Join our journey into the Unseen! A board game for the blind and sighted players alike.

Danielle and Anne-Laure are collaborating to create a board game played by anyone, regardless of your vision. Designed to be played without sight, all pieces will include braille and raised numbers for easy gameplay by all.

Storyline

You’re eight years old and you’ve been sent to a sleep away camp for the week. Unfortunately, the camp tells legends of monsters lurking in the dark. The only way to keep the monsters away is to collect the right combinations of guardians. Each day you’ll need to take turns collecting guardians to keep the monsters at bay that night. At the end of the week, whoever has kept the most monsters away wins and keeps their sanity.

Basic rules for gameplay (subject to change)

To begin the game, each player receives a 4×4 square player board with slots for the numbers 1-16, each depicted in braille and raised numbers. The game is played in seven rounds. Each round players try to accomplish one of their goal cards before sunrise.

To start the game, shuffle the goal cards and deal two to each player. Each round after the first round, deal a new goal card to each player.

Each round, flip all the number tiles facedown in the middle of the table. and shuffle them. The first player picks up three, chooses one to keep. They put it on their player board. The player then passes the other two tiles to the next player. Each turn after, each player will pick up a tile from the center of the table and choose one from the three in their hand to put on their player board. Once all players have chosen six tiles, the round ends. Check to see if you have guarded against a monster. If you have, flip your goal card over. You may accomplish more than one goal in a round.

At the end of the seventh round, the player that scored the most goal cards wins.

Inspiration for Unseen

Danielle: “I am passionate about bringing people together with gaming. Board games should include as many people as possible. I have many friends and family that have low vision that I would love to game with. I really want to develop a few games that can be played entirely without needing eyesight. I hope with this first game, we develop components that players can become very familiar with. In the future, I hope to develop more complex games using these familiar components.”

Anne-Laure: “I am an avid board gamer, a white cane user, and I work with blind and low vision people. Through my work, I have noticed how easily simply doing something together turns into fixed roles of assistant and assisted. Accessible board games change the rules by taking sight off its pedestal and letting other senses lead, leveling the table for blind and low vision players while sighted players suddenly have to work a bit harder. That moment is often fun, sometimes frustrating, and frequently eye-opening, revealing how different the world feels when vision is just one sense among many.”