For several years now I’ve been checking out (and purchasing) games that are accessible to my blind daughter and it’s interesting how some game/toy manufacturers have incorporated elements of accessibility into their products. You won’t usually find these in brick-and-mortar toy stores, and instead you may need to check with your local Blind Association or head online. The following are my top picks; I’ve gotten some of them from Amazon.com and some local e-commerce vendors as well.

Plastic Braille Playing Cards

These are 54 premium-plastic playing cards, with braille on two corners and full-color printing; some versions have only one corner with braille on them. The cards come in a metal case, and we’ve been using a set like this since 2021, often during Chinese New Year when games like blackjack are often played. You can get them over here.

UNO Braille

The Braille Edition of UNO was produced by Mattel with the National Federation of the Blind. Not only is Braille featured on every card in the 112-card deck as well as on the packaging. This version of Braille has enabled my daughter to enjoy one of my favourite card games from my childhood. You can check out the set over here.

Speed Cube (Rubik’s Cube)

This single colour 3x3x3 cube made out of ABS plastic has Braille embossed on its tiles. The one that I got is somewhere around the house, but neither of my girls (sighted or otherwise) are interested in playing with it. You can get one over here.

Hot Wheels HW Braille Racer – Twin Mill

The HW Braille Racer – Twin Mill is Mattel’s latest collaboration with the National Federation of the Blind, with its flagship car being reproduced in all-white finish with silver racing stripes, with another all-chrome edition. The car features Braille on the left and right, as well as on the rear of the car. Even the packaging has Braille on the plastic blister box with the all-chrome version’s packaging braille text being upside down. You can get the one in white over here.

Chess

Chess is one of those board games that can be easily accessible to the visually impaired. There are chess sets with pieces that have pegs that can lock onto holes on the chess board. Pieces can already be easily distinguished by their shape, and the addition of a notch on top of each piece is enough to let players differentiate whether these are black or white pieces. One such example is available here.

Do-It-Yourself

With some effort, you can actually turn an existing board game into an accessible one. This will usually involved printing out instructions in braille, embossing cards or attaching stickers with braille characters onto a game board or game piece. While printing out entire instruction sets in Braille would require the use of a braille embosser or a Perkins brailler, you can use a braille slate and stylus to emboss short braille messages onto card stock, thick paper or even transparent plastic sheets that can be then stuck to game pieces/boards.

My wife used a slate and stylus (like the one above) to create emboss braille text onto plastic sheets and then cutting them into small stickers to modify among other things a Scrabble board game and Snake & Ladders. It was time consuming but certainly worth it. You can get a slate and stylus over here.