v0.9.0 — Before the Storm Access

A screen reader accessibility mod for Life is Strange: Before the Storm (original edition, not Remastered). It speaks dialogue, menus, choices, backtalk challenges, journal and SMS text, interactive objects, and gives spoken walking directions using the game's own pathfinding.

What's new since 0.7.0

All nine of the game's languages

• The mod follows the game's text language and switches when you change it: English, German, Spanish, Mexican Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and Simplified Chinese.
• Wherever the game already has a word, the mod uses the game's own translation: key names, window titles, and its names for Backtalk and Choices. So speech matches what's on screen. Translations use the game's official terms, such as "Insolence" in French and "Widerworte" in German.
• Thanks to @MattrimCotton for the original French translation (#1).
• Distances use your language's decimal separator.

New speech engine: Prism

• Speech and braille now go through Prism instead of Tolk.
• On Windows it supports NVDA, JAWS, Narrator, ZoomText, System Access, ZDSR, BoyPC Reader, PC-Talker and Sense Reader.
• When no screen reader is running, the mod uses the system voice. It switches to your screen reader a few seconds after you start one, and falls back to the system voice if you close it.

How to Play and tutorial prompts are read

• The How to Play pages, tutorial prompts, the info popup and the brightness screen's directions were silent before.
• Key icons in that text are read as key names in your language: "Use W, A, S, D to move."
• Controller icons are read too: sticks, the D-pad, Square/Triangle/Circle/Cross, A/B/X/Y and the shoulder buttons. Start and Select are named for your controller, e.g. Options or touch pad on PS4, Menu or View on Xbox One.

Fixes from 0.7.0 testing

• Choices are no longer cut off by other speech.
• SMS threads read in the right order, including live conversations and the burner phone.
• Journal pages read in story order.
• Objects only say "in reach" when interacting will actually work.
• The end-of-episode Choices recap reads your decisions, and explains when world/friend stats are unavailable (offline or not signed in).

Downloads

• Windows (recommended): BeforeTheStormAccess-v0.9.0-windows.zip. Extract it into the game folder, next to Life is Strange - Before the Storm.exe. Requires Windows 10 or later, 64-bit.
  • Upgrading from 0.7.0: Tolk.dll and nvdaControllerClient64.dll in the game folder are no longer used and can be deleted.
• Mac and Linux (experimental, untested): -macos.zip and -linux.zip. These are for Feral's Steam versions. They have never been run on either system, and the mod may load but stay silent in the game. Setup steps are in the README inside the zip. Reports with BepInEx/LogOutput.log are very welcome.

Start the game and you should hear "Before the Storm Access loaded." Press F1 for the key list.

Notes

Unofficial and fan-made; not affiliated with or endorsed by Deck Nine Games or Square Enix. Contains no game assets or game code; you need your own copy of the game. Licensed GPL-3.0. Bundled component licenses, including Prism's (MPL-2.0), are in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt, PRISM_NOTICE.txt and PRISM_LICENSES.

If something is silent, press F9, reproduce it, press F10, and attach BepInEx/LogOutput.log to an issue.

v0.7.0 — Before the Storm Access

A screen reader accessibility mod for Life is Strange: Before the Storm (original edition, not Remastered). It speaks dialogue, menus, choices, backtalk challenges, journal and SMS text, interactive objects, and gives spoken walking directions using the game's own pathfinding.

Works with NVDA, JAWS, and other screen readers via Tolk, and falls back to the Windows SAPI voice when no screen reader is running.

Installation

1. Download BeforeTheStormAccess-v0.7.0.zip below.
2. Extract it into the game's install folder — the one containing Life is Strange - Before the Storm.exe — so that BepInEx, winhttp.dll, doorstop_config.ini, Tolk.dll, and nvdaControllerClient64.dll all sit next to the game exe.
3. Start the game. You should hear "Before the Storm Access loaded."
4. Press F1 at any time for the key list.

Requires the original Unity 5.5 build of the game (GOG and Steam), 64-bit Windows.

What it reads

• Dialogue and subtitles, spoken independently of the game's subtitle setting
• Menus and settings: focused item, slider values, option values, key bindings
• Dialogue and backtalk choices with their direction keys, held so nothing cuts them off
• Backtalk challenges: opponent, target score, points won and lost, and a timer warning
• Journal pages and SMS threads, including unread-only reading and live incoming texts
• The end-of-episode Choices recap: what you picked, the alternative, and the world/friend percentages when you are online and signed in
• Nearby interactive objects with distance, clock direction, and elevation
• Objectives and the current location

Navigation keys

• [ and ] browse nearby objects, nearest first
• \ re-announces the selected object with fresh distance and direction
• N speaks a walking route to the selected object; Shift+N toggles continuous guidance
• ` repeats the last thing spoken
• O current objective, Shift+O current location
• F1 help, F9 debug logging, F10 diagnostic dump

Settings and translations

Options live in BepInEx/config/com.amock.beforethestormaccess.cfg: verbosity, window names, reading window text on open, out-of-range announcements, interact hint count, objective announcements, and guidance progress interval.

The mod follows the game's text language. To translate it, copy BepInEx/plugins/BeforeTheStormAccess.strings.template.txt to BeforeTheStormAccess.strings.<lang>.txt (de, fr, es, es-mx, it, pt, zh-hans, ja) and translate the values after the equals signs. Missing keys fall back to English.

Notes

Unofficial and fan-made — not affiliated with or endorsed by Deck Nine Games or Square Enix. Contains no game assets or game code; you need your own copy of the game. Licensed GPL-3.0; bundled component licenses are in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.

If something is silent, press F9, reproduce it, press F10, and attach BepInEx/LogOutput.log to an issue.