#I can't even imagine what it's like for people who rely on the captions because of audio processing or hearing issues

[highfantasy-soul]

Is anyone else having issues with the Amazon Prime Video player? It just...doesn't register the ad at the beginning of the video so everything other than the episode itself is completely out of sync. The 'skip recap' and 'skip intro' buttons come on a full minute too early, when there are alternative language subtitles they show up a minute too early (which SUCKED for the WoT finale when the cold open was in the Old Tongue and I had no idea who was saying what, and had to try to remember the dialogue that was coming up over the recap and try to match it to the scene that didn't start for a bit, just hoping I got who was saying what lines right not to mention that in the middle of the episode, I get a subtitle talking about 'you said you saw and Ogier here' and that dialogue went with the NEXT scene, not the scene we were still watching) AND the end of episodes are extremely frustrating because the interface thinks the episode is already over when it's not, so it shows the 'next up' suggestion with NO FUCKING WAY TO HIDE IT!!!! When you're watching a 'free with ads' show and there's a next episode ready, it tries to quickly skip to the next episode when there's like a full five minutes left of the episode due to it ignoring the ad breaks!! And as there's no 'previous episode' button, you have to go fully out of the player, try to get into the show page without it just starting another episode, and replay the end.

Like, how does one fix that and could Amazon get it together because it kind of ruins the climactic ending of episodes and all the reveals/set ups when you're frantically trying to stop the next episode auto playing or you're staring at a super bright 'My Spy' ad in the corner of a super dark and intense scene for about two minutes.

[thechekhov]

So I'm not an artist but i know a few things here and there about it, so i can understand some things about what people talk about like layers or some brush stuff but when it comes to AI art I don't have that artist eye that would help immensely distinguish between real art and ai generated images. I used to use the "look at the hair/hands/fingers/toes/ribbons" advice but some AI is actually progressing to a point where the people making those images hide the noticeable stuff or the AI actually did a decent job .

I looked at that ghost image and the only thing i could even kinda assume was the rainbow glass looking effect but I've seen oil painted images that look so realistic that i immediately assumed it was AI until i read a caption or notes.

Do you have an insight or advice or tips to share to make it a bit easier to distinguish without relying to see other people, if there even are people, who say anything about questionable art?

I don't know if they're really tips, per se. I'm not an AI sleuth or anything, nor do I mean to be. I just think it's necessary to label this stuff. Especially because the further in we go, the better AI is getting at looking very reputable and real. There will be, I imagine, a day when no one can tell an artificially generated image from one created by a person... and it's important to try to normalize NOT hiding it early on.

That being said, with that image in mind I saw the following:

Yeah, the cabinet handles. They're not symmetrical. That's it. That's the only thing that tipped me off. That and just... another sixth sense I can't place.

If I was an artist that drew these, I would probably fix that. It's not an aesthetic choice.

[atalana]

i can't speak for every disabled person, but here's some things i know are important to consider:

-timed challenges, particularly involving dexterity. some people cannot have good reflexes for stuff, so by all means include these in the main game, but having an option to remove timers (or skip difficult fights if you can't take the timed feature out of the fight) is going to be very helpful. i always breathe a bit easier when combat in games is turn based rather than real time because i know i won't get penalised for not being able to hit buttons fast enough. if it's something like a timed puzzle, allowing an option to either remove the timer or set the rate (a slower timer for people struggling, a faster timer for people who want the challenge) benefits everyone. obviously this isn't going to work for mmos, but generally people who have problems with this prefer to stick to games where they're not going up against other people

-crucial parts of the game relying on fine motor control. if it's a side challenge, sure, we can skip that, but if it's cutting off our ability to proceed, and it's something that cannot be done with shaky hands or it needs all five of your fingers to be doing different jobs? that's gonna lock some people out of the rest of the game. widen your margin of error, find something that can be done just with one or two buttons if possible, or allow an option to skip it

-i'm not blind so i don't know what good audio descriptions sound like, but i know there are blind people who enjoy video games, so they exist out there, i'd encourage you to do your research and see what you can accomodate for

-caption everything. please. don't include vital information only in sound. some people can't hear it, some have audio processing issues, some have panic disorders, some people just wanna be able to play the game without having to listen to the sound, if you've got important dialogue, put it in text form somewhere. this goes for important sound effects, too, if you have a sound effect you don't want your players to miss, describe it in brackets in your captions. (for example, (footsteps) or (heavy breathing) or whatever)

-warnings for flashing lights and sudden sounds, you don't gotta put these right before it shows up and spoil everything, but give a warning at the start of the game that they are present, and give an option to turn them off (when it comes to selling the game, mentioning your accessibility settings on the steam page or equivalent will go a long way in getting people to love your game, as you can imagine it's hard to commit to buying a game if you don't know ahead of time that you'll be physically able to play it or not)

-keybinds. most games do involve some measure of letting you change the keybinds, but i'm encountering this problem in deltarune at the moment, where you can only keybind numbers and letters, you can't even set space as a control. just, don't do that, let people use whatever keys are available to them in whatever configuration they need. and let us use the space bar it's the biggest and easiest key to hit

generally i'd say you can put whatever in your game, but give us a menu setting to get around it, the more flexibility you offer the player the better. supergiant games are honestly a good example, they're not perfect yet, but they've provided some of the best accessibility mechanics i've seen so far, in that everything is variable. if you want a more challenging game, there are a huge amount of difficulty settings, but there's also things to make it easier, they have an auto aim system, keybinds can be changed to anything you like, and their most recent one (hades, the one that actually got popular) introduced god mode - basically it's a game that relies on a certain level of failure, so they can't make you immortal immediately or you'll lose the story, but every time you die makes you 2% more resistant to damage, so you know you'll get enough failure states, but eventually you'll get to the success as well, even if you're struggling immensely with fights

all video games should have a “I’m shit at video games but I’m curious about the story and I don’t want to watch a let’s play” mode