Welcome, to the never-ending world of Fortnite Battle Royale! I have attempted to put together a sort of guide to help you get Fortnite and start, with some information to help you get started. My sighted friend, @greenbeangravy, wrote most of this, I wrote all of the voice attack stuff and added some notes throughout. I hope you enjoy this guide, as it has been a pleasure to get everyone hyped for it to come out.
Please note, this only works for PC. Using a controller is not advised. Sighted help is not required but can help to set keybinds reliably, but if you wish to use VOiceAttack to scroll, OCR is possible as well just not recommended. A list of keybinds will be at the very bottum. These keybinds are not required and the only ones but worked but they are the ones that I have used.
Getting Voice Attack
1. Go to https://voiceattack.com/#download-1
2. open the file, and follow the on-screen prompt to install Voice Attack.
3. On the first launch, use NVDA object navigation or OCR to go through the tips, and program setup.
4. download the Voice Attack profile at https://www.dropbox.com/s/hmssgtavne7r5 … .zip?dl=1.
5. Extract the folder anywhere.
6. copy the folder after extraction, go to %appdata% and paste it into the folder. Restart VoiceAttack, and the profile will be automatically activated. The keys are as followed.
Note: The keys are Numpad based, and require numlock off, but will be listed as if numlock were on.
1: Turn right.
2: aim down
3: turn right.
4: turn left in a smaller increment, useful for slower aiming or to be more accurate.
5: Recenter vertical aim, useful for jumping out of cars, after landing from the battle bus, looking up to break down chests or enemies, etc.
6: turn right in a smaller increment, useful for slower aiming or to be more accurate.
8: looks upwards
0: builds a box around you, building a wall to your left, right, behind, and back, build a floor above your head, then a roof on top of the floor, before looking at the front wall, fixing vertical aiming, and equipping the weapon or item in the first slot. This is useful if you need to build in a pinch, but note that after it speaks there are about 3 seconds before it starts building.
Numpad period key. do a 180-degree turn. This is self-explanatory, does a 180-degree flip, don't worry it looks realistic.
Page down. look straight down at the ground. This will make you move faster while sky diving, without you moving forward. This is also required to hit people on the ground with UFOs, and airplanes in creative.
How to make an Epic Games account:
Step 1: Visit "https://www.epicgames.com/login"
Step 2: Find and click the "Sign Up" button.
Step 3: Choose the method you want to use to sign up.
Step 4: Fill in your birth date, name, username, and everything else you might need to do.
Step 5: Paste in the verification code either sent to your phone or email.
You should now have a working Epic Games account!
How to get Fortnite on your account, and download the Epic Games Launcher:
Step 1: "Visit https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/fortnite"
Step 2: Find and press the "Get" button.
Step 3: Find and press the "Order" button after about 5 seconds after pressing the "Get" button to allow the page to load.
Step 4: Press the "Download Epic Games Launcher" button. This will download the Epic Games MSI. Give it a few seconds to appear if you cannot see it.
Step 5: Open and complete the Installation.
How to Download Fortnite on to your PC:
Step 1: Open the Epic Games Launcher and log in. You may need to use OCR for this.
Step 2: Using OCR, find and press the "Library" tab in the Launcher.
Step 3: Find Fortnite and press the "Install" button using OCR.
Step 4: Press the newly appeared "Install" button using OCR again.
This should download and install Fortnite onto your PC. Keep in mind that this is a 40GB game, so make sure you have the space for it. It will take a while. Once the game is finished Downloading and Installing, you should have a Desktop icon for it.
How to get started with Fortnite:
First off, when the game is loaded and you can hear music, press the "Battle Royale" button using OCR. You will need to use OCR a lot for Fortnite.
This will trigger a chain of unskippable cinematics. Once the cinematics are done, press escape through all the menu's that popup. This includes the news, a battle pass advert, and some new cosmetic features. You will know when to stop pressing escape when you can see a button labeled "Claim". If you don't see this but instead see a list of tabs at the top of your screen, such as Play, Locker, Item Shop, Compete, and Battle Pass, you can also stop pressing escape.
To continue to the next step, make sure you can see the "Ready" button. If you cannot see "Ready", press escape, you should now be able to.
How to start a match of Fortnite:
You can start off by pressing the "Change" button to select the game mode you would like to play. Once you choose the game mode you would like to play, such as Solo's or Team Rumble, press the "Accept" button after clicking the game mode.
You are now ready to start a game of Fortnite! But wait, there are still some things I need to tell you about the game. If you want to start a game anyways, press the "Ready" button, you will be queued into a match soon.
How to play the game, plus current limitations:
First off, as of now, it is impossible to reliably locate the position of a player vertically, making terrain in the game very hard to fight on, versus a flat plain. I have developed maps for me and my blind friend to play on, and so can you! But that will be listed later on in this post.
Second, if you hear a sort of ringing sound, that would be a chest. Chests are usually located at the feet of the player, so you need to crouch to open them. Chests contain everything from healing items to guns. Chests contain a single gun, ammo for that gun, and a consumable item/healing item. Interact with the chest to open it by using "E".
Third, once you load into a match of Fortnite, you will hear people shooting, dancing, and building. Don't worry! this is the Spawn Island of Fortnite, think of it as a pre-game to the actual game. You cannot die on spawn island or get kills, and any items you may pick up are deleted upon entering the actual match.
Fourth, you will hear bus honking sounds 10 seconds before being spawned into the Battle Bus. After the 10 seconds is over, you will hear the bus flying through the air. Once you hear a tri-tone type sound (three beeps in succession) you are now able to use the spacebar/jump to exit the battle bus. Once you exit the bus, hold the W key/forward key, to move towards the ground. You will hear your glider get equipped about 10-15 seconds before landing on the ground. Once you land on the ground, press your VoiceAttack centering key, as you do not look straight if you jump out of the bus yourself.
Fifth, you are now on the map! You can use left-click/attack to swing your pickaxe and break the destructible environment, some things are indestructible though. You can tell if an obstacle is indestructible based on if your pickaxe seems to rebound against it and swing faster than normal. Your pickaxe, like any other weapon, can be used to harm others. You can walk around and try to find weapons and chests. Some chests sound different than others. open anyone you hear, as it could give you healing items, or increased loot!
Sixth, You will hear what sounds like a clock ticking about 5 seconds before the storm starts to close. The storm slowly gets smaller and smaller to bring the remaining players closer to each other. The storm has phases of damage ranging from 1-10 depending on the storm phase, so the more you hear the clock ticking sound, the more dangerous it gets! Runaway from the storm to get to safety, and you will hear another tone when it stops moving. You will hear a type of hissing and humming combined when the storm is near you, and the tone changes depending on the speed it moves, or if it isn't moving and that is the edge of the circle.
Seventh, every once in and while you will hear a very fast beeping tone, and possibly a type of distance wind type of sound. This, is a supply drop. Supply drops fall from the sky in the circle, so they can be a good reminder if you are in the circle or not. If you look towards one and run towards it, you might be in time to hear it fall to the ground, which sounds like a chest, but lower pitch and more hum-like. Once this sound changes or stops and you hear the supply drop hit the ground, you can crouch and hold e to open it. Supply drops will give you a purple (epic) or legendary (gold) gun, 2 stacks of consumables, 2 ammo spawns of ammo for the weapon it dropped and is common to find a launch pad inside. Going for supply drops is risky since anyone can see it on their minimap and head to it. Don't shoot or pickaxe them, because enemies can see the supply drop health bar and can tell if someone is near it.
Eighth, aiming in with right control increases your accuracy. You will not always hit shots unfortunately, this can be due to just missing in general, shooting a wall, or the player being above or below you.
other NPC's
Fortnite has other NPCs. Characters that are around the map, that walk around slowly with non-player footsteps and make a buzzing sound when within a certain range, you can talk to them, and they can give you healing items, materials, and if your lucky high tier guns. For some of them, you can also buy stuff from them by looking left and right to go through the menu. If you want to be evil, line up your shots and start unloading! Kill the NPC and get a low-tier weapon and some ammo for it.
mythic bosses and henchmen
Some POI's on the map will have music in them, this means that a mythic boss and its henchmen are around somewhere. These are extremely hectic drop spots but can give high-tier loot if you can let others kill everything and attempt to make it out alive by killing the mythic boss and their henchmen and get the mythic weapon. These mythic guns are a higher damage, sometimes different take on regular weapons you can get already. Watch out, be prepared, and stay alert, danger will always be around the corner in these areas.
healing NPC's
If you find an NPC doing an emote, walk up to it and hit e near it to start dancing with it! They will chug splash you. Let it use chug splashes on you until it stops, and then either kill it or just turn around and walk away. These are a great way to heal up when you can't use any more consumables, or you couldn't find any way.
Note: Do not, under any circumstance, pickaxe any NPC, mythic boss, henchmen, or healing NPC. They have massive amounts of health and shield, and you will not be able to kill it very easily with only a pickaxe. Either have a gun and prepare to fight or be friendly.
And that's the basic gist of Fortnite! I wish you good luck, but you can practice by either playing many many matches or by joining my creative maps! Contact me on Discord and I can invite you to my game to let you practice against other blind people! My Discord is "GreenBeanGravy#4553".
keybinds
w: move forward
s: move backwards
a: move left
d: move right.
left shift: crouch.
left control: shoot, shoot UFO energy ball, switch seats in boat, place equipped building peace, add/remove tile while editing. To edit a window, put down a wall and press g to edit, left control, and then g again to confirm. To do a door, put down a wall, edit the window but before confirming, crouch and edit another editing tile.
right control: honk horns in the car, fire abductor beam from the UFO
space: jump.
b: emote wheel, honk horn in UFO.
right alt: switch seats in all vehicles other than the boat.
left shift: boost in all vehicles.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5: equip the weapons/items in slot 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.
f5: ping marker.
f6: ping enemy marker.
f1: equip wall building peace.
f2: equip floor building peace.
f3: equip ramp building peace.
f4: equip pyramid building peace.
i,tab: open invintory. You can use left and right arrows to move through your slots in yoru hotbar. Use the up and down arrows to go between hotbar, ammo, and materials/traps. To drop a stack of an item, or a weapon, press x to drop one, hold x to drop all of it, and press z to split in half.
e: interact, pick upitems, open chests and ammo boxes, talk to NPCs, geting in vehicles.
m: open minimap. You can use OCR, and go to POI's like greacey groves or The Sanctuary, and land in those POI's. However, starting in Chapter 2, you have to explore the map to find new locations so you can ping them on the minimap. Play the game for about a week and you'll probably have the most of the map required. Just go wherever is fighting and your POI's should start unlocking really quickly. More places will open over time, through the map changing, etc. Keep checking here and the changes topic for that new information.
page up: in UFOs, move upwards.
backspace: move downward in UFOs.
1 through 8 in your number row while holding b: does one of your 8 emotes. By default, there are an emote in your first slot, and if you get more they will go in your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th slot. The 6th and 7th slot. The 6th and 8th slot are saved for built-in skin only items, or mimic emotes.
If you need anything, contact greenbeangravy with the discord above, or contact me with my discord: isuckTheSwampGamer#6079. Their will also be a discord server, at https://discord.gg/TbwaZGKQ. Thanks everyone!
updates
This is just some updates to the article after the fact. Check back here often, as I will update this section with thigns like new vehicles, game changes, etc.
Voice Attack trial
Voice attacks trial is a three month period, of which at the end you will have to pay $10 US to unlock all the features and all the time you could ever want with VoiceAttack! This also seems to improve performance, which seems to degrade overtime. You might be able to uninstall and reinstall windows to get around it, but I don't know sence I didn't try. VoiceAttack is very helpful, and should work for any fps game, so I thought it was worth it.
the main creative map the discord server plays
Our map creator, and fellow game accessbility maker, or whatever you want to call it greenbeangravy, responsible for the audio access minecraft pack, is a battle royale experience. With random spawns, buzzing floor loot that can give you whatever you could dream of, as well as wildlife, and a score system depending on your eliminations, it's tons of fun! Join us on the discord server linked above and you'll be able to join us, anytime!
chapter 3, what?
Yeah, we've gone into chapter 3. If you missed the chapter 2 end event, you can find a stream of it on the Fortnite youTube channel, with no commentary very easily. The entire map has changed, the guns have changed, the game has updated to Unreal Engine 5, and more! I put a list of all changes in Chapter 3 in the general game discussion room, in the first post. Jump in, and explore the new island and make it your own!