Games You Can Play With a Screen Reader: NVDA, JAWS and VoiceOver Tips
Screen readers were built for documents and websites, not games. Even so, a growing pile of games works well with them, especially browser-based and text-driven ones. This guide covers which games work with a screen reader, and how to set up NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver and TalkBack so playing feels smooth instead of like a fight with your own software.
A quick word on who uses what, because it shapes the advice. In WebAIM's most recent screen reader user survey (1,539 responses, gathered in December 2023 and January 2024), JAWS and NVDA ran almost neck and neck as primary desktop screen readers at 40.5% and 37.7%, with VoiceOver at 9.7%. So I've given the two Windows readers the most room. Which one is yours?
Which Kinds of Games Work Best With Screen Readers?
Screen readers work best with games whose interface is built from real, semantic elements (buttons, headings, lists, live regions) instead of pixels painted onto a canvas. That gives us a handy rule of thumb:
- Great: browser games built with accessible HTML, text adventures, AI RPGs, card and board games, trivia, MUDs. Lichess is a lovely example: its Blind Mode names NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver and Orca, and it can lay the board out as a real HTML table. You simply type moves like "Nf3" into a command field. On the MUD side, Alter Aeon offers a blind-friendly client that it says works with most screen readers.
- Mixed: mobile games (it depends entirely on the developer), and turn-based strategy games that let you query the board from the keyboard.
- Hard: canvas-rendered or engine-rendered games without a built-in narrator. These need self-voicing or dedicated audio design. It can be done, mind you. Naughty Dog shipped The Last of Us Part II with text-to-speech narration of on-screen text plus combat and traversal audio cues. That's a studio-sized effort, though, and most games don't make it.
Browser-based AI RPGs like EchoQuest sit near the top of the friendly list, because the whole game is text and speech. There's no map to describe and no reticle to aim.
NVDA Tips for Gaming (Windows, Free)
NVDA is free and open source, and it's one of the most popular screen readers in the world. Every keystroke below comes from the NVDA User Guide, using the desktop layout.
- Browse vs. focus mode: NVDA switches to focus mode on its own when you land in a text box. In a game interface, press NVDA+Space to toggle between the two if your keystrokes aren't reaching the game. This one matters a lot for games with single-letter shortcuts. In browse mode, NVDA claims letters like H (next heading), L (next list) and I (list item) for itself, so EchoQuest's own H, L and I never arrive.
- Keep browse mode, lose the letter keys: if you'd rather keep reading with the arrows, NVDA+Shift+Space switches single-letter navigation off for the current page only. The guide suggests exactly this for web apps with their own one-key shortcuts.
- One key at a time: NVDA+F2 passes just the next key press straight through to the page.
- Live regions: make sure "Report dynamic content changes" (in the Object Presentation settings, toggled with NVDA+5) is on, so new content gets announced as it appears.
- Speech rate: plenty of gamers run faster than the default. Press NVDA+Ctrl+Left or Right Arrow until you reach Rate in the synth settings ring, then NVDA+Ctrl+Up or Down Arrow to change it (add Shift on the laptop layout). If that's still too slow for you, the Speech settings also have a Rate boost option for synthesizers that support it.
- Speech viewer: you'll find it under Tools in the NVDA menu. It shows the text being spoken, which is handy for sighted helpers, or for working out exactly what a game announced.
JAWS Tips for Gaming (Windows)
Freedom Scientific's own documents cover all of these, and the JAWS keystrokes reference is worth keeping in a tab.
- Virtual PC cursor: if a game's keyboard shortcuts are being intercepted, toggle the Virtual PC cursor off with Insert+Z. Freedom Scientific gives the same advice for using Gmail's own single-key commands, and a game with letter shortcuts works the same way. Press it again to get your reading cursor back.
- Forms mode: JAWS drops into forms mode when you reach an edit field. According to the JAWS Quick Start Guide, Auto Forms Mode is on by default, so leave it that way. You can change it in Quick Settings (Insert+V), including per website under Personalize Web Settings.
- Verbosity: turn verbosity down during play, so JAWS spends less breath describing every control and more on the game. The JAWS Startup Wizard has a verbosity step, and you can run it again any time from the Help menu in the JAWS window (Insert+J, then Alt+H).
- Pass-through key: Insert+3 on the number row (Caps Lock+3 on the laptop layout) passes the next keystroke straight to the application.
- Speech rate: Alt+Ctrl+Page Up or Page Down nudges the rate temporarily, and adding the Windows key makes the change stick.
VoiceOver Tips (macOS and iOS)
- Web rotor: on a Mac, VO+U opens the rotor so you can jump between headings, landmarks and other parts of a page.
- Quick Nav: this is the Mac's equivalent of browse-mode letter keys. Apple splits it in two: VO+Q toggles single-key Quick Nav, and VO+Shift+Q toggles arrow-key Quick Nav (Apple's Quick Nav guide also covers pressing Left and Right Arrow together). Switch single-key Quick Nav off while you play a game that uses letter shortcuts, and switch arrow-key Quick Nav off while you type in an action field so the arrows behave normally.
- iOS speech rate: rotate two fingers like a dial to reach Speaking Rate on the VoiceOver rotor, then swipe up or down. If it's missing, add it under Settings, Accessibility, VoiceOver, Rotor.
- Screen Curtain: a three-finger triple tap blacks out the display while everything keeps working (a quadruple tap if Zoom is on too). It saves battery on long sessions and keeps nosy neighbours on the bus out of your quest log.
- Safari vs. Chrome: Safari is VoiceOver's home turf on Apple devices. In the WebAIM survey above, VoiceOver with Safari was the third most common screen reader and browser pairing overall, so it's the safest place to start.
TalkBack Tips (Android)
- Reading controls: TalkBack lets you reassign most gestures (TalkBack settings, then Gestures). "Read from the next item" is one of the actions on offer, and so is "Pause or resume speech", which I'd happily give a spare gesture during play.
- Speech rate: set it in TalkBack settings under Text-to-speech settings. For quick changes mid-game, pick Speech rate in the reading controls and swipe up for faster or down for slower.
- Browser choice: I'd start in Chrome, especially if you want to use voice input. MDN notes that browser speech recognition, which voice input relies on, doesn't work in some widely used browsers. In Chrome your audio goes to a recognition server, so you'll need a connection. I learned how fragile the microphone side is on September 28, when I found the mic was blocked on EchoQuest's own pages and voice input quietly did nothing.
Avoiding "Double Speech" in Self-Voicing Games
Some games speak aloud and expose their text to your screen reader, so you hear everything twice. You've got two options:
- Turn off the game's built-in narration and rely on your screen reader, or
- Keep the game's narration (often more expressive) and mute your screen reader during narration.
EchoQuest gives you control here, and I'll be honest that I learned this the hard way. Back in May, the game announced the choices and moved focus onto them while the narrator was still mid-sentence, so screen reader users heard two voices talking over each other. Technically accessible, practically a racket. Now the choices wait until the narrator has finished, then get announced as one summary, and focus lands on the first choice (Settings can send it to the text box instead).
Here's how the two options play out in EchoQuest today. If you keep the narrator's voice for the story, the story text stays hidden from your screen reader for as long as that voice is switched on, so you won't hear it twice. Your screen reader still handles the menus and controls, along with short announcements like damage taken or items picked up. If you'd rather hear the story in your own screen reader's voice at your own speed, drag the narrator volume to zero. The narration then becomes readable in a labelled "Story narration" region you can jump to like any other landmark. Our technical write-up on screen readers explains how the live regions are set up.
What to Look for in a Screen-Reader-Friendly Game
- Clear headings and landmarks, so you can jump around quickly
- Labelled buttons, not "button, button, button"
- Live announcements for new content
- A keyboard shortcut to repeat the last message (R does it in EchoQuest)
- No time limits on reading
- A published accessibility statement
I'd add one more that people rarely mention: decent contrast for players with some sight. On October 2 I added an automated accessibility suite (Playwright plus axe) to EchoQuest's CI, and the first run was humbling. White text on the violet accent came out at 3.99:1, under the 4.5:1 minimum, and in high-contrast mode some buttons were white on yellow at 1.07:1. Both are fixed. It also caught a nasty one where, after a failed turn, the choices came back but stayed disabled, which left a keyboard player with no way to retry.
A Quick Test You Can Run on Any Browser Game
- Load the game and press Tab repeatedly. Does focus move in a logical order, and does every element get announced with a meaningful name?
- Trigger an in-game event. Is it announced without you having to move focus?
- Try to complete one core action (start a game, make a move) without touching a mouse.
If a game passes all three, it's probably worth your evening. Fail the first one and I wouldn't bother with the rest.
Play EchoQuest With Your Screen Reader
EchoQuest is built from plain semantic HTML and standard ARIA, so it's meant to work with the screen reader you already use: NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, TalkBack, and Orca on Linux, which reads the same labels. The axe suite runs against the web app in CI, and the free tier includes three narrated campaigns. Everything works by keyboard, too. Press H at any point for the shortcuts, or tell me when something doesn't read the way it should. So, which campaign will you try first?