, there may pleurisies around the macula. The common and less severe form of diabetic retinopathy requires no treatment. Formation of new blood vessels, it is very important that the laser treatment of the entire periphery of the retina in order to prevent loss of vision. By pleurisies around the macula treated with laser center of the retina. It must not be forgotten that some people are born blind or suffering from visual impairment in childhood. All of them are aged 0-18 years and registered in the Register of Vision at the National Eye Clinic, and as many have normal life expectancy at their total number of 5-6,000 people. Also, progressive, hereditary diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (chronic hereditary diseases) weigh in statistics with 4-6000 people. Among the mentally disabled, blindness and visual impairment are far more frequent than in the general population. This is due to brain damage and optic nerve wind, but also an increased incidence of hereditary vision loss. (Toke, 2009)

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People who are blind or have low vision can use the right tools extensively compensating for visual impairment. Aids are part of the basis for people with visual impairments but some can independently manage in everyday life, the home, in education or in employment and thereby be active and participating in community life .Vision aids covers many different types, from simple objects to special lenses, enlargers, electronic appliances, computers, special software, speech synthesis, etc. A guide dog and white cane are two special tools for safe traffic and orientation. When designing playthings for promoting social interaction between children, it is important to build on the skills and abilities that are fully accessible to all children. This makes it possible to select toys and games that give them challenges on an equal footing and allows anyone to test the same problem-solving strategies. It is the playing interaction where children acquire the valuable social and problem-solving skills that they have in school and beyond. Through this interaction the children get the opportunity to find new friends and be together on common interests while getting insight into other people's experiences and way of thinking. Non-visual play strategies such as the use of tactile skills, listening skills and verbal skills are incorporated into the design so that all participants are faced with the same types of non-visual challenges. (Socialstyrelsen, 2013) Congenitally blind people have no experience with images and therefore have not the ability to form mental images. This means that they do not dream in pictures. If you are not born blind have a clear picture of how the world looks and the brain's ability to form images is still functional even if you were blind. Therefore, people who have been blinded in the course of their lives, also keep the images in mind both when they are awake and also when they dream. The blind sense of reality is different than at sighted people. Our experience of the world around us is formed in the brain, based on the senses that the body detects. The individual's sense of reality is the result of an interaction between the sensory inputs they receive, along with the experience already stored in the brain. The brain develops and practices all the time. If you lose one of your senses, such as sight, the other senses slowly become more important. This means that you can learn to do well, even if you have lost sight. There is a tendency that you are doing better the earlier the blind a person was, perhaps because the brain is newer in young people, which therefore learn faster than older people.

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Similarly, people who are slowly losing sight gradually develop their other senses. The brain collects these terms and fills even the 'holes' that might be without the individual being aware of it. An unfortunate consequence of this progressive brain training combined with its ability to compensate for the lack of sensory perception may be that the person, in some cases is not even aware of its visual defect, which can be serious, for example in traffic. Something hard for researchers is to talk about something they havent experience. Its impossible to say how blind people imagine things, when they see a car how is it shaped or what color it is. If they have seen a car before and gets blind they have an image of how the car should look alike. There is different for blind individuals cause they dont experience the same thing and on the same way. So when researchers are trying to find something out, they have a lot of background stories. Its hard to educate people who are visually impaired, some people have excellent spatial skills and some do not. When you go blind, your other senses get sharper and that gives people who are visually impaired a chance to feel their surroundings more intense that sighted people. Researches have showed that blinded people are better at copying than sighted people, because of the Braille system. They have taken some good readers and some good people at reading Braille, and the visually impaired people were better at saying the words in right order. Regarding speech and oral language, recent results suggest a minimal role of verbalism in blindness. The idea that the perceptual experience of the congenitally blind people is to some extent reflected in their cognition. Thus the study of language in the blind has been furthered by the development of theories of embodied cognition. These theories reject the notion of amodal cognition and claim the knowledge is always grounded in bodily experience. This is even so for more abstract concepts, which is perception relies on the body and actions that derive from it. If knowledge is as these theories assume, actually body-based then we ought to find more evidence of his bodily implication in blind people, due to their constant use of touch and other sensory modalities in order to compensate for a visual deprivation, unlike vision that functions by tele-reception (the perception of distant objects). Contact can be extended by the use of a cane, but the distances involved do not compare to vision. The perceptual field is therefore very narrow and specific exploratory movements are necessary to perceive the whole object. The implication of the whole body and perception and the action linked to it may therefore be greater in the acquisition of knowledge by the blind. As a

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result, the verbal productions of blind people may contain more sensory references to these bodily perceptions and actions than those of sighted people. More recently, Sanchez Faber and DAngiulli (2012) interpreted their findings concerning language and drawing blind children with reference to these embodied theories of cognition. Raised-line pictures can be understood by people who are visually impaired and have a great practical potential. In addition, it should be clear that when you remove the name from tasks that involve images can be hard, blind people often perform better the tasks than people who were blindfolded. In addition to being more accurate, they are also much faster than sighted people. If the task involves giving a concrete picture performance audibly, it tends to be variable and can be low in congenital blind people. Naming is a higher level cognitive skill that is highly dependent on knowledge and experience, and this experience is typically lacking in most blind people. There is a difference between perception and cognitive action vocally naming a picture. There is evidence that performance with concrete images can be improved with larger images when touching the lower spatial resolution than vision. Visual experience is not necessary for understanding tangible pictures. Its the experience that matters and his experience needs not be specifically visual in nature. We know for example that mental rotation performance is dependent upon experience and it is just as likely that experience matters for touch. It is not surprising that some researchers have assumed that there is a need for visual experience and visual imagery to view images and that they are not "ecologically valid" for touch. Blindfolded sighted people report a generation of visual images when feeling images even with their eyes closed. Moreover, there are many studies that show lower performance at congenitally blind people in certain cases and tasks, especially pictures identification. But there are many other studies that also show comparable performance or even faster response at congenitally blind people than sighted people. There is no doubt that experience matters and visual experience can also affect thinking. There are many studies that show lower performance in congenital blind people in complex mental imagery task, but results in this arena are also influenced by experience. There are complex interactions between education, experience and cognitive skills that can dampen any interpretations of data from experiments on images with blind. The education of people who are blind differs from sight. Children who are blind do not get the same instruction in a variety of areas that other children and their education can be severely limited in areas such

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as mathematics, physics and science. These limitations are partly the result of a practical nature. It takes time to teach children a variety of adaptive skills, and this can detract from time that would normally be spent on traditional academic education. Additionally, there are often problems with access to good rehabilitation instructors and lack of access to adequate raised line drawing materials. In addition, modern technology is expensive and may not always be available in less affluent school districts. There are other factors at work, namely prejudice through education and educational psychology. Psychology is not blameless in this regard. Too many individuals have made blanket assumptions about limitations on, or the ability of people who are blind. A common prejudice has been that contact cannot provide a reasonable interpretation of tangible images and visual communication is necessary. The result of all this showed that many blind children are not exposed to drawing and to the use of graphics in school. This can then lead to lower earnings in the image perception tasks in laboratories. So we can conclude erroneously that the images are not appropriate or organic applicable to touch. Blind people can benefit from exposure to tangible images, and this should be encouraged in their education. At this time there is no use in the argument that the images are just "seeing" and not suitable for touch and for the blind. There may be some obvious limits to touching the images, but that does not mean they are not valuable. In some cases perceptible images are larger, and this can make them more difficult. But the large images are easier to visualize than 3D sculptures. There is a lot more than we need to learn about tangible images, and it is hoped that this research will continue to grow. (Heller, M.A. & Gentaz, E. 2013)

Imagination:
It is widely accepted that congenitally blind individuals or people who have gone blind after the age of 7 dont have visual dreams, but more audio, touch and emotional focused dreams. (Lavie 1996; Hurovitz, Dunn et al. 1999; Holzinger 2000; Jastrow 1900; cf. Kerr, Foulkes, and Schmidt 1982; Kerr 2000). Even though it seems to be accepted that congenitally blind individuals dont dream in images, there is research backing up the idea that they are still able to generate some sort of image based on verbal information, touch and long-term memory (e.g. Kerr 1983; Vecchi, Monticellai,

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and Cornoldi 1995; Vecchi 1998; Vecchi, Tinti, and Cornoldi 2004; Afonso, Blum et al. 2010) and many more. The format of these images that blind people are able to create is still a highly debated subject, where some researchers claim that blind individuals imagination is limited to only contains audio, touch and emotional information as seems to be suggested with the dreams. Others however suggest that it does in fact contain some sort of visual image, and some have even suggested that these dreams can contain colors (cf. Marmor 1978). Both sides do however agree that blind individuals are able to create some sort of mental content with the information given to them by their other senses this could be information about texture and shape of the object, some researchers used the term visuo-spatial when talking about this content.

Perspective:
In another study by Arditi, Holtzman, and Kosslyn (1988) 4 groups of people (congenital blind, early blind, late blind and blindfolded seeing people, where asked to imagine a familiar objects at 3 different length and point to its left and right side. Arditi discovered that the congenital blind individuals made no different in size of the object no matter the distance to the object and this suggesting that congenital blind dont follow the rule of perspective. (Cattaneo, Z. & Vecchi, T. 2011) This theory was important to explore, since we had to decide, that the map should be a visual representation of the mental image, of a blind person.

Orientation:
Spatial cognition is a general term we use to refer to a range of abilities that are of critical importance in our everyday life, such as representing the space that surrounds us and updating it whenever we move, localizing, grasping, or pointing to external objects, learning routes, understanding maps, orienting ourselves and so forth. Spatial cognition involves both dynamic aspects, such as navigation, and more static aspects, such as memory for object locations or topographic knowledge (e.g., Schacter and Nadel 1991; Janzen 2006). For sighted individuals, vision is usually the sense we use to orientate ourselves, as it gives the biggest and most precise picture of our surrounds, compared to other senses.

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With e.g. touch our attention will have to be focused on a single object at the time and it also gives us a very limited range to work within. And in the case of hearing, visions ability to measure distance through perspective is far superior to hearing. There is also the problem that not all the objects make sounds so it can be hard to avoid them, and even those who do make sounds, dont have to make a sound to fit the shape and size of the objects. But still that doesnt mean sighted people arent using sounds for orientation, because we do, but it is often just used to draw our attention to different events which our eye registers. For sight people vision is also important for navigation, as most of our testers found out, since we use this to determine how much we have moved/turned in proportion to the surrounding landmarks (Gibson 1979). However when your vision is even slightly impaired, hearing temporarily improves and tries to take on the role of primary sense of orientation, but returns to normal when your vision stabilizes, and takes control again (Alais and Burr 2004).
According to Cattaneo et al. and Ungar, We wont be able to truly experience what it is like to be congenital blind from the moment we see our own hand as a child.

We also had to read in how both blind and not blind orientate them self, if we wished to make the virtual environment as pleasant as possible for seeing people, and still avoid ruining the experience of being blind. Afonso Blumes studies (See related work) suggest that congenital blinds ability to create accurate mental images is very dependent on the method of the information which is given to them either by touch, experience or speech. Blind individuals also seems to have a harder time rotating their mental images in comparison to sighted people, especially when it comes to unfamiliar objects, which is what you usually use for these mental rotation tasks (Marmor and Zaback 1976; Kerr 1983). Since this project looks so much like ours, the results were quite interesting for us and it was well fit into the previous research, so this helped us make the design of the game with the mini map and the tests we did.

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Methods
Design:
Weve created our game called Listen based on the study of Afonso (See related work). His study made us realize that a blind person has other ways of navigating than the average person is aware of, so weve decided to make this game to let people experience their way of navigating even though they are sighted people. For the game creation we used a combination of 3ds Max, Photoshop and Unity. We used 3ds Max for modeling the level, Photoshop for the menu and Unity for programming. The reason why we used 3ds Max for modeling and Photoshop for the menu, is because they were the programs that our creative team was most comfortable with, and the reason why we used Unity for programming is because it is a simple and easy-to-use tool with a huge community of people, who are ready to help us solve the issues that might appear.

We started by creating the map in Photoshop, the reason why we chose to make the map in greyscale is because blind people are not able to imagine colors (Cattaneo et. Al. 2011). Fig. 2, The Mini-map

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Then we used the map to create the model in 3ds Max, we made measurements so the scale was about the same as in real life, and placed boxes instead of the objects that were drawn on the map, and then we had our final level prototype. Fig. 3, The level layout.

The reason why some of the walls are crossing each other is that the doors were too small and that made the game a lot more difficult than necessary, so we decided to make the doors bigger by moving the walls a bit After the prototype was completed, we started programming the game in Unity, the main languages we used to create the scripts for the game was C# and JavaScript, since they are both compatible with Unity, and are both fairly simple to learn. Since were not very experienced with Unity and programming in general, we mostly decided to use the basic knowledge we have from Processing, which is the program we use for our programming course, and apply it to C# and JavaScript, but we mostly used the community forums for help with our problems. Unity has a built-in program called MonoDevelop which is used for programming and script-debugging, this is the only software we have used for scripts. We decided to use C# for all audio related coding, since the answers we found for our coding

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problems had the easiest and best solutions in C#. Every object that is supposed to make a sound has an audio source linked to it which makes it able to play a sound and the camera on the player has an audio listener added to it, the audio source plays the sound and plays it in the listener, our 3D sound then makes it able to use a type of virtual surround which makes you hear where the sound is coming from in a headset without surround. Fig. 4, The level with Audio sources and range 1.

Weve decided to use this script as an example because it shows the basic code that was used for the game, our use of triggers, audio and input in C#, and has the same layout as the other scripts. Since the script handles audio its written in C#, and it detects if the player is touching an object also showing you the controls on the GUI and letting you play or stop an audio. Our first problem with audio already appeared after a few hours of working with Unity: How are we going to use these 3D sounds? Since Unity already has a built in 3D sound for the Audio sources, the only problem we were left with was that the sound went through the walls. So we decided to create a script, which made a linecast, that couldnt go through the walls, between the listener (player) and the audio source. Fig. 5, The Audio Source for our clock Fig. 6, The character w/ audio sources and camera 1

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The script didnt work and we havent yet been able to find any other solutions to the issue, other than an asset which havent been released yet called AudiobrushTM. When the asset is released we will be able to further develop the entire soundscape of our game. JavaScript was mostly used for Character control and other basic mechanics like GUI and texthandling. We used it because there was already a package called standard assets when you install the Unity software, which had a character included with camera steering and controls. We used the package because it was less time consuming since we werent experienced with the software. During the progress of creating the game, we added two audio sources to the character. The first one was added to play the footsteps of the player, and the other one was for the main narrator, which tells you what object you bump into. To make sure the character couldnt walk through the objects we used a setting called Cube colliders, which allowed us to create a cube inside our cube-shaped objects that was solid, we then used the objects mesh as a trigger, which makes us monitor whether our character is hitting the object or not, we used triggers together with JavaScript for switches, GUI text and narrator sounds when you hit an object. For the menu we decided to create something thats fairly simple, since its not a big part of the game-experience, but even though we decided not to use much time on our menu we still decided to add sound when you hover over the functions, to make it user-friendly for the visually

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impaired, and sound-check for your headphones to make sure that surround sound was working, since playing without 3d sound would ruin our the concept of the game. We made the basic layout for the menu in Photoshop, and extracted the pictures and layout into Unity, where we created our game menu.

Fig. 7, Menu design of our game

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Interviews:
In this section, we wanted to describe the interview with some of the members of the Danish Blind Society in Esbjerg. Since the interview with the blind was a group interview, it is described as a common opinion within the group. If one of the blind persons had a different opinion than the other then that opinion was also stated. We only used the first name to identify our participants in the interview. We interviewed elders who had lost their sight, therefore we have no information about younger peoples way of life and points of view.

Fig. 8, Group interview with the members of the Danish blind society in Esbjerg

As you can probably see in the bottom right corner, we recorded the interview with an external microphone. We used a Samson Meteor, provided from one of the members of our group. Two out of six people were completely blind and the rest of them either had poor eyesight or were blind only with one of their eyes. Surprisingly only one out of the six people had a guiding dog. We expected more of them to have a canine companion to help them find their way around. Yet the help they got was another kind of help, and was provided by the state of Denmark in the form of human help called Hjemme hjlp. This a service elder people, and people with

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disabilities are provided with. This means they get help with most of the work at home. They do not cook and usually they get the food from an outside provider. Important to mention though, is that one of the people from the group, did everything except cooking for herself. She takes care of her garden, removes dust and other home stuff. It is important to remember that none of the people we interviewed were blind from birth. Only one of them had bad eyesight troubled from birth. One of the people we interviewed also got fired from her job because of lowering eyesight. She used to work for the hospital, yet they could not use her after she lost too much sight. But she got an early retirement instead. So as far as retirement comes, we now know you can get it if you get blind during your life. They have all gone through some different operations to see if their eyesight could be improved, but since they are old they got early treatments, which were not yet certain to cure them, and unfortunately did not help them. Some of them have families too, and some of them do not. That is why they need state financed companions to help them. But since there have been so many financial cuts all over the state financed business, they have no possibility to get all they need, according to them. They also get a bunch of bonuses from joining the blind society, like for example the social interactions with other blind people. Also when they are at the blind society, which is only once a week, a woman brings them warm food. Another thing is that they get appointed a shrink at these sessions, which they talk to as a group. That way they can express how they feel to a professional, and get his expert opinion. One of the things we asked them was about their relationship with electronics. They actually use electronics in a surprisingly high amount. Just to give some examples, we are going mention the few things they mentioned to us. They have clocks that tell what time it is, if they press it. To find out what color their clothes are, they have a little object they can attach to the clothes and if pressed it tells them the color. Some of them can also use a computer. They have special programs which can read what is on the screen to them, and their keyboard has Braille on them. Using this they can apparently navigate on a computers desktop, and check their mail. But even though they can check the computer, they still want the mail through physical posting. In the middle of the interview, the shrink came, and we were left with 2 people to interview. So the rest of this section is based on the opinion of two people.

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Fig. 9, The two women who stayed more on our interview

These two women live in a house. The one on the right of the picture lives alone, she was the one who single handedly took care of her garden and home. The one on the left has a husband, who takes care of a lot of the home stuff. But she too can remove dust, if she knows the layout of the house. We asked them whether or not their other senses had improved, but because of their age, their hearing had been lowered too, so they could not feel the improvement there would be any. They use taxi for transportation, and this taxi service is mostly supported by the state, but they have to pay a small fee themselves. None of these women could read Braille, so they only used memorization. When we talked to them about memory, we tried to go into the subject of them trying to visualize their surroundings and objects. They do not try to visualize, they know a lot of objects from their seeing days. The only time they find themselves troubled with the visualization is when eating, especially in larger meetings. They feel as they are being watched upon by other people.

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Testing the game:


The game was tested with and without blindfolding. Here was how the game testing was planned to follow:

First part of testing:


The first part of the testing was without blindfold. One person at a time was placed in front of the screen. With him were two persons and they had different roles. One person was giving instructions and objectives. The other person was an additional and silent note taker. The playing person was presented with the menu screen, and here the person had to figure it out by him/herself. If the person tested wanted any kind of help or further explanation, they had the opportunity to ask the instructor. When a tester started the game, it was their job to familiarize with the situation he/she was in. This means there were no directions given the first few minutes. After a few minutes the instructor gave the tester a goal to complete. These were simple goals like flushing the toilet, or going to the kitchen and turning on the microwave. When the tester completed a set of goals, the game was paused and the testing person had to answer a questionnaire in relation to what they just experienced. After the interview, the person had a 2 minutes break, with a cup of soda or something similar, to thank him for his or her cooperation so far. After the break the second part of the testing took place.

Second part of testing:


The second part of the testing was with a blindfold. The procedure was almost the same with a few changes added to it. One person at a time was placed in front of the screen. With him were two members of our group and they had different roles. One person gave instructions and objectives. The other person was an additional and silent note taker.

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The testers were blindfolded with a scarf which they got around their head to cover their sight. After being blindfolded, the instructor now had to communicate with the participant about the comfort of the blindfold position.

Before the game screen was presented, the testing person had a few simple tests to see whether or not the participant will had any sight. (Check the Eyesight testing section)

The testers were presented with the menu screen, and here they had to figure it out by themselves. If the testers wanted any kind of help or further explanation, they had the possibility to ask the instructor.

Once a tester started the game, it was their job to familiarize with the situation they were in. This means there were no directions given the first few minutes. After a few minutes the instructor will give the testing person a goal to complete. These are same difficulty goals just like the first test, but not similar. When the tester had completed a set of goals, the game was paused and they had to answer a questionnaire in relation to what they just experienced. After the interview, the participants were thanked for their time. The participant could now leave, and the instructor and note taker will now communicate about the results gathered before the next participant was called in to testing.

Eyesight testing:
These were very simple tests, only made to ensure that the participant had no eyesight while playing the game. 1. Does the blindfold feel comfortable? 2. Can you hear anything? 3. I am just going to snap my fingers by your left and right ear. Tell me if it sounds okay. Snap fingers by right and left ears, one at a time, then listen to reply and change setup if needed. 4. Show fingers and ask how many the participant sees. 5. Show an object, and ask what the participant think it is. 6. Decide if the participant sees or not.

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Results
In this part we tried to figure out what are the main things we had to improve about our project game. Our main idea was to show how hard it is to keep orientation in a casual environment just by hearing the sounds and without seeing things. At first, when we realized what should be done about the gameplay we decided that a design wasnt the most important part in the game thats why we focused mostly on programming. After the development of the game was done decided to test a game and we summarized all of our conducted data after the testing. Overall, we have a feeling of content regarding our project. The test had two parts where the participant is completely blind and when they are not. In the test there were only 6 participants that wanted to try out our game. We found out that 16% of them were females and other 84% were males between 19 and 24 years old. For the first part participants had to fill a questionnaire before the game of how much knowledge and experience they have about blindness. Then we discovered that all of them are good at navigating in darkness in their own house or any other familiar environment. Every single participant checked that they dont know any blind person. However 50% of them had some experience with blind people and the rest didnt have any. But half of participants knew a few things about blind peoples daily life when another half didnt knew anything. All the participants thought that the life differences are great between the lives of visually impaired people and people without visual disabilities. There was one participant who had no opinion about these differences. We put two statements where participants had to write their level of agreement. In the first one 64% of them disagreed that the blind people are mistreated and discriminated, one of participants agreed and another had no opinion. In the second statement 64% agreed that blind people need empathy and understanding from the world around and again there were two participants who disagreed and had no opinion. The extra feedback that we received was from a participant who disagreed: At some point. Some people dont know how to react or treat blind people. Then we realized that there might a lot of different nations which dont really offer any knowledge or experience about blind peoples community.

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Then we discovered that all of the participants except one wanted to understand and relate to blind persons. Later on, the testers had to fill other questions like how they felt being offered a glimpse of a blind persons daily life even just for a short time. Half of participants disagreed that they couldnt adapt being able to see anything while others strongly agreed and just agreed. In addition 33% of the participants agreed that they were good at finding and using objects around the house in darkness, other 33% checked that they were not so good and the rest considered themselves really bad. One of the participants had no opinion about how impactful was the game experience on their understanding of a blind persons life. While two of the participants thought that they had an impactful experience, another two didnt consider the experience very impactful there was a participant who didnt consider it impactful at all. Then we got another extra feedback from the participant: As a blind person it would be easier when being in your own house and reacting better at sounds than me. We realized that its a fact that a person with a scarf on his eyes and without visual disabilities would not be able to compete with a blind person if they had to find different objects in their personal home. Obviously, the blind person will have much better results. We also had a questionnaire concerning the technical part of the game. We wanted to get as more feedback as we could for example, whats good, bad or confusing about the game. Then we decided we need the participants to fill the questionnaire after both the sighted test and the blind test and they had to describe how efficient were several criteria in the game. The general results were surprising as we discovered that the game was way more enjoyable when the tester was blind. In the blind test we found out that 73% of the participants liked and were happy about our menu, the objects they had to use in the game and the sound system. The rest werent satisfied being mostly neutral. Almost all the participants considered the controls and moving around in the game were mediocre. In the sight test we found out that 60% of the participants were happy about our menu, the controls or the objects they had to use in the game, the sound system and the mini-map. The rest 40% werent very satisfied. We found out that 16% of the participants were a bit frustrated. All participants considered that moving around in the game was mediocre.

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Fig. 10 Average grade for each criterion in our game experience survey
4.4 4.2 4 3.8 3.6 3.4 3.2 3 2.8 2.6 2.4 2.2 2 1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Menu 4 Controls Moving around Using Objects Sound System Mini-map Overall Enjoyment Experience Level

Sight Test Blind Test

3.5

Fig. 11 Average of all criteria in the game experience survey Later on, the participants had to answer what should be improved in the game. In the blind test two participants were complaining

about the footsteps and mouse sensitivity. In the sight test all of the
Sight Test Blind Test

participants had certain complaints about footsteps, sounds and controls. Generally we noticed one bug when the game crashed while the third tester was trying out game.

2.5

1.5

1 Category 1

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Discussion
The game was designed to try giving an insight in the life of a blind person and we have conceived it suitable for both people with no visual disabilities and people with visual impairments. Four out of the six people on whom we tested enjoyed the game experience and considered it an interesting opportunity to get a glimpse of what it is like to be blind. They were allowed to play the game two times, one time without being blindfolded and another time being blindfolded. After they tried the game, they had some questions to answer as a feedback for the game experience. What they think about the game, there was something good or something bad that we either have to change or do better. There were 2 people who didnt appreciate the fact that they either got stuck or could not find their way around the house. There has also been a problem the fact that the footsteps werent synchronized with the actual movement of the character and sometime created confusion. We also found out that objects can be used even if the character is not standing in front of them but backwards. We found this an issue as it makes harder the orientation This game will help the blind family or friends to understand how the person has it and see what it's like to walk around in a stranger's home. The fact that you need to feel their way to get out of the kitchen without going into too many things that can be very challenging. This shows our research also that it is difficult with new surroundings, as you cannot see them. Your senses become more aware of where you are and who is in the same room, you learn to concentrate better as it should be placed on the 4 senses you have left. The very technology that can help one to get his life to be easier, there is Braille system as a blind user to read is a good thing, and then there are some tools that say what time it is and what date it is. It is starting to make pictures that you can touch to put picture on what others are looking at, but it is easier with 3D sculptures as you can feel it all. Our research and our interviews show that it gets harder the older you get to concentrate on his surroundings, as you risk that you also begin to lose their hearing quietly and you are feeling loose in his fingers. Most people who become blind today is mainly due to old age, it is about 70 % which is blind from old age. There are so few diseases which may lead to blindness, such as

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diabetes if you have too many high and low blood glucose. People who are blind from being born, will be able to perform better in everyday life than someone who has been blind along the way. Since many of the blind from birth of experience with what they're doing, this is an important fact to fend for themselves. Municipalities supports blind people by sending a homecare out or get sent food to them, as some blind people have a hard time doing it yourself, but this is however, most have been dead along the way . We started to design the game in gray that we could see what we put into the game later on when our path was finished. Was it so made completely black so you could not see where you should go to find for example the kitchen? To find your place in our game, the objects in the game got sounds to you know what the different objects are. It was still difficult to navigate in the game, so there was added more sounds, so when you touched an object will hear what kind of an object. We have taken a small card up in the top right corner as you can see how the space, but you cannot see where you are on the map, the one to find out. To find out, go around and touch the different objects in the house, and so you can figure out where you are. We give the person to try our games a task where they must be able to find out on the balcony or in the toilet and flush. There are problems with the crash of the game which happens when youre stuck in the closet but otherwise our test was alright and the people, who tried our game, got a glimpse of what it was like not being able to find your way. Part of what we've been out with our research fits well with what our testers said.

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Conclusion
Our project was about making people without visual disabilities understand the daily challenges and what it is like to be visual impaired (blind). But according to ours tests, the participants did in fact not get a better understanding of what it is like to be visual impaired but they mostly had an enjoyable funny experience. We were able to make a fully usable 3D environment, in which the player could only navigate using the 3D sounds in the environment. The players were able to navigate, but since there were some things that could have been done a lot better, the game didnt feel completely as we intended. This is actually also described in the theory, as it has been discovered that you can never be able to understand what it is to be blind. People who are born blind do not understand thinking in a 3D perspective, they only think in two dimensions. When you are born without visual complications and see for the first time, you automatically understand the thinking behind a 3D perspective. Things that can be improved on the project would be to fix the game and make it more as intended. What this means is that the player should not be able to get stuck anymore, the footsteps should be fixed, and the player should not be able to interact with objects behind him. To sum it all up, we made a game where you are blind, but people did not get a better understanding of what it is like to be blind but we offered an overall enjoyable experience.

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References

1. Cattaneo, Zaira; Vecchi, Tomaso. (2011). Blind Vision : The Neuroscience of Visual Impairment. 4-5, 87-125. Retrieved November, 2013, from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/aalborguniv/Doc?id=10496269 2. Byrnes, A., Conte, A., Gonnot, J., Larsson, L., Schindlmayr, T., Shepherd, N., Walker, S., & Zarraluqui, A. (2007). From Exclusion to Equality: Realizing the rights of persons with disabilities. Handbook for Parliamentarians. Geneva: United Nations. Retrieved November 14, 2013, from United Nation's website:http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=212 3. Kennedy Center. (2012). rsrapport 2011. Retrieved December, 2013, from http://www.kennedy.dk/default.aspx?id=10 4. Kennedy Center. (2012). rsrapport 2011. Retrieved December, 2013, from http://www.kennedy.dk/doc/files/pdf/%C3%85rsbertning%20m.m/Rapport_2011 _for_Kennedy_Centret.pdf 5. Toke, B. (2009). Retinitis Pigmentosa. Retrieved December 2013 from. https://www.sundhed.dk/borger/sygdomme-aaa/oejne/sygdomme/nethinden/retinitis-pigmentosa/ 6. Socialstyrelsen. (2013). Leg, legetj og spil. Retrieved December 2013 from http://socialstyrelsen.dk/handicap/synshandicap/temaer/leg-legetoj-og-spil 7. Heller, M.A. & Gentaz, E. (2013). Blindness. Psychology of touch and blindness. 7, 114 - 133. 8. Astolfi, M. (2013). Biography, BlindSide. Retrieved December, 03, 2013, from http://michaeltastolfi.com/#/blindside/, http://michaeltastolfi.com/about/ 9. Rasmussen, A. (2013). Biography. Retrieved December, 03, 2013 from http://aaronrasmussen.com/about/ 10. Friberg, J. (2004). Audio Games: New perspectives on game audio. Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI ACE, 148-154. Retrieved November, 2013, from from Cite Seer Xs Website http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.108.5572 11. Goldsmith, D. (2008), Blind Monk's Society. Retrieved December, 03, 2013, from http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Reviews.Detail&id=69

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12. Pearson, C. (2012), Unseen University: The Blind Monks Society. Retrieved December, 03, 2013, from http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/19/unseeing-university-the-blind-monkssociety/

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Appendix:
Coding:
(only the main coding, and not unity premade scripts) using UnityEngine; using System.Collections;

public class ButtonAudio : MonoBehaviour {

public AudioSource audio; //Create an audiosource component on the button and drag it here public bool playing; // Check if the clip is playing public bool inRange; //Check if you're in range

void Start() { inRange = false; playing = false;

//Controls to play/stop an audio clip void Update(){

//Play sound with Left-click if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Mouse0) && inRange && playing==false){ audio.Play (); playing = true;

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} //Stop sound with Right-click if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Mouse1) && inRange && playing==true){ audio.Stop (); playing = false; }

//When you enter the trigger void OnTriggerEnter() { inRange = true;

//When you exit the trigger void OnTriggerExit(){ inRange = false; } }

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