# I Wasn’t Asking to See Again. I Was Asking for Staff.

> Forty years after going blind, Charlotte Joanne makes a space trading game she can play, with a ship AI and two robots to do the flying.

Part of [Blind Trader](https://blind-ant.com/pieces/blind-trader/index.md), a Piece.

I’ve been a game developer for almost two days. My latest game is [Blind Trader](https://spawn.co/@charlijo/blind-trader): “A blind captain back at the helm after 40 years: trade, jump, and talk your way to Elite with a ship AI and two robots.”

It’s biographical. Can you even have a biographical game? Well, it is “inspired” by real life. My life.

I went blind in 1985. Back then we had computers. The ones that weren’t pulled by horses were powered by coal. Coal used to be a black rock people dug out of big holes in the ground called mines…I know! But we had computers and, of course, those computers had games on them we could play.

Forty years later, a few of the games I remember were called things like Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Elite and Attack of the Mutant Camels—that last one is real, I hope.

[Elite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_(video_game)) was the one with the spaceship. You bought things on one planet, flew somewhere else and sold them for more money. Sometimes somebody tried to kill you on the way. Business was business.

I could see then. I could fly the ship, find the station and attempt to dock without becoming part of its architecture.

Then I went blind. The computers carried on. The games carried on. I went and did other things for forty years.

Then, this weekend, I found [Spawn](https://www.spawn.co/).

Spawn lets you make games by talking to an AI called Savi. You tell her what you want. She builds something. You try it. You tell her what doesn’t work. She changes it. You try again.

If you’ve ever worked in software development, you’ll recognise the process. Except the meeting is the development.

My first question was about accessibility. I use [NVDA](https://www.nvaccess.org/), a screen reader. Could I use the platform? Could I play the games? Could I make one?

Some of the platform worked. Some didn’t. I reported the bits that didn’t and started making a game.

As you do.

The first one was The Keeper’s Cottage. Five rooms, three pieces of a brass bell and somebody to bring home. No fighting. Nothing timed. You could take as long as you liked looking for a bell cup among the tomatoes.

I asked for actual accessible controls and descriptions I could read with NVDA. We started with a locked door. Could I find the button, open the door and hear what happened?

I could.

That is quite dangerous, it turns out. Once you’ve opened one door, you start having ideas.

Next, I made Glide Walk, a little neighbourhood with a simulated robotic guide. I went to a bakery, posted a letter and visited a fountain. I added simulated smart glasses to describe the view.

I’m still waiting for my real [robotic guide](https://glidance.io/). Apparently, I can get one delivered faster if I build the neighbourhood as well.

Then I remembered Elite.

Could we make a space trading game? The captain would be blind. She’d have a ship AI and two robots. She would make the decisions. They would do the flying, docking, loading and repairs.

This seemed a reasonable adjustment. I wasn’t asking to see again. I was asking for staff.

Savi built Blind Trader.

My ship is called Second Sight. The AI is Lyra. Clunk handles the cargo. Pip flies the ship and repairs the damage.

There is damage. We’ll get to that.

I started at Lave with a thousand credits. I bought twenty tonnes of liquor, jumped to another system and sold it at a profit.

Forty years away and I came back as an interstellar drinks delivery service.

But I had done it. Bought the cargo. Chosen the destination. Made the journey. Docked. Sold it.

I could hear what was happening. I could read the market. I could use the controls. I was playing.

Then I bought more cargo.

There’s probably a profound observation here about recovering an experience I thought I’d lost. There is. But the computers were cheap and I had space in the hold.

Later, a pirate turned up.

Combat waits for me. Lyra tells me where the pirate is and how far away. I can fire, line up a better shot, evade, run away or dump the cargo.

Nothing happens until I choose.

I fired. Missed. Fired again. Missed again. There may have been a lesson in there about lining up a better shot.

Eventually the pirate exploded. Pip went out to repair the scorch marks.

Good staff.

I’ve since added the ability to ask Lyra questions in my own words. Cargo, prices, fuel, places we’ve been. She answers from the ship’s records and tells me when she’s guessing. She doesn’t spend my money or choose where we go.

I can make quite enough questionable decisions myself.

Is the game finished? No. I’ve been doing this for almost two days. There are bugs. Things need improving. A player told me there was too much scrolling and they couldn’t work out how to play.

Almost certainly a sighted player.

So now I’m a totally blind game developer trying to make my game easier for sighted people.

I wasn’t expecting that on Sunday morning.

I felt like crying twice this weekend. I’ve worked with computers and accessibility for decades. I spend a ridiculous amount of time exploring AI. I’m fairly difficult to astonish.

But there I was, back at Lave, aboard Second Sight.

And then somebody actually played the thing I’d made.

Anyway. There are probably more sensible things I should be doing.

Clunk, fill the hold.

## Behind the thread

Everything here happened. The Keeper’s Cottage, Glide Walk and Blind Trader are real games, made by talking to Savi, the AI maker on [Spawn](https://www.spawn.co/), and played with NVDA. Second Sight, Lyra, Clunk and Pip live inside Blind Trader.