Rock Vibe: Rock Band® computer games for people with no or limited vision

This paper reports Rock Vibe, a modification performed on Rock Band® computer game to represent visual information using haptic and audio feedback to allow people with no or limited vision to enjoy the game. We modified the drumming activity of Rock Band® by providing users with vibrations on upper and lower arms to represent the drumhead cues and on ankle to represent the kick drum cue. Auditory information is used to provide feedback on correct and timely hit (with various drumming sounds) or errors (with a click sound). Computer's standard speech synthesizer is used to read the menu, song title, instruction and score. A series of evaluations with people with various levels of visual impairment were performed at different stages of the system development. We found that users were able to master the system almost immediately, with some users making no error halfway through the first song.