Video games remain largely inaccessible to visually impaired people (VIPs). Today's blind-accessible games are highly simplifed renditions of what sighted players enjoy, and they do not give VIPs the same freedom to look around and explore game worlds on their own terms. In this work, we introduce NavStick, an audio-based tool for looking around within virtual environments, with the aim of making 3D adventure video games more blind-accessible. Nav-Stick repurposes a game controller's thumbstick to allow VIPs to survey what is around them via line-of-sight. In a user study, we compare NavStick with traditional menu-based surveying for different navigation tasks and fnd that VIPs were able to form more accurate mental maps of their environment with NavStick than with menu-based surveying. In an additional exploratory study, we investigate NavStick in the context of a representative 3D adventure game. Our fndings reveal several implications for blind-accessible games, and we close by discussing these. CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → Auditory feedback; Accessibility technologies; Accessibility systems and tools.

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