The makers behind the digital edition of the beloved board game Talisman and its devoted community are working to help those with disabilities play games.
Developer Nomad Games recently held a competition to design a character to benefit SpecialEffect, a charity in the United Kingdom that opens up the world of gaming for disabled players. Nomad regularly makes downloadable characters for its Talisman: Digital Edition for a $2, and commercial director Donald Whiteford told me earlier this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco that the Shaman — the winning design — could go for more, since all proceeds from sales will benefit the charity.
“We’re blown away that Nomad Games have offered to support us in this way. Several of the people we’ve helped have submitted ideas for the Shaman character, and we can’t wait to see the final design. All the money raised from the sale of the character will go directly toward helping more people with disabilities to experience the magic of video games,” said Mark Saville of SpecialEffect.
The winning Shaman design from Graham Zaretsky received more than 1,000 votes from players.
Talisman: Digital Edition released in 2013. It’s on Steam for PC, Mac, and Linux and also works on iPad and Android tablets. It’s based on the Fantasy Flight resurrection of the original Games Workshop board game. Nomad has released four expansions — with the Highland expansion debuting today — and a number of downloadable characters.