v0.11.0 — Sonar sounds tutorial; doors and passages in the list

New sonar sounds tutorial menu, doors and passages now in the list, and several fixes.

• Sonar sounds tutorial menu (Shift+S)
• • Doors are announced as "Door", "Hatch", "Elevator"…
• • Contact passages are now listed as "Passage"
• • Catacomb mystery doors ping in SecretSonar
• • Multi-tile notes now sound as one
• Fixes
• • Dormant traps are no longer announced as false positives
• • Floor collapses are no longer mistaken for passages
• • Locked metal doors now ping as doors

v0.10.0 - Spanish translation support & quieter, clearer sonars

Feature release on top of v0.9.6. Two big themes: the mod now works alongside the community Spanish translation, and the always-on sonars got a full audio tuning pass so the soundscape is calmer and easier to localize.

New

• Spanish translation support. If you play Fear & Hunger with the community Spanish translation installed, the accessibility mod now works with it. The spatial sonars that detect their targets by on-screen text — containers, notes, altars, fire, traps, corpses and the rest — recognise the Spanish text too, so nothing goes silent under the translation. The New Game character-select screen also reads its class descriptions ("Mercenario", "Caballero", "Sacerdote Oscuro", "Forastero") in Spanish. The correct language is picked automatically from the installed game data — no extra setup, and it keys off the game files rather than your operating-system language, so an English Windows running the Spanish patch still gets Spanish. English play is unaffected. For the full details — how to install a translation alongside the mod, and the one folder you must not copy from a translation package — see the README (included in the zip and attached to this release as README.md).
• Pan Strength / Pitch Strength parameters on every sonar and on the interactables-menu beacon — the equivalent of a panning-strength control. Default 110%: left/right panning and the up/down pitch shift are 10% stronger per tile, so positions are easier to tell apart by ear. Set them per plugin (100 = the old behaviour).

Changed

• Half the pings. The always-on sonars were too noisy. All ten fast sonars now ping every 2 seconds when far (was 1) and every second when near (was half a second). NoteSonar keeps its own slower cadence.
• Lower volumes across the mix. EnemySonar 90 → 60, AltarSonar 60 → 40, FireSonar and DoorSonar 45 → 30, CorpseSonar 30 → 15. The loudness hierarchy is preserved — threats loudest, landmarks middle, corpses quietest — just quieter overall.

Install / update

Download FearAndHungerAccessibility-v0.10.0.zip from the Assets below, unzip it, and run install.bat — it overwrites the existing plugins in place. Updating over an existing install is safe; no need to uninstall first. Full instructions are in the attached README.md.

Full changelog: v0.9.6...v0.10.0

v0.9.6 - Hide insect-listening spots until the skill is learned

Maintenance update on top of v0.9.5. This is a bug-fix release — one class of phantom entries in the interactables list, nothing else changes. Install steps are unchanged.

Fixes

• Insect-listening spots no longer clutter the interactables list before you can use them. The interactables menu (I), the A / S quick-select and their beacon were listing the game's invisible "Mastery over insects" spots — hidden cockroaches that whisper lore and hints — for every party. But Fear & Hunger gates that whole interaction behind the Mastery over insects skill: without it, walking up and pressing the action button on one of these spots does nothing at all. A blind player without the skill was being sent to dozens of dead-end targets (one room alone has 29 of them), each announcing itself and leading nowhere. These spots are now hidden until the skill is learned, at which point they appear and can be walked to like any other interactable — exactly matching when a sighted player can actually use them.
• Everything else in the list is untouched. The fix only hides a spot when its entire interaction is gated on the skill and it does nothing without it. Places that mention insects but also act on their own — the scarab encounters, the soul-learning circles — keep working and stay listed as always. Verified against every map in the game: this hides exactly the 66 skill-only listening spots while keeping the 60 pages that also do something without the skill.

Notes

• The skill switch is detected by name, so this stays correct across game updates and simply does nothing in games that have no such skill.
• Nothing else changed — all eleven sonars, the light-aware perception from v0.9.4 and the EnemySonar phantom-enemy fix from v0.9.5 behave exactly as before.

Install / update

Download FearAndHungerAccessibility-v0.9.6.zip from the Assets below and run install.bat — it overwrites the existing plugins in place. Updating over an existing install is safe; no need to uninstall first. See README.md for details.

Full changelog: v0.9.5...v0.9.6

v0.9.5 - Fix EnemySonar pinging phantom enemies from empty tiles

Maintenance update on top of v0.9.4. This is a bug-fix release — one wrong sound source in EnemySonar, nothing else changes. Install steps are unchanged.

Fixes

• EnemySonar no longer pings "enemies" from empty tiles. A blind player was hearing the enemy ping coming from spots where nothing was there — a phantom threat that never moved and never went away. The cause was in how the sonar decides what counts as an enemy: it treated any contact tile that could start a battle as a roaming enemy, even when that battle only happens under conditions that are almost never met. Fear & Hunger's maps are full of invisible, immobile ambush-trigger tiles that fight you only if you are carrying a specific cursed item, several story flags line up, and often a random roll passes as well (for example, the Eastern-sword spectre in the starting dungeon). Those tiles were pinging as permanent enemies across nearly every map. They are now correctly ignored.
• Real enemies are untouched. The fix only silences a tile when all three of these are true at once: its battle is purely conditional, it has no visible sprite, and it never moves — which is exactly what an ambush trigger is and what no real enemy is. Verified against every map in the game: this removes the 163 phantom triggers while keeping all 1,937 genuine enemies pinging, including roaming beasts, the invisible "harvestman" grab-tiles that always fight on contact, and the disguise-checking priest guards.

Notes

• Nothing else changed — all eleven sonars, the A/S quick-select, the interactables menu (I) and the trap scan (R) behave exactly as in v0.9.4, including the light-aware perception introduced there.

Install / update

Download FearAndHungerAccessibility-v0.9.5.zip from the Assets below and run install.bat — it overwrites the existing plugins in place. Updating over an existing install is safe; no need to uninstall first. See README.md for details.

Full changelog: v0.9.4...v0.9.5

v0.9.4 - Light-aware sonars: perception now follows your torch

New in this release:

• Sonars and A/S now follow the in-game light. Fear & Hunger's darkness is real: the game covers the screen with a black mask, so a sighted player only makes out what a light actually reaches (a fresh torch reaches about 6 tiles, bare hands about 5, and in the Terror & Starvation darkness almost nothing). All eleven always-on sonars — enemies, doors, containers, corpses, altars, notes, fire, cages, sacrifice circles, floor loot and hidden spots — and the A / S quick-select now honour the same rule: beyond a short "hearing" distance, something only registers while it is lit, either by your own light or by a burning map light (a lit candle, a wall torch, or a guard patrolling with his own torch — whose glow now gives him away just as it does on screen).
• Lighting a torch matters by ear now. A lit torch widens every sonar and the A/S glance; letting it die — or being caught without one in the dark difficulties — pulls your audio perception back to arm's length, exactly the pressure a sighted player feels. Fire and light sources are now worth seeking out for navigation, not just warmth and sanity.
• Full survey tools are unchanged. The complete interactables menu (I) and the manual trap scan (R) are deliberate, on-demand survey tools, so they keep their full range regardless of light. Only the always-on sonars and the quick A/S glance shrink in the dark.
• New Hearing Range parameter on every sonar and on the interactables plugin (default 2 tiles) sets what you can still perceive in total darkness; set it to 0 to require light, or higher to soften the effect. In games without the lighting plugin, nothing changes.

Note — navigation can now be harder in the dark, on purpose. Earlier versions let the sonars and A/S reach a fixed distance regardless of lighting, which meant a blind player could sense the whole room even in pitch black — an advantage a sighted player never had. This release ties audio perception to the light you actually carry, so exploring an unlit area now reveals less until you light a torch or reach a lit landmark. This is intended: it makes torches, tinderboxes and fire sources meaningful for a blind player the same way they are for a sighted one, and it restores the game's core tension around darkness. If you prefer the old always-on behaviour, raise each plugin's Max Range and set Hearing Range high (or to your Max Range) in the plugin parameters.

To install or update: download FearAndHungerAccessibility-v0.9.4.zip below, unzip it, and run install.bat. Updating over an existing install is safe — no need to uninstall first.

v0.9.3 - Sacrifice/Item/Secret sonar, richer interactables list

New in this release:

• SacrificeSonar (new plugin) — always-on spatial sonar for the sacrificial circles for the older gods (the big red circle with the instructions stand, where Gro-goroth takes human sacrifices and Sylvian accepts an act of love). Uses a distinct Magic1 ping capped at 30% volume so it stays a discreet landmark under the other sonars.
• ItemSonar (new plugin) — always-on spatial sonar for loose loot lying on the floor: Blue/Green/Red herbs, Dried mushrooms and "something shining" (Lucky coins, Soul stones, the Stone crown). It goes silent on its own once you pick the item up.
• SecretSonar (new plugin) — always-on spatial sonar for hidden diggable/breakable spots: soft walls, soft ground and loose rocks. It goes silent on its own once the spot is opened. The skill-gated "Mastery over insects" listening spots and floor-collapse traps are deliberately excluded.
• InteractableElementsMenu — now lists below/above-priority interactables whose active page shows text, so floor loot, diggable spots and the ritual/sacrificial circles finally appear in the menu and in the A / S quick-select. Battle ambushes, floor-collapse cracks and silent transfer thresholds stay excluded so the tracking beacon never guides you onto a hazard.
• TrapWarning — now also detects the unnamed floor-collapse tiles ("You hear a crack underneath your feet...") by their warning text, closing a gap where 13 such traps (maps 3, 31, 53, 93 and 181) were invisible to the R scan. The manual scan reports armed traps within 8 tiles.

To install or update: download FearAndHungerAccessibility-v0.9.3.zip below, unzip it, and run install.bat. Updating over an existing install is safe — no need to uninstall first.

v0.9.2 - Fire & cage sonar, broader container detection

New in this release:

• FireSonar (new plugin) — always-on spatial sonar for fire and light sources: a lit furnace and the candles, beacons, bonfires and torches you light with a Tinderbox. It keeps pinging after a fire is lit, since a lit candle/torch is still a light source and a lit furnace/bonfire is still where you cook.
• CageSonar (new plugin) — always-on spatial sonar for a cage holding a captive (the little girl locked in a cage). It goes silent on its own once she is freed.
• ContainerSonar — broadened detection beyond the standard "You search the…" prompt to also catch furniture with its own opening line: a shelf of odds and ends, a scratched kitchen table, and a special bookshelf hiding a unique book.
• Docs — documented the existing Tab / Shift+Tab on-demand stat/HP readout (equipment/status/skill menus and battle), listed the two new sonars in the install steps, and added an Updating section (just re-run install.bat).

To install or update: download FearAndHungerAccessibility-v0.9.2.zip below, unzip it, and run install.bat. Updating over an existing install is safe — no need to uninstall first.

v0.9.1 - Smarter door & corpse detection, refreshed sonar sounds

Maintenance update on top of v0.9.0. Everything here refines out-of-battle map navigation and the sonar audio — install steps are unchanged.

Improvements

• DoorSonar — visible doors that open via a switch are no longer silent. A door sprite is now treated as a real door on its own, even when the event has no "Transfer Player" command. Most Fear & Hunger doors work by interacting (the door plays its open sound and flips a switch) while a separate tile does the actual transfer, so those doors previously produced no ping. They now ping like any other door.
• DoorSonar — one door, one ping. Multi-tile doors (stacked halves, big double doors, wide seamless thresholds) are collapsed into a single ping that points at the edge nearest you, instead of pinging twice from adjacent tiles.
• Interactable-elements menu — corpses are named after who they were. A body now reads as the creature or character it was ("Guard corpse", "Isayah corpse"), taken from its battle troop, its sprite, or its event name, instead of the player-dependent "Soul stone" / Necromancy prompt.
• Interactable-elements menu — one object, one entry. Something spread over several adjacent tiles (a 2×2 guest book on a table, a long altar, a wide bookshelf) now shows as a single menu entry rather than several duplicates.
• Refreshed sonar sound design. The altar, container, corpse, door and note sonars each use a distinct sound now, so they are easier to tell apart by ear.
• Calmer note pings. NoteSonar's cadence is slower — every 3 seconds at range, every 2 seconds up close — so document pings are less intrusive while you move.
• Docs. README gains a Controls section (including the P pause key), clearer wording for the Windows SmartScreen/UAC prompt, and a direct pointer to the named release asset.

Notes

• Every sonar's ping sound is a plugin parameter — you can change it to any sound in the game's audio/se folder.

Install / update

Download FearAndHungerAccessibility-v0.9.1.zip from the Assets below and run install.bat — it overwrites the existing plugins in place. See README.md for details.

Full changelog: v0.9.0...v0.9.1

v0.9.0 - First public release

Screen reader accessibility mod for Fear & Hunger 1, built on plain aria-live DOM injection (no Tolk/SAPI/external TTS).

What works

• Full menu, dialogue, choice, and combat text coverage via NVDA/JAWS/VoiceOver.
• Map navigation aids: interactable-elements menu, wall-bump audio feedback, manual trap scan, and always-on spatial "sonar" pings for doors, enemies, containers, corpses, altars, and readable notes.
• One-click Windows installer (install.bat / uninstall.bat) that finds Steam automatically and registers the plugins for you — no manual plugins.js editing required.

Known gaps

• No in-game accessibility toggle yet.
• Not yet packaged for FHMM.
• Not yet validated by blind testers outside of development — feedback welcome.

See PLAN.md for the full roadmap and README.md for installation.