#accessibility in gaming

[cairi-fruit]

Guys does the Horizon: Zero Dawn remaster have better accessibility settings? Lemme know.

I ask because the lighting in original game was really triggering for my sensory issues. The only options were really overall brightness that made everything too dark or too blindly bright but the focus details and holograms really fcked with my head.

I missed a lot of story beats in the underground sections because the flickering lights in that dark environment made me so nauseous and made my head hurt so much I'd just BLITZ through it and stop playing as soon as I could save again. I do love the game and I've played it multiple times but it literally causes me physical pain 😂

[ooc-themis-cattails]

@cattailsgame thank you for the best accessibility setting I have ever seen in a video game.

As someone who gets a horrible adrenaline fear rush every time I see a spider shape, I am beyond delighted. I wish every game had this. There are otherwise wonderful games I struggle to play because of this issue. THANK YOU. (And yes, intellectually I know spiders are harmless and beneficial. That doesn't stop the adrenaline.)

[elenathrais]

Playing Inquisition (again) and it made me realize I really want auto-looting in Dreadwolf. I'd rather stop every 10 minutes to unclog my inventory than squint for a brown bag on the brown ground and then be frustrated when my PC decides to leap for joy instead of just grabbing the 3 gold and useless helmet off the Templar they just murdered.

[rosevilleain]

For the most part, I'd like to keep all my spaces fun and generally light hearted, save for the occasional rant (because, well... This is DBD 😅), but I want to talk about something important right now. If you've been playing this game for long enough, you'll know that there are multiple heated debates amongst the community that will cool off for a while, only to make a resurgence again at some point. Right now, I'd like to address the one that I'm seeing a lot of at the moment.

Let's talk about filters... But, really, let's talk about accessibility in gaming. Primarily in Dead by Daylight.

Before getting into it all, a couple of quick things to note: a. This is a long post, and b. a lot of it is stuff I said elsewhere (namely Instagram). I also broke this up into a couple of sections to (hopefully) make it more easily digestible than a wall of text.

About Those Filters...

Now, I have some tweets of my own to post. For context, Hens went on from that first tweet to discuss his findings a bit, and asked if people wanted him to make a video addressing the subject. After most people said they wanted to see a video, he agreed.

Now, here is my quote tweet and short thread.

I want what I said in that first tweet to sink in. This game first launched in 2016. The colorblind filters available in the game weren't added until 2021.

It took Behavior five (5) years to implement a feature that would allow people with colorblindness to play as anyone else could. This was a feature that should have been available all along, yet there was a need to ask for this to be added. And it still took them half a decade to do it.

If that wasn't terrible enough, there are many colorblind people in the community for whom the available filters do not work. At least not as well as they should. Which means that there are many players using third party filters to simply be able to see the game.

The Usual, Disappointing Response...

But there are some players that use them to have an unfair advantage. So they should be banned... According to far too many people. And if you are one of them, I ask you to consider this:

If you are more concerned about the people who don't need it, you are ignoring the people who do. If you are more concerned about the people that don't need it, respectfully, please take a step back and think about why that is.

Because we see these things said constantly, about features we use just to be able to play like anyone else can do. When disabled people see and hear the comments about how these features should be banned, or how "unfair" they are, what we hear is, "Yeah, but I want to win, so…"

No matter how many times we explain why it wouldn't be good if these things got banned or changed, it doesn't seem to matter. No matter how many more people that use these things need it than don't, it never matters.

My Personal Struggles...

In the second tweet of my thread, I said, "BHVR shouldn't ban their use. They should do better by the disabled people that need better options. This is a general statement, not exclusive to colorblindness."

When I said that, I had a very specific thing in mind, although I'm sure there are other examples of which I'm not even aware.

I'm not colorblind, though I have other disabilities that affect how I experience video games. Though I'm neither deaf, nor hard of hearing, I do have an issue perceiving sounds. Particularly in video games.

For DBD, when I play killer, I can't always find survivors by listening for them because I often have trouble figuring out the right direction that it's coming from. I frequently run into situations where the sound seems to be coming from one direction, but then it sounds like it's actually the opposite, even when it isn't possible that they could have run that way because I would have seen them.

When I play survivor, I frequently can't tell how close the killer is when going by the terror radius because it often sounds a bit further away than it really is. Before I realized that it was a "me" issue, I used to get so pissed because I'd get grabbed off of generators even though it sounded to me like I had a little bit more time before I had to run.

In regards to that, I was once discussing how I wish they hadn't changed Spine Chill back to the way it was because watching the red dial fill and regress helped me far better than the new heartbeat does. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to properly gauge the distance. I should mention that I have several learning disabilities, as well, which definitely contributes to this. And I'm frustrated because it seems so straight forward, and I can understand it in DBD Mobile, but not core for some reason.

During that discussion, while I was explaining all of this, I had someone outright say to me, "They can't put in too many accessibility options because then people who don't need them will cheat with them."

And several people chimed in with, "Yeah, but it also tipped off survivors to stealth killers."

Um... I main Ghost Face. Yet, my point still stands. And now the heartbeat is the only option available, so I'm still struggling a bit.

People with disabilities shouldn't have to settle for "it's better than nothing," but we do. Time and time again.

In Closing...

That, "I know you need it, but what about the people who don't?" argument is a truly sad and messed up way of thinking. And half of the problem is the fact that there are many people who don't even realize that. The person who said that to me clearly didn't understand that, perhaps, that isn't something you should say to someone explaining why they need it. They weren't trying to be an asshole. They thought they were just having a conversation. Obviously there are those who just don't care, but I do believe that there are more people that just don't realize what it is they're really saying when we see this stuff. Nor why it's so fucked up.

I can personally tell you that it's exhausting to have to defend things, over and over, that make me able to enjoy this hobby that I've been doing for 30+ years. Making room for everyone to be able to play is more important than winning.

If you read this far, thank you.

[ablegaming]

Accessibility in Board Gaming

Board gaming can be a fantastic alternative to video gaming, allowing you the freedom to take your turn in your own time and the ability to stop and check the directions or ask someone for help/clarification at any time. More and more board games are being released with a solo mode these days as well, which I appreciate!

Colorblindness can be a real concern when board gaming, so it’s best to play in a well-lit room and choose player/meeple colors that can be easily identified and differentiated, and substitute if needed. Photosensitivity and motion-sickness thankfully aren’t much of a concern in board gaming, aside from the occasional dizzying pattern design. Physical impact and pain can be an issue with board gaming, due to card shuffling, fast tile playing, and setup/teardown for gameplay. Having someone to help you set up and put away games, playing slower-paced games, and using an auto-shuffler may help reduce these concerns.

I’ve chosen my top 20 favorite board games, which I’m sure will change over time haha. I gravitate towards fun easy-medium complexity games that are fairly simple to set up and aren’t too much of a time-sink. My hope is that you discover a new game or two to play and enjoy!

1) Everdell* 1–4 players (6 with expansion), 40–80 minutes Everdell is a card collection, resource management, and worker placement game where you play as a group of animal meeples trying to collect the most victory points by adding buildings and settlers to your village.

2) Dominion* 2–4 players (6 with expansion), 30–60 minutes Dominion is a deck collection card game in which you compete against other players to collect money and purchase the most land for your dominion.

3) Fjords Original release: 2 players, 30 minutes Re-release: 2–4 players, 30–45 minutes Fjords is a tile-laying strategy game where players create the landscape in the first phase, and compete for the most connected settlements in the second phase.

4) Cottage Garden 1–4 players, 40–60 minutes Cottage Garden is a relaxing polyomino puzzle game where players compete to plant flowers in order to complete the most garden plots.

5) Bohnanza 2–7 players, 45 minutes Bohnanza (or Beans as it’s often called) is a card collection game where players compete to plant different types of beans in their fields by drawing and trading cards, harvested crops are then worth victory points. There is a 2 player only version also available called Bohnanza: The Duel.

6) Cascadia 1–4 players, 30–45 minutes Cascadia is a tile-laying strategy game where players expand their landscape and try to create patterns in their wildlife populations in order to score points.

7) Scrabble* 2-4 players, 40 minutes Scrabble is the classic two player word puzzle game, where players draw letter tiles and attempt to make words on a shared crossword-style board.

8) Wingspan* 1–5 players, 40–70 minutes Wingspan is a card collection game about attracting many species of birds to your region, collecting and storing food, and laying eggs. Wingspan: Asia is also available and plays up to 7 players.

9) Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small or Family Edition Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small 2 players, 30 minutes Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small is a two-player worker placement game in which players expand their farms and raise animals to collect victory points. Agricola: Family Edition 1–4 players, 45 minutes Agricola: Family Edition plays similarly to All Creatures Big and Small but accommodates up to four players, and in addition to raising animals players must also grow crops to feed their families.

10) Mountain Goats 2–4 players (5 with expansion), 20 minutes Mountain Goats is a simple dice-rolling and strategy game where players roll dice to race to the top of each mountain and collect the most points.

11) Qwirkle 2–4 players, 30 minutes Qwirkle is a tile-laying strategy game where players make patterns with matching colors and shapes, building off of the previous moves to create score combos. Colorblindness can make this game a little bit confusing, I recommend playing in a well-lit room and keeping colors that you have a hard time differentiating a ways apart from each other. For example, one of the sets of colors I struggle with is blue and purple, so I’ll keep the blue and purple tiles in my “hand” separated upright on the table so I won’t mix them up.

12) Bananagrams 2–7 players, 10–20 minutes Bananagrams is a fast-paced letter tile crossword-style game, similar to Scrabble but there is no game board, it’s a race to the finish, and up to seven players can play.

13) Village Green 1–5 players, 30 minutes Village Green is a card collection strategy game where players attempt to collect the most points by creating patterns of flowers, statues, and water features in their village green.

14) Settlers of Catan* 3–4 players (6 with expansion), 60 minutes Settlers of Catan is a cut-throat strategic resource management and building game, in which players compete to build roads and settlements.

15) Shifting Stones 1–5 players, 20 minutes Shifting Stones is a strategy game where players attempt to line up tiles in specific patterns in order to gain points.

16) Pokemon: The Card Game* 2 players, 20–30 minutes Pokemon TCG is a card deck building and battling game, where two players face off off battling Pokémon until all six of their opponent’s Pokémon are knocked out.

17) Dawn of Peacemakers 1–5 players, 60–120 minutes Dawn of Peacemakers is a unique strategy game in which players work together to cleverly attempt to stop two warring armies from fighting at the same moment. There is an over-arching story that is gradually revealed across many playthroughs. There is also an alternate skirmish mode where battles can be fought against each other.

18) Forbidden Island 2–4 players, 30 minutes Forbidden Island is a cooperative game in which each player has a different kind of character and movement ability, and all players must work together to collect the four island treasures and escape the island before it’s fully submerged underwater. There are two other games in this cooperative series: Forbidden Desert and Forbidden Sky, so if you like the concept but prefer either a desert or a steampunk theme check ‘em out!

19) Kingdom Builder 2–4 players (5 with expansion), 45 minutes Kingdom Builder is a strategy game where players compete to build the most settlements in specific patterns across several terrain types in order to score the most points.

20) Hive* 2 players, 20 minutes Hive is a two player strategy game that is similar to chess, in which players use their insect tiles (different insect types move differently) to try to surround and capture their opponent’s queen bee.

Several of these games are available in digital editions as well, on Android, iOS, Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox X/S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. Games with digital versions available are marked with *

Keep an eye out for my future accessibility reviews of digital board games, and please feel free to comment with your favorite board game recommendations!

This post can also be read and listened to (text-to-speech) on my Medium page at: https://medium.com/@AbleGaming/accessibility-in-board-gaming-1cd028944221

[midautumngame]

If Midautumn's combat is too much for you, no worries! Our accessibility features allow you to adjust the level of challenge, including turning off all damage, so you can play the way you want!

Midautumn is available now on Steam Early Access + free demo!

[zombiecheshireproductions]

All views in the video are my own opinion. I will add as well that taking turn based combat away from the Final Fantasy series also made the games lose their shine. They don’t need to compete with dark souls, 11, 14, 12, and 15 lacking a full turn based system (and 12’s system just being unnecessarily difficult anyway,) definitely took accessibility away from the series and made the game unnecessary harder than they need to be. I lost my ability to enjoy them.

How about you?

[mildew-mop]

One of many reasons why I prefer Minecraft Java over Bedrock is that Bedrock doesn't have an option for subtitles.

[pandorem]

I think it’s important for us to start getting it into our heads that it’s ok to “lose” things in art for the sake of accessibility, and that it doesn’t make the resulting experience without value. There are aspects of a medium or choices a creator makes that are impactful, important to the experience, and worthy of acknowledging, and still be worth ceding if the other option is never getting to experience the work at all.

(A quick note: this is both about accessibility from a class perspective and disability perspective, and as someone with disabilities I know how frustrating it can be to have your experiences described as lesser or that your losing out on something. I genuinely don’t want to diminish people’s experiences with art. But I also don’t quite know how to phrase it while getting my point across and respecting the artistic merits of the aspects I’m talking about, so please keep that in mind)

There are aspects to certain mediums of storytelling that I often see brought up when people try to ask for more accessibility in art, usually in pushing back against those requests, that I find really frustrating, but not because I don’t find them worth experiencing if you can. One of the things that first comes to mind is the wish for more pro-shot plays/musicals, wether coming from a class perspective where they can’t afford to go see shows live or a disability perspective, where their disabilities make it difficult for them to. And what people often bring up is that there is an energy to live performance that can’t be replicated, even if that live performance was itself filmed. There’s an electricity to being in the audience in the same room as the performers. And therefore, pro shot plays are bad and wrong and should not be made.

True in the first half, completely false in the latter. Live performance DOES have an energy to it that can’t be replicated, that is a wonderful and important aspect of experiencing theatre live. But. That doesn’t mean that a play is without any artistic merit without that aspect. It doesn’t make experiencing the story any other way meaningless. And given how inaccessible live theatre can be on several different levels, proshot plays can be wonderful in letting people experience those things, or even for getting them into theatre in the first place.

Another medium I see brought up like this often is video games. I’ve seen posts talking about how there should be game modes that let people who are bad at video games still experience the story. How some people who have disabilities that affect their fine motor control will just not be able to beat those games as they are.

There are games where the difficulty in and of itself IS an artistic choice that works to deliver the themes and overall message of the game. That is worthy of consideration and respect. Pathologic would be a very different experience if it wasn’t the way it was. But. There are people who would get plenty out of it and other difficult games who will never get to because of that.

The most baffling thing about the latter example is that I often see the response of “just watch a let’s play” or “just get a sibling/friend to play it for you” as if one of the fundamental aspects of video games as a medium, and their most compelling artistic points, is their interactivity. As if watching someone else play the game wouldn’t be as fundamentally different as playing the game on a hypothetical story only mode. Which really tells me that it’s more about gatekeeping than any drive to maintain the game’s artistic integrity.

Just because an experience is changed or different doesn’t automatically make it lesser. And for the sake of argument, if we agree that it DOES mean losing something important and meaningful, it still doesn’t make the experience without value. There’s incredible value to be had.

And experiencing a work of art in a changed or diluted form will bring much more meaning to a person than not getting to experience it at all.

[fioras-resolve]

what really gets to me sometimes is that like, rhythm heaven is one of the few rhythm games out there where you can go entirely on audio cues, like sometimes i play a minigame with my eyes closed and end up doing better. it's a game series that's so perfectly suited to being fully blind-accessible, but they never actually try to do that by having spoken voice lines and dialogue, even with the text-to-speech that tomodachi life shows that they have. like, yes, recording dialogue is expensive, and rhythm heaven is often a budget production, but like. come on! the opportunity is right there!

[dumbass-brunette]

I don’t have epilepsy, but I do have severe migraines and sensory issues that make flashing/strobing lights difficult to be around. I’m not deaf either, but I have ADHD and it makes audio processing very hard.

Having settings to turn off flashing lights and turn on captions are such basic and easy things to add. There is no reason that playing your game should be harmful to ANYBODY. There is no reason that understanding your game should be hard or impossible for ANYBODY.

I’m an ambulatory wheelchair user (which basically means I can walk normally on most occasions but occasionally need the help of a mobility aid such as a cane, a walker, or sometimes a wheelchair). I would be over the moon to see myself represented in a game.

That being said, it makes sense that some games wouldn’t have these type of options due to the nature of some of the mc’s lives (this does not apply to limb differences, my younger sister has one hand and is stronger and more dexterous than most are with two), but there are definitely ways to incorporate us. For example sci-fi games would have more futuristic mobility aids, you could add a whole new fighting style to the game that could be fun and interesting even for non-disabled players.

This does not apply to idle games or games that take place in a calmer in and less physically taxing environment however, games like “The Sims”, very honestly have no excuse for not including a wheelchair.

But, the need for inclusion in character customization aside, being able to turn off strobe lights and turn on captions should be the BARE MINIMUM (and audio descriptions should be as well, though I’m less knowledgeable about this type of aid). Having these settings should be the default, especially when it comes to large gaming companies that should honestly know better.

game companies should be fucking EMBARRASSED about being inaccessible. it should be mortifying to ship a game with shit captions or no UI scaling options or no option to disable flashing / strobing effects. games lauding their character customization should be laughingstocks for not including hearing aids or congenital disorders or prosthetic limbs. EA should be publicly fucking humiliated for the sims series being 23 goddamn years old and include cats and dogs and horses and werewolves and zombies and mermaids and star wars and not FUCKING WHEELCHAIRS.

[banrionceallach]

Unpopular opinion: All games should have the option to enable pausing.

And to save almost everywhere.

Yes even in soulslike games.

I am an adult who has a full time job and responsibilities. I get to play maybe an hour a week. I do not want to lose that hour of progress because devs decided 'pause' was not allowed in their game and I had sudden unexpected things come up that meant I had to quit the game without saving/leave it playing and hope enemies wouldn't respawn.

Also it would massively increase accessability. I have fully working non-injured hands and they still need a break after a tough boss fight. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for people with joint pain, arthritis, etc, etc.

[mintaii]

so all i've been doing is playing hades 2

[ablegaming]

Photosensitivity-safe games for the Nintendo Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance

I recently picked up an old Gameboy again (the original Gameboy Advance model to be specific) to see if my photosensitivity would fare better with a non-backlit screen… to my dismay I discovered that although the intensity of lighting effects is diminished there are still a lot of flashing animations that bother my eyes and give me headaches. I’ve been working on combing through the entire catalogue of games released for the Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance to find the most photosensitivity-safe games for us to play! None of the games on this list make use of any flashing animations.

For the record, I didn’t try to line this article up with the recent release of the Gameboy emulation on the Nintendo Switch Online, the timing was just a happy synchronicity. Unfortunately none of the Gameboy, Gameboy Color, or Gameboy Advance games that were recently added to the Nintendo Switch Online are photosensitivity-safe, they all make use of flashing light animations. Used Gameboys for sale can be found on eBay, at resale shops, thrift stores, and garage sales around the world.

Gameboy Dig Dug Hyper Lode Runner Megalit Motocross Maniacs (the new track record screen has flashing text, but at a fairly slow rate) Prince of Persia (the flickering candles are easier on the eyes on a non-backlit screen, also on Gameboy Color) World Bowling

Gameboy games can be played on Gameboy, Gameboy Pocket, Gameboy Light, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance Micro, Gameboy Advance SP, Super Gameboy adapter for Super Nintendo, and the Gameboy Advance adapter for the Gamecube.

Gameboy Color Frogger GBC Harvest Moon GBC (the sudden flash of the bright white segue screens between buildings/areas is way too too hard on the eyes on a backlit screen, but is fine on the Gameboy Color or original Gameboy Advance. Weeds disappear-flash briefly as you clear them from the field) Harvest Moon GBC 3 (the sudden flash of the bright white segue screens between buildings/areas is way too too hard on the eyes on a backlit screen, but is fine on the Gameboy Color or original Gameboy Advance. Weeds disappear-flash briefly as you clear them from the field) Pocket Bowling (press start quickly as the title screen has flashing text, the sudden flash of the bright white segue screens is hard on the eyes on a backlit screen or rom, but is fine on the Gameboy Color or original Gameboy Advance) Prince of Persia (the flickering candles are easier on the eyes on a non-backlit screen, also on Gameboy) NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant Road Rash (there are brief flashes of white screen between publisher intros, this isn’t an issue on non-backlit screens or you can look away for 10 seconds after powering the system on, additionally road lines may be dizzying) Triple Play Baseball 2001 (turn “cutscene movies” off to avoid a flashing sign after getting a homerun)

Gameboy Color games can be played on Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance Micro, Gameboy Advance SP, and the Gameboy Advance adapter for the Gamecube. Gameboy color games can also be played on the original Gameboy with a very limited color palette, but only the black Gameboy Color cartridges and Pokémon games will work, the see-through Gameboy Color cartridges will not work. See the “Dual Mode” column on this page for the full list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_Color_games

Gameboy Advance Chessmaster Classic NES: Dr. Mario (press start quickly as the title screen has some flashing colors, colorblindness may be an issue when playing on the non-backlit Gameboy Advance screen) Classic NES: Ice Climber (falling icicles are a little hard on the eyes on a backlit screen or rom, but they’re fine on the non-backlit original Gameboy Advance) Killer 3D Pool NHL 2002 (the goal siren light is hard on the eyes on a backlit screen or rom, but isn’t nearly as intense on the non-backlit original Gameboy Advance) Madden NFL 2005 Rebelstar: Tactical Command Scooby-Doo Super Monkey Ball Jr. Tetris Worlds (avoid looking directly at the shimmering star next to the currently selected option on the main menu, there are also some flames flickering in the background of the volcano level, otherwise the core gameplay is safe) Texas Hold ’Em Poker Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf 2002 (press start quickly as the title screen has flashing text) Top Gear Rally

Gameboy Advance games can be played on the Nintendo Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance Micro, Gameboy Advance SP, DS, DS Lite, and the Gameboy Advance adapter for the Gamecube.

If you know of any more photosensitivity-safe games for the Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance please leave a comment and let us know!

This post can also be read and listened to (text-to-speech) on my Medium page at: https://medium.com/@AbleGaming/photosensitivity-safe-games-for-the-nintendo-gameboy-gameboy-color-and-gameboy-advance-1cbeac012aee

[midautumngame]

In addition to the more typical volume control options, we have a host of accessibility features to allow you to play how you'd like! This includes being able to adjust the health and damage of both the player character and the enemies! Also, options to remap controls for more usability. Try them out for yourself!

Midautumn now available on Steam Early Access + a free demo!

[lornaka]

Dad