User Guide

Blindfold Racer is a fully accessible game for both sighted and visually impaired people of all ages: children, teens and adults.
Unlike most games, you don’t need to look at the screen to play the game.
As a matter of fact, if you can see, you will do better in this game when you close your eyes.
You play Blindfold Racer in your head, not on the screen.
Drive your car by listening to what’s on the road, such as a cow or a prize, and where the fence on both sides of the road is.
The music you hear in the background is the fence.

Playing the game

The first 6 levels give you practice controlling your car, and then the levels start getting harder.
By level 10, you learn how to go faster by swiping up and slower by swiping down.
When going slowly, you will hear a single drum sound. When you go faster, you’ll hear two drum beats, and even faster, three drum beats.
After about 20 levels, you learn how to stop your car, by swiping down again, and you hear your car engine idling.
Then you learn how to drive your car in reverse, and you hear a – beep beep beep sound – that many trucks make, when backing up.
If you bump into a fence, you will first hear some – “tick tick tick” sounds – as you get closer to the fence, and then your car will bounce back to the middle of the road.

How to drive

To control this game, hold the iPhone or iPad so that the screen is facing your body, not the ceiling.
If you have an iPad, hold it in portrait so that the home button is on the bottom.
If you have an iPhone or iPod, hold it in landscape so the home button is on the right.
Drive your car by listening to what’s on the road, such as a cow or a prize, and where the fence on both sides of the road is.
The music you hear in the background is the fence.
You will need headphones or earbuds to play the game.
To skip that requirement, tap the screen with two fingers when you are told that you need headphones.
When you are turning, you never need to turn your iPhone or iPad more than 90 degrees.
A full left turn or right turn would put an iPhone in portrait mode; a full left or right turn would put an iPad in landscape mode.
You should use the tutorial to get familiar with game.

Actions and Scoring

Your score is a combination of how quickly you finished the level, how many times you hit the fence, how many prizes you won, and how many animals you didn’t hit.
In some levels, you have to complete the puzzle to get any points.
If you get less than 50 points, you must repeat the level again to move to the next level.
If you want, you can unlock all levels and skip a level by using the SETTINGS screen.
In general, if you want to make something happen, such as start your jetpack, or feed the troll with food, tap the screen with two fingers.
At the start of each level, you can skip the description of the road by tapping the screen once.
In the SETTINGS screen, you can change the description from normal to short.

Exploring the Road

After you have completed a level, you can swipe down with 3 fingers to learn what the shape of the road in that level was, and what animals and prizes were on that road.
Starting at the bottom of the screen, move your finger back and forth as you move your finger from the bottom of the screen to the top.
If you hear white noise, your finger is not on the road.
If you hear a sonar sound like: “ping ping ping”, your finger is on the road.
If your finger moves over an animal or a prize, you will hear what that item is.
Use this information to form a mental image of the road, and use that mental image to improve your score on the next attempt.
You can only learn the shape of the road and what is on it – after a level is over.
If you swipe down with 3 fingers while you are playing the level, you will hear a honking sound.

Settings Screen

The SETTINGS screen has several sections.
General game setup is in the first section. You can select music that you hear as the fence on both sides of the road. Your choices are: the different music in each level that comes with the game or car engine sounds. The first option – music that comes with the game – is a collection of classical, pop, reggae, jazz, broadway, country and world music. You can also change how loud the the fence sound is.
You can also change the speed sound. That’s the sound you hear in the center of your head, telling you how fast you are going. It starts out as drum beats; one drum beat for slow, two for medium and three for fast. You can change the speed sound to a car engine. The faster you go, the faster the engine sounds. You cannot use an engine sound for both the fence sound and the speed sound – it makes the game too confusing. When the speed sound is drum beats, you will only hear the drum beats when the level lets you drive faster. In early levels, with only one speed, you won’t hear the drum beats. If you change the speed sound to engine, you will always hear the engine sound.
This game uses prerecorded voices, so you cannot change voice or voice attributes in the SETTINGS screen.

Games

Easy Practice Mode

Blindfold Racer comes with 10 levels in Easy Practice mode for free and teaches you how to steer, speed up, avoid animals and win prizes.
The first 6 levels give you practice controlling your car, and then the levels start getting harder.
If you bump into a fence, you will first hear some – “tick tick tick” sounds – as you get closer to the fence, and then your car will bounce back to the middle of the road.
To listen to a quick help, tap the screen once with 3 fingers.
To move up a level, swipe right with 3 fingers.
To repeat a level, or move back a level, swipe left with 3 fingers.
To exit from the game, swipe up with 3 fingers.
As you complete more levels in the game, the levels get harder and require more skill in driving or solving audio problems.
In one level, you’ll have to win a jetpack, that you use to get over a wall.
In another level, you’ll have to get food – to feed a troll to get past the troll.
In a different level, you have to cross a river and figure out which is the bridge and which are ramps that end in the middle of the river.
In another level, you’ll need to get your sailboat across a lake and drive in a rainstorm.

Upgrade: Level Packs

After you complete level 10, you’ll need to upgrade to more levels.
The Easy Track upgrade comes with 10 more levels including jetpack, horses, trolls, sheep, balloons, elephants and clocks. This is similar to the old STARTER PACK with the version of Blindfold Racer prior to September, 2016.
If you previously purchased the STARTER PACK, you are given the EASY TRACK upgrade.
More Tracks #1 pack comes with over 15 levels including police, bridges, bears, more trolls, rivers, dogs, lakes and trains.
More Tracks #2 comes with over 20 levels including bells, tires, potholes, asteroids, forest fires, trees, rain and more balloons.