Jim Kitchen Games: Five Stars and Two Thumbs Up!

Growing up, we didn’t have much money for video games, but we played lots of board games and interactive games. Monopoly and Battleship were among the most popular, though I loved to play Mastermind, if I could find anyone to play it with me. BopIt! And Memory were also favorite of my siblings and me. Nowadays, though, everyone plays computer games, and physical board games are almost a thing of the past, especially the expensive Braille editions of board games. I mean, who has the $150 to just throw out there for a Braille copy of Monopoly when they are on a fixed income, like many blind people are.

Okay, okay, I’ll get right to the point. Don’t want to pay for those expensive Braille board games, but want to play them in an accessible, enjoyable way? Jim Kitchen has made some amazingly awesome games! I have seriously spent hours playing the Monopoly game he created with my friends, and have created three boards of my own with the cool board maker. Yes, there are already nearly forty board games to choose from, but I wanted a Holiday board that went from “Happy New year! (Go) through Christmas in July (Free Parking) to Christmas (Boardwalk). The most enjoyable board for me and my friends has been the Harry Potter 2 board. I edited it to make Jail “Azkaban” and Income Tax “Decree 121: Everyone must pay room and board” and it has turned into great fun for hours of “I’m paying rent at the joke shop; you better give me some fizz bangers and canary custards!” and “You must have murdered your duel partner; you just got a Duel (Chance) card that says Go to Azkaban!”

But Monopoly is only one of his great games. There is also Yahtzee, which has a really easy scoreboard that you can check at any time in your turn. Yahtzee also includes Double Yahtzee and Triple Yahtzee. Mastermind and Battleship are great versions of those childhood favorites, and Simon Says will test your hand-ear coordination as you try to remember if the pattern was Dog-Cat-Lion-Lion or Dog-Cat-Lion-Cat. I got to level 32, but I got lucky and had seven dogs in a row!

Other classic games include:
Concentration- can you remember if the match was at A6 or D6?
, Hangman
Snakes and Ladders
The Game of Life, changed to ease of use on a computer and with realistic inflations
Skunk- a dice game where the ones on the dice are replaced by skunks, and you have to get to a designated score, but if you get a skunk, you lose that turn’s points, and if you get two skunks, you lose all of your cumulated points
Star Mule- a Galactic drug dealing game
Trivia, with categories ranging from astronauts to the World Series. You can also create your own trivia files. I think this will be an awesome studying tool for when I tart college.
Pong, an audible version of the very old game

Admittedly, sports games don’t really interest me, but I tried out the football game for ease and coolness factor. A quick hint that I wish I had known: hit F5 to hear the special keys (Function keys, mainly)). The background crowd was too loud for me to hear the beginning speech very well, but that was quickly fixed once I learned how to lower different voices. I don’t know how to play football, and never was good at it, but this game seemed simple enough. My team gained 29 yards after two turns, but the other team intercepted, and it went downhill from there. I’m sure football fans would do much better. Other sport games include golf (with a huge number of courses to choose from) and baseball.

There are also a few adult games. One I won’t describe, as I find it too vulgar for the blog, but the other is not too bad. It’s called Spanker, and you have to listen to where the girl’s voice is coming from (left speaker, right speaker, or right in the middle), and hit the corresponding arrow key to “spank” her. It is an adult version of BoppIt!, which is also available. This is also a great hand-ear coordination tool. Not trying to brag, but my highest score is 103 swats. If you get higher, leave a comment with your high score! There is a rumor that Jim Kitchen is working on a version of Spanker with male voices for us girls, and maybe even a mixed male and female voices. Just a rumor, of course.

There are other programs, like some racing games, a few clock and timer programs, and a Braille reference that will tell you what that contraction you can never remember is.

Overall, I have found that the games are enjoyable, easy to play, and require very little reading of instructions if you already know the basic concept of the game. Even if you don’t, you will very quickly. There are three types of games: Windows Sapi5 text-to-speech, self-voicing, and screen reader-friendly. I like the Sapi5 text-to-speech games, because they are put into a menu listing that makes it easy to go through all the programs available to run. It uses the Sapi5 that nearly all PCs have these days. They are great for people who don’t have a more advanced screen reader, too, and I find the Sapi5 voices easy enough to understand (you can choose from five different voices). The self-voicing games are great for people who don’t have a screen reader, too. I’m not particularly joyful about the screen reader-friendly DOS games, but they do work, and they aren’t bad. I just had trouble getting them to run, as I don’t know how to work DOS very well.

All of Jim Kitchen’s games are *free* and can be downloaded at his website:
Kitchens, Inc. .

If you enjoy the games, be sure to e-mail Jim Kitchen and thank him!

Look forward to many other reviews of accessible computer games, including PCS Games and VIPMud.