Games for blind people: what to play online with a screen reader
Many people think blind people do not play video games. That is not true: thousands of blind and visually impaired people play on computers and phones every day. The author of this site, Andrey Malin, is blind himself: he makes games that he plays with a screen reader, and here he explains how it works and what you can play.
Published on 22 October 2026. Author: Andrey Malin.
How blind people play games
The main helper is a screen reader. It reads the text on the screen aloud or shows it on a braille display, and the person controls the computer from the keyboard or with gestures on a phone. The best known screen readers are NVDA, free for Windows, JAWS for Windows, VoiceOver built into iPhone and Mac, and TalkBack on Android.
If a game shows information as text and actions as ordinary buttons, the screen reader reads everything, and a blind player plays just like a sighted one.
Which games suit blind players
- Text-based games. Everything is described in words, so a screen reader can read the whole game.
- Audio games. Direction, distance and events are conveyed with sound. A large international audio games community gathers at audiogames.net.
- Accessible versions of board and card games.
- Mainstream games with accessibility settings. For example, The Last of Us Part II became known for dozens of accessibility options, including ones for blind players.
Games for blind players on this site
All games of The Blind Can are free, run in the browser on a computer or a phone and are built for screen readers from the start. You can also play them with sighted friends.
- Infinite Space — a text-based online space game with one shared universe (in Russian for now).
- Demon Invasion — a cooperative game inspired by Eldritch Horror for one to eight players, available in English.
- Star Powers — a card game inspired by Star Realms, available in all the languages of the site.
- Stiks — a multiplayer text survival game in the S-T-I-K-S universe: one world for all players, creatures that eat and evolve, stabs, squads and 99 lives (in Russian for now).
Tips for blind players of browser games
- Move by headings: in NVDA and JAWS press H to jump between the sections of a game.
- Press B to move to buttons and L to move to lists.
- In NVDA, NVDA plus Space switches between reading the page and typing into fields, which you need for chat or names.
- If a game offers hotkeys, check that they do not clash with screen reader commands. In the games of this site they are off by default.
For developers: how to make a game accessible to blind players
- Show everything important as text, not only as a picture or a colour.
- Split the screen into sections with headings and use ordinary buttons, links and lists.
- Announce events through live regions so the screen reader reads them without moving focus.
- Do not capture keys that the screen reader needs and do not set a strict time limit per turn.
- Let players turn off sounds and music, and test the game with NVDA or VoiceOver yourself.
Frequently asked questions
What can a blind person play online for free?
Text-based games and audio games. For example, The Blind Can offers Infinite Space, Demon Invasion and Star Powers for free, built for screen readers.
How do blind people play video games?
With screen readers that read text aloud, and with sound. They control games from the keyboard or with gestures on a phone.
What are audio games?
Games where sound is the main thing: by sound the player knows where the enemy is, where to go and what is happening.
Another article: Text-based online games: what they are and where to play for free. All articles.