Blindfold Hopper logo: cartoon frog with blindfold bandana covering his eyes.
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Blindfold Hopper: Description of the iOS Game

Teach students basic sonification using this fun game!

Blindfold Hopper is an fully accessible audio game that’s a similar to the old video game Frogger. We created it a few years ago, and it continues to be a favorite of many.

In the game, you are a frog, and you are sitting on your lily pad. You hear the sound of a river rushing by in the background, and your lily pad makes a sound. You can move your lily pad back and forth on the river by swinging your arm left and right. The sound of your lily pad is a short music loop, and the sound of another lily pad that you must jump to is a different musical loop, similar to these:

Harmonica sounds

Latin music sounds

The other lily pad is moving; either from left to right, or right to left. When your lily pad music loop is aligned with the other lily pad’s music loop, you tap the screen to jump to that lily pad. If you miss the other lily pad, or the other lily pad moves off of the screen, you lose and you splash into the water.

During testing we found there’s no need to give sound to your lily pad – it’s sound is always in the center of your head, as you are sitting on that lily pad. The trick to successful jumping is to move your arm left or right until the other lily pad’s sound is in the center of your head, and then tap the screen.

Each lily pad moves faster than the prior one, so the challenge is to get better and better at centering on the target lily pad and jumping quickly. If you stand still for a second or two, an alligator sneaks up on you, and eats you.

We launched this first version to determine how popular a game like this would be, before we starting enhancing it. Both kids and grown-ups really like it, and we’ve enhanced it with more levels, more power-ups, more prizes, and more danger. For example, in one level, an eagle may swoop in and eat you if you aren’t careful.

Blindfold Hopper in the App Store

Blindfold Hopper Instructions

Learn more about sonification and how Blindfold Hopper introduces students to basic sonficiation skills.

 

By blindfoldgames

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