Balloon Popper Game
WHAT IS THE BALLOON POPPER GAME?
Balloon Popper is introduced when children are curious and enthusiastic about using computers. It’s fun and challenging, while at the same time, the children pickup proper typing techniques and speed, an essential skill for any adult in the modern digital world, especially to an adult with vision impairments.
This game will also be useful to adults with some familiarity with desktops and keyboards but who are minimally skilled in their use to improve their keyboarding skills.
The characters in the balloons are chosen based on well know keyboarding exercise from the mechanical typewriter days which are still useful to sighted users if one has to learn to type eyes-free. Fast typing also requires the correct 'fingering' techniques, of using the correct keys for every letter in the standard keyboard.
HOW DOES THE GAME WORK?
The idea is very simple: lot of balloons of different colors (visible to the sighted or low vision kids, but the visual element is irrelevant to the blind) approach the player. Each balloon has a collection of letters, organized as words or simply as patterns of letters, which is spoken out as the balloon comes towards the player with increasing volume. The player is expected to type the same letters on the keyboard and if they type correctly before the balloon reaches them, the balloons pops with a sound. if not, the balloon crashes on the player with a different sound and bursts drenching the player with water. If many balloons burst on the player, she catches a cold and has to stop playing. Otherwise more and more balloons with longer strings of letters appear challenging the player to touch-type.
Advanced levels of the game will have the balloons coming from different directions with their labels spoken out using spatial audio so that they appear to be moving from the appropriate directions. This will allow for learning the use of arrow keys to point to the direction of the balloon before typing the letters.