PlayAural

PlayAural is an audio-first online multiplayer gaming platform designed for blind and low-vision players, while remaining welcoming to anyone who wants accessible, speech-friendly games. It combines spoken feedback, structured sound design, multiplayer tables, and synchronized game logic across desktop, web, and mobile clients.

PlayAural is built upon the open-source foundation of PlayPalace.

Play Now

• Download the latest app builds from the repository's Releases page.
• Play in the browser at play.ddt.one.

Core Features

• Audio-first gameplay with TTS and sound cues for menus, turns, results, and status changes
• Online multiplayer tables with hosts, spectators, bots, scores, saves, and reconnect handling
• Desktop, web, and mobile clients using the same WebSocket game protocol
• English and Vietnamese localization across the platform, with safe English fallback for partial community translations
• Table-based real-time voice chat across the first-party clients, authorized by the game server and carried by a dedicated media service

Platform Components

PlayAural is organized around the following components:

• server/ - Python async WebSocket game server with authentication, tables, persistence, moderation, localization, and game rules
• client/ - wxPython desktop client with keyboard-first screen reader UX, local sound playback, and integrated table voice chat
• web_client/ - Modular vanilla JavaScript PWA with ARIA live announcements, desktop-style keyboard navigation, touch-friendly menus, browser audio and Web Speech support, capped history buffers, localized UI strings, and integrated table voice chat
• mobile_client/ - Expo / React Native client with self-voicing gesture navigation, mobile audio, accessible text entry, and integrated table voice chat
• server/voice/ and deployment/voice/ - voice authorization logic, deployment examples, and LiveKit-oriented server configuration

Accessibility

PlayAural is designed so the full state of the platform can be followed without depending on visuals.

• The desktop client supports keyboard-first play and screen readers.
• The web client supports browser-based play with ARIA live output, screen-reader-friendly menu focus, desktop-style shortcuts, touch controls, and browser speech or native screen-reader announcements.
• The mobile client provides self-voicing navigation and gesture-driven interaction.
• Game actions, chat, score changes, and outcomes are communicated through speech and sound.

Game Catalog

PlayAural currently includes 51 games across backend categories:

• Card games such as BANG! The Bullet, Blackjack, Crazy Eights, UNO, Skip-Bo, Flip 7, Exploding Kittens, Pusoy Dos, Tien Len, Scopa, Ninety Nine, Mile by Mile, Citadels, Coup, Dead Man's Deck, Dominos, Nine, 21, Cards Against Humanity, and Age of Heroes
• Poker games such as Texas Hold'em, Five Card Draw, and Dead Man's Poker
• Dice games such as Zombie Dice, Dead Man's Dice, Farkle, Bunko, Yahtzee, Pig, Left Center Right, Color Game, Toss Up, Tradeoff, Threes, and 1-4-24
• Board games such as Breach Point, Monopoly, Chess, Battleship, Backgammon, Senet, Sorry!, Ludo, and Snakes and Ladders
• Original arcade-style titles such as Battle, Chaos Bear, Light Turret, and Pirates of the Lost Seas
• Miscellaneous games such as Rolling Balls, Metal Pipe, and Bingo

The Play menu includes a persisted category filter with dynamic game counts so players can quickly narrow the catalog by genre.

Voice Chat

PlayAural separates voice authorization from media transport.

• The game server verifies whether a player is allowed to join the current table's voice chat.
• Games can declaratively add private text and voice channels, such as Breach Point squad chat, while table chat remains available.
• A dedicated LiveKit-based voice service carries the real-time media stream.
• The server issues short-lived join tokens and keeps voice membership tied to table context.
• Private rooms are listen-only overlays until the player explicitly enables a server-authorized microphone in the selected channel.
• Voice presence announcements and related sounds are synchronized with the normal table lifecycle.

Supported Languages

PlayAural currently supports the following languages:

• English (EN) - official default language, maintained by the PlayAural core team
• Vietnamese (VI) - official default language, maintained by Trung and the PlayAural core team
• Persian (FA) - community translation, maintained by Hamid Rezaei
• Spanish (ES) - community translation, maintained by UnDuende and Tadeu Junior
• Portuguese (PT) - community translation, maintained by Tadeu Junior
• Indonesian (ID) - community translation, maintained by Muhammad and Komunitas PlayAural Indonesia
• Arabic (AR) - community translation (right-to-left), maintained by the Lumora Nova team

Community translators should follow TRANSLATING.md. Partial translations are supported safely: missing strings and missing translated documentation fall back to English rather than displaying raw translation keys.

Repository Layout

• server/ - server runtime, games, tests, docs, and deployment scripts
• client/ - desktop client source, sounds, locales, and packaging assets
• web_client/ - modular browser client source, service worker, split locale bundles, static assets, Web Audio/Web Speech handling, and table voice integration
• mobile_client/ - Expo application, mobile locales, sounds, build configuration, and voice integration
• deployment/ - deployment-specific configuration examples

Web Client

The browser client is a standalone PWA served from web_client/.

• game.js defines the web client version and bootstraps the runtime.
• app.js, store.js, network.js, audio.js, a11y.js, and keybinds.js handle the client shell, WebSocket protocol, state, sound, speech, accessibility announcements, and keyboard commands.
• ui/menus.js and ui/history.js render the active game menu and message history with stable focus, touch activation, capped buffers, and coalesced updates for mobile performance.
• locales/manifest.js, locales/index.js, and the locale catalog files provide browser-client UI strings and language metadata.
• sw.js provides the PWA shell cache for offline startup assets.

The web client uses the same server packets as the desktop and mobile clients. It supports single-line and multiline server input requests, browser Web Speech voice selection with a default voice option, ARIA live announcements at the end of the reading order, local sound/music/ambience playback, and LiveKit table voice chat authorized by the game server.

Open Source

PlayAural is released as open-source software. Public source code and release builds are distributed through this repository.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or any later version. See LICENSE for the full text. That license covers PlayAural-authored software; it does not relicense third-party code, audio, or other assets. See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md for the software inventory, vendored notices, compatibility guidance, and asset-license scope.