So im working on a larger post about Cognitive Dissonance, So this week im going to have a quick chat about resources that are about accessibility in games.
Firstly when thinking about accessibility we tend to think about mobile constraints, and by mobile constraints I don't mean how many bars I have while trying to write this blog post. And while mobile issues are 100% something we should be looking at, as able to button mash or have the finger dexterity of the likes of Daigo is something that should not be required to get into games, there are other issues to be looked at such as; Cognitive ,Vision, Hearing and even Speech.
The #a11y has been created to link accessibility designers together, this isn't really aimed at game designers but a lot of their principles and discussions can be used in their spirit. It seems quite popular having many tweets by mostly unique posters everyday. It currently has, at time of writing, 976 (including me) followers on Linked-in and over 10.k posts on Instagram.
CIPT
The team over at Can I Play That have some excellent articles giving insight to how games are played for example, Christy Smith breaks down how they physically play games as someone with visual impairments. This is a fascinating read that can be read here: LINK
It talks about what kind of set up someone like Christy needs just to play games, and how even things like controllers can be an issue.
Their website: https://caniplaythat.com Their Twitter: https://twitter.com/CanIPlayThat
One Odd Gamer Girl
Oneoddgamergirl.net who is part of the "can I play that" team runs her own blog that reviews games from a bit more a expressive viewpoint in her own blog posts. Its good to read her work and think of people with difficulty as real people rather then just things that need a special mode or a charity case. It can be a little hard to read, emotionally speaking as there is some information about drug abuse , dealing with addiction and depression . But if you are looking for a raw view of something that is sometimes political charged then it is really worth a read.
G.A.G
While it dons't really go into the feelings http://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/ works as an amazing checklist and really is a good first call when looking into making sure your game is friendly. This used in conjunction with canIplaythat can be very powerful, it brakes tasks down into level of difficultly to implement so it can highlight things that you can make your games on the whole better, not just more accessible .
G.D.C Youtube
GDC's Youtube page has a few videos about the topic. The playlists about design and UX are good points of call and "Baked In accessibility: How features were approached in Borderlands 3" is an excellent video and what spurned me to write this blog post.
Dominos pizza LLC vs Robles
Another good read to look at is the Dominos pizza LLC vs Robles case where Guillermo Robles sues the pizza giant after not being able to order food on their website or app despite using screen-reading software. This could hint at games that do not offer such acceptances could face. So not only could this help people, but may become a legal requirement.
With a more video game related topic, looking at PS4's Spiderman by Insomniac Games is a cool place to start, they have tons of options from bigger subtitles , replacing button mashing selections with a hold or skipping puzzles entirely. Vivek Gohil article talks about this in depth and can be read here: LINK
Final Take Away
Some things that can improve accessibility can be quick and easy to implement and will widen your audience for little cost. Others will just improve your game for everyone and if thought about during pre-production can be added right away .
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