Hey, do you remember Sara from that Because Games Matter series we did last year?
You know, the one where she told that story about how games helped to save her vision from the effects of ocular albinism?
Well, we brought her back today to talk about a topic that we've not actually covered yet.
Accessibility.
♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM
Accessibility in games is sort of in Wild West territory right now.
The rules and the guidelines are still being written,
and the means for creation are still in their infancy.
We're only going to scratch the surface today,
and Sara wanted us to note that some of her ideas on
how to go about providing accessibility are
still hotly debated among the advocacy community.
But, it is a place to start.
So, today we are going to talk about why accessibility is so important,
even to non-disabled gamers,
and we're going to highlight some common solutions a developer might consider while designing.
The first thing everybody needs to understand about accessibility is a phenomenon from the real world known as the curb cut effect.
Curb cuts are those divots that you see or feel at many street corners, especially in cities.
Their original purpose was so that people in wheelchairs could cross the street without having to have their wheelchair lifted up or down off of a curb,
granting them increased mobility and independence.
But, it turns out curb cuts are actually useful to a lot of people:
That delivery driver with a wheeled cart, trying to move their goods off of a parked truck,
your neighbour, pushing a stroller on their morning walk,
even that annoying middle schooler with a skateboard who would otherwise face-plant right there on the sidewalk.
Curb cuts, like most accessibility features, may have been designed to help the disabled, but they tend to help everybody.
So what does this mean for somebody designing games?
It means that designing with the disabled in mind isn't dumbing down a title, or even wasted dev time.
Those quality of life options, UI improvements, subtitles and larger text don't just help your deaf and visually impaired fans to play.
Those accessibility options help everybody.
Being able to play on a less taxing difficulty mode helps those working parents who've only got
thirty minutes before bedtime to feel like a superhero.
They help that college kid who managed to rig up a ten inch CRT TV in his dorm to be able to read the words on the screen when he plays.
They help siblings of different ages play together when one of them doesn't yet have the necessary fine motor skills.
Heck, that's useful for grandparents and brand new gamers too.
Implementing good accessibility features can get you a whole bucket of goodwill, good press and fan loyalty.
It might even bring in new gamers who otherwise wouldn't have tried your game.
Of course, implementing accessibility options, like many other core features,
can get pricey if a developer only starts considering them late in the development cycle.
Even subtitles.
Now, those might seem like something that would be cheap to implement whenever,
but nothing is simple or cheap in games if it wasn't a design consideration from the outset.
Sara has nightmare stories about studios trying to implement adjustable text size at the last minute,
and their text just eating the screen, and messing up text box timers, and creating a whole host of problems,
which left those studios stuck with the terrible choice of either shipping a game that visually impaired folks literally cannot play,
or throwing a lot of time and money at the problem at the very tail end of production,
possibly even having to delay the release, which would create even more problems and costs.
But say we managed to avoid that fate. Say we do consider these things early.
What can we do that's both efficient from a developer perspective, and beneficial to everyone?
Well, let's start with that adjustable font size issue.
Collectable card games tend to be the biggest offenders when it comes to tiny text.
Of course, all kinds of games need to make sure that their UI can scale or work at larger sizes without obscuring or breaking the visuals,
but there's a potential unique design solution for digital CCGs in particular that Sara hasn't yet seen implemented.
Why not try making your digital cards' text scrollable?
Granted, that solution won't work with physical TCGs, which are still a struggle to play even with magnifying lenses,
but why not try it in the digital ones?
Sara would love to be proven wrong on that.
Then there's audio.
For your players out there with a hearing impairment,
or just anyone enjoying your game while jamming to their own tunes of choice,
remember to subtitle not just your speech but your sound effects,
especially if those sounds are important to game play and don't come with a visual cue.
Or, I mean, have you tried adding a visual cue?
Those tend to be a pretty great example of that curb cut effect.
They'll help to make sure that more players, regardless of physical ability, don't get stuck somewhere just because they missed something.
But the biggest gripe that most disabled players share is how quick time events are managed.
Most quick time events are implemented pretty poorly to begin with,
but a disability can make those things ten times worse.
As a rule of thumbs, pun fully intended (come at me), keep button mashing out of your quick time events.
A single sustained button press can carry just as much emotional tension,
especially if there's a bar filling up over an on screen prompt to hold it just a little longer.
and, because QTEs are almost entirely exclusive to single player games,
this is absolutely a place where changing difficulty or sensitivity,
or even having the option to turn quick time events off,
can save people a lot of aggravation.
Button mashing is just very difficult for people with certain common mobility issues,
and, in most cases where a button mash is demanded,
what the characters on screen are doing is actually more akin to holding anyway.
Hanging from a ledge, pushing a heavy object, keeping your guard up?
These are actions that require constant force, not rapid repetitive movement.
As a general rule, the more options the better.
All it takes is an extra tab in an options menu and flagging some stuff under the hood, and you lose nothing for it.
Sure, a lot of people won't use subtitles, or won't want key locations to be highlighted.
but some people don't want inverted Y axis or auto saves either, and those options are basically standard now.
If you, as a developer, can make something an option that can be turned on or off, do it.
And if you really think that doing so will kill the game's difficulty experience somehow,
just warn the player that they may not be able to earn achievements or something,
but don't prevent them from playing just because you think custom mouse sensitivity makes you OP.
And, as long as I'm pushing hard for more options,
always, always make the options menu one of the first things your player sees.
Preferably on your starting screen.
Yes, even before the big opening cinematic.
Some folks might need those subtitles or larger text options so that they can actually enjoy that opening cut scene of yours.
Oh, and when you're setting up difficulty levels, maybe try naming your least challenging one "story mode" or something?
Something that signifies that the player is playing for the experience rather than the challenge?
Terms like "super easy" or "baby mode" are kind of demeaning.
Remember, a lot of people picking that mode are families or busy parents.
Why alienate those people?
Just like that cut curb in the sidewalk, good accessibility is something that you completely forget exists
until you hit a corner without one, and face plant on that sidewalk.
Thank you, Sara, for helping us with this episode, and thank you for watching.
We'll see you next week.
♪ Outro Music: “Wii - Mii Channel” by Super Guitar Bros