Settings

How practice sounds and speaks to you. Every one of these can be turned off. They are saved in this browser, on this device — not to your account — so setting them again on another computer is worth a minute.

None of this applies during an assessment. An assessment is silent: no sounds, no music, no spoken result, and it never tells you whether an answer was right.

Sound effects

Off Subtle Arcade

A short sound when you answer a step in practice, and for the good moments: a badge, beating your own best time on a step, going up a level, and finishing a shift.

Hear them

Plays in whichever style is chosen above, before you save it.

Sound effects by Juhani Junkala (CC0 / public domain).

Clock sounds

Off On — a tick in the last ten seconds, and a warning past the target

Only on Agent and Veteran difficulty; Rookie has no clock. The step's own target time is what it counts against, and it never ends a step — you are not cut off, it is only a nudge.

Hear them

These play through Sound effects above. If that is set to Off, the clock is silent too, whatever you choose here.

Narrator commentary

Off Terse — “Correct. 4 seconds.” or “Wrong.” Coaching — also says whether you beat the step's target, suggests a quicker way, and reads out an accepted answer when you get one wrong

Spoken in its own voice, not your screen reader's — pick a different voice below so the two don't sound alike. Practice only.

Narrator voice

Pick one different from your screen reader's. The best free voices are at the top of the list. More from Windows Settings → Time & language → Speech → Add voices.

Voice

Speaking rate 1.0×

Music

Off Ambient — low bed, no melody Energetic — light rhythm during timed steps

Plays under a shift and drops to a murmur whenever anything is spoken, then comes back up. Stops when the shift ends.

Hear it

Plays at the volume chosen below.

Music volume

Low Medium High

Music only. Sound effects and the narrator are not affected.

Your assistive technology

JAWS ZoomText Fusion Windows Magnifier None / other — universal questions only

Two things follow from this. Command questions are asked about your own tool. And on a screen reader the ticking clock is left off the page altogether — a readout that rewrites itself every second is a page that changes under your cursor — so “Read elapsed time” is how you check it. Full reference on the Resources page.

Game announcements

Quiet — only what you have to hear: results, and anything that needs you to act Normal — the above, plus moving between steps, badges and saves Chatty — the above, plus a description of what is on each step's page before you start reading it

These go to your screen reader, not the narrator voice. Chatty descriptions are the only ones that need the narrator switched on.

Settings

Sound effects

Clock sounds

Narrator commentary

Narrator voice

Music

Music volume

Text size

Your assistive technology

Game announcements