Real Sound: Kaze no Regret
Japanese Dreamcast cover art
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| Developer(s) | WARP, Inc. |
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| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Designer(s) | Kenji Eno |
| Composer(s) | Keiichi Suzuki |
| Platform(s) | Saturn, Dreamcast |
| Release |
Saturn
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| Genre(s) | Audio game, adventure, sound novel |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Real Sound: Kaze no Regret (リアルサウンド ～風のリグレット～?) is an adventure audio game developed by WARP, Inc. and published by Sega. The game was first released for the Saturn in July 1997, and later for the Dreamcast in March 1999. Real Sound was intended to provide equal access to players with sight and to blind players. The literal meaning of the title is Regret of the wind.
WARP's president, Kenji Eno, created the game after receiving numerous appreciation letters from blind fans of his games in Japan. Eno visited a number of his visually disabled fans to learn how it is that blind people could play the visually rich action game genre.
In a 2008 interview with 1Up, Eno stated:
I had a chance to visit people who are visually disabled, and I learned that there are blind people who play action games. Of course, [blind people are] not able to have the full experience, and they're kind of trying to force themselves to be able to play, but they're making the effort. So I thought that if you turn off the monitor, both of you are just hearing the game. So after you finish the game, you can have an equal conversation about it with a blind person. That's an inspiration behind [Real Sound: Kaze no Regret] as well.
So excited was Eno about the project that he used his clout as a first-class game designer to bargain with Sega such that in exchange for the exclusive rights to the game, Sega would donate a thousand Sega Saturns to blind people. Eno, in turn subsequently donated a thousand copies of Real Sound along with the game consoles. In explaining why the game has only been re-released once despite apparent interest in the title, Eno has stated that: "It's been several years now, and of course the contract probably isn't valid anymore, but the reason that I haven't done anything with this game is that I made this promise with Sega back in the day, and it's exclusive because of those conditions."
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Wikipedia