An introduction to our innovative products. "We believe in a future where games are not a distraction, but a valuable alternative to traditional education, a powerful weapon against discrimination and isolation." Giochi Accessibili is an italian startup developing game actrivities playable also by blind and visually impaired people.

1. GAME ACTIVITIES ACCESSIBLE ALSO TO THE BLIND AND THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED
by Marco Lombardi and Nazzareno Giannelli
ACCESSIBLE
SOCIAL
MULTISENSORY
EDUCATIONAL
FUN

2. ISSUE: social interactions and sharing needs.
There are
11.000.000
of visually impaired people
under fifty years old
in the developed countries
Nowadays, in the world, there are almost 285
million people suffering from visual impairment.
Most of them are in Africa, Asia and other areas
where the life conditions are more difficult, but
even in the developed countries, we can count
something like 30 millions of visually impaired
people, of which 11 millions are under fifty years
old.
Even if there are many tools, like white canes, audio
books or braille printers, on the market, we
identified a lack of engaging and interactive
activities that can give the opportunity to the
visually impaired to share some important moment
with their friends and family.
There are tools for any kind of daily activity
imaginable, but what is missing is something that
builds fun and educational interaction, that
teaches while enjoying the play. The products
available today are just accessible versions of
classic games like chess and domino, but there is
nothing designed from the beginning to be played
and enjoyed by blind and visually impaired
children, teenagers or even adults.

3. IDEA: the importance of play.
To play is the primary goal of our first years of life,
is our full time job for many hours a day at that time
and the way we learn most of the things we know
about what is surrounding us. It’s an activity that
shapes us has human beings, that teaches us the
importance of rules and that gives us the
opportunity to share some great time with friends
family.
and famil
With the Giochi Accessibili (Accessible Games)
project, we want to offer this opportunity also to
the millions of people that suffer of sight
impairment, extending the pleasure of gaming
with multisensory experiences to everyone.
In the first place, this is achieved by designing and
producing new board games, playable also by
visually impaired and blind people, that are
multisensory and fun.
In conjunction with that, we want to make
accessible also every major classic board game that
many people has at home, designing what we call
plugins: a small kit of tokens, cards or other
components that lets the visually impaired to join
the play. This is a great way to include the sight
impaired people in a wide range of well known and
easily available social games.

4. WHY: analog gaming in the digitalized world.
We are in the middle of a digital revolution
nowadays. We are constantly connected to the
others with our smartphones, tablets and pcs, in a
way that never before has been able to make our
lifes more efficients.
But this process is causing a disconnection from
reality: even when we could simply share a meal, a
chat or a walk with someone, we are constantly
pulled back to our technological gadgets with an
ongoing flux of notifications and messages.
That’s why we chose to design analog game
experiences, with the power of really bring
people together. The importance of sharing joyful
moments is valuable for everyone, even for the
sight impaired and blind people that don’t have as
much choices as everyone else when it comes to
social activities and engaging experiences.
Cooperation, strategy and engagement are
involved when playing a board game, following the
rules and overcoming the obstacles during the
match.

5. PRINCIPLES: accessible games.
ACCESSIBLE
SOCIAL
There are five principles that are driving our idea:
the game activities we design have to be accessible,
social, multisensory, educational and fun. Our
products are easily playable by blind and visually
impaired people, thanks to the recognizable shapes
of the game pieces, a particular printing technique
that makes touch sensitive shapes on paper and a
careful use of color contrast for helping the sight
impaired finding the different game parts.
MULTISENSORY
EDUCATIONAL
The careful choice of the materials and the study
behind the various shapes add a multisensory layer
to the Giochi Accessibili products, making them
even more interesting and enjoyable for everyone.
This kind of games are incredibly educational for
blind and visually impaired children and teenagers,
because, while playing, they can improve their
touch sensitivity and orientation skills, making
FUN
them more confident and secure.

6. PRINCIPLES: color contrast and recognizable shapes.
Having millions of visually impaired people all over
the world, color and color contrast becomes an
incredibly powerful design choice for making the
games easily accessible to them. Has shown in the
picture on the right, a careful choice of colors and
contrast can make the game parts recognizable
even with a bad vision.
Another important aspect involved, is the
possibility of easily identify the game parts by
touching them. This leads us to many careful choices
when designing and engineering our products,
having always in mind that these games have to be
accessible and fun for everyone.
With these principles in mind, we can design game
activities that invites to play also the blind and the
visually impaired, with multisensory stimuli that
brings to the table an important layer of interaction.

7. HOW: technologies involved.
Having to deal with blind and visually impaired
people, it’s even more important to deeply test
every product and every slight change in the game
mechanics. For this reason prototyping our first two
games, Codis and Trick or Treat, we made use of three
different technologies: touch sensitive printing on
paper, 3d printing and laser cutting.
The first one involves a specific kind of paper sheet
that has air capsules inside. Putting it in a particular
printer, the black parts of the printed shapes are
heated by the printer, the air capsules inside are
swell up and the drawing becomes considerably
high and easy to feel with touch. Thanks to Centro
Braille San Giacomo (Bologna, Italy) we are able to
use this kind of technology in our games.
3d printing in Italy had a great year in 2013. We
were lucky from the beginning for teaming up with
WASProject (World’s Advanced Saving Project), a
startup from Faenza (Italy) that won important
prizes thanks to the great idea that is driving their
work: to print cheap clay houses with huge 3d
printers.
Another important parnership for us, is the one with
Vectorealism from Milan, specializing in laser cutting
with a wide range of materials. Thanks to them we
can design many game pieces, in wood or other
materials, that makes the game more stable.

8. IMPACT: I'm like you.
ALL TOGETHER
EDUCATION
BREAKING STEREOTYPES
Life is an amazing journey with other people, made
to share emotions and experiences. The ability to
know in depth the many shades that govern
existence is one of the absolute privilege which
every person enjoys from birth. Childhood and
adolescence are the moments in which the person
knows itself and the outside world, through the
first contacts with peers. From this moment on, life
takes its meaning only if approached in company of
other people, that they can be near or far, but
anyway "similar". Life is a cooperative game that is
fun only if approached with friends. Playing alone is
not part of the human soul.
Our games are innovative educational tools.
Children are educated during growth because
childhood is the period when the foundations of a
person's character are formed. The knowledge of
themselves and of external reality, formed by other
people, is part of the issues on which education is
based. Our mission is to create opportunities for
blind children or adolescents to use educational
games that can put them in touch with their
able-bodied peers. We strongly believe that
sharing knowledge is important at any age, but it
appears essential during the first years of life.
Our greatest desire is to let understand to millions
of people that disability is just a fraction of who is
affected from it. In the everyday life, in addition to
architectural boundaries, there are mental barriers
that divide abled and disabled people. We want to
break these barriers and make people understand
that we are all equal and we live in the same way.

9. NETWORKING: synergy and collaboration.
Our most important partnership is with
associations and institutes for the blind in Italy,
Europe and worldwide. We already have strong
connections with this kind of associations in Italy
and we are actually developing more of them all
over the world. They play a primary role in our
business, because, through them, we get access to
an endless flow of informations and advices, we get
in touch with teachers and experts in that field
and we can directly involve blind and visually
impaired people in the design process of our
products. Through our work, we want to give a
louder voice to these associations.
We want to bring our games inside the schools,
organizing educational and fun activities in the
primary and secondary school. With the help of the
associations and institutes for the blind, we will
organize different gaming days where kids and
teenagers can experience multisensory activities
and get to know about blindness and visual
impairement.
Games and gamification are powerful tools for
raising the engagement of kids and teenagers in
the educational field, letting them learn while
having social interactions and fun.
ASSOCIATIONS AND INSTITUTES
FOR THE BLIND
HOME
SCHOOLS

10. NEXT STEPS: sensory activities and future scenario.
Even if the project started by mainly designing
board games with engaging mechanics for children
and teenagers between six and eighteen years old,
we are now opening up to many other possibilities.
We are strongly interested in the educational
capabilities offered by games and game mechanics
and we would like to apply the multisensory
philosophy to products for kids with other
philosop
disabilities.
We are in touch with many personalities of the
board games market and the educational world,
establishing new partnerships for the creation of
multisensory experiences.
We see ourselves giving to people the files for their
3d printer or laser cutting machine, with which
they can build their own copy of our games.
Without leaving their home and without waiting
the carrier to knock at the door.
We imagine a future where in every house there
will be a 3d printer deploying any kind of gadget or
tool.
We believe in a future where games are not a distraction, but a valuable
alternative to traditional education, a powerful weapon against
discrimination and isolation.