Accessibility

       I am doing a podcast with my friends about games (check out The Adventure Mechanics here) and I decided that I need to try for accountability on actually releasing a game. To that end, I'm going to go through the development process to release a game. Here is the transcript from the fourteenth episode on accessibility and including some in your game:

 

 Welcome to another Side Quest for The Adventure Mechanics.  I'm Chandler.  Today, I wanted to spend some more time talking about another topic that we brought up in our Deadbolt episode; Accessibility.  The core of accessibility is making the game available to the widest number of people possible.

This isn't the same as approachability, however.  This is, you know, making the mechanics and gameplay clear and understandable.  There is a case to be made that accessibility and approachability are, in fact, the same thing, but I don't think they are.  It is possible to make a game's controls and visuals accessible to everyone, yet still be obtuse and have topics that make the game almost completely unapproachable to most people that try to play it.  A walking simulator that tackles tough topics, like a person's role in society or one's own mortality would be a good example of what I'm talking about.  If you think I'm making a distinction without a difference, let me know in the comments.

With that caveat out of the way, let's talk about accessibility.  I know this can be a somewhat contentious topic, with many erroneously claiming that making things more accessible will somehow compromise the developer's original vision.  I'm going to state right now that this is nothing more than a red herring.  As the industry currently stands, there is nothing preventing a person, company, or entity from making a game that only people in peak physical and mental condition can play.  Flashing lights, quick time events that demand millisecond reaction times and more can all still be developed.  The fact that we don't see many commercial games that do this is rather telling, however.  There isn't much incentive to do so, outside an intentional or artistic statement of some sort.

Moreover, those who are arguing that making a game more accessible only diminishes their experience in the game are arguing in bad faith.  The fact that they are arguing that a game can make them feel lesser somehow if it includes things like a difficulty slider or a color blind mode, indicates that they are projecting onto their hobby far too much.  Developers are more than capable of both including modes or features to allow those with disabilities to play and enjoy the game and not ruining their vision for the game.  Sometimes those features added even add to the game and make it more enjoyable to play, such as the high color blind mode in Fortnite.  Blending in using ridiculous skins may have been an unexpected feature in the game, but not everyone was capable of seeing them.  The fact that color blind mode began to be used by those without colorblindness to combat the abuse was just a happy side effect. Having a hard game for the sake of being hard is one thing.  Doing so to make players with fragile egos feel better is a whole other ball of wax, though.  You can add in, or exclude, features to cater to both your goal of the game and include more people as well.

So what do I mean by putting in features?  It could be something as simple as having textures or patterns to go along with colors so that players with color blindness can play your game.  It won't cost much more in terms of design time and you aren't limiting your game to those who can see colors the way you intended.  In this example, if color is paramount AND you can't put in a pattern as it would ruin your aesthetic, just be absolutely aware that you're cutting out potentially up to ten percent of the population with a bad implementation of your aesthetic.  In indie game terms, ten percent more or less sales could mean the difference between a successful release and failing as a development company.

Now, that's not to say that your implementation will be so bad that color blind people won't be able to play your game at all, but I use it to illustrate a point.  Disabilities, such as color blindness, low vision, and deafness are all things that you at a minimum consider while designing.  It doesn't take much to walk through what you can accommodate and what you cannot in your game.  Is a quick-time event really the best way to get the player to feel that emotion, or can you put it into a cut scene?  Is it really that hard to put in closed captioning into your cut scenes?  These are the type of questions that you should be asking as you design.  If you are adding these in at the end of your development, you are too late.  A bit of foresight will do wonders to make sure that your game can be played by as many people as possible.

As I point out ways to change your game, notice that I haven't touched on anything that changes the difficulty of the game.  At all.  That's because I'm just looking at the low hanging fruit.  With accessibility in mind, you can go to town and tune your game into a game anyone can play.  Or not.  It's entirely up to you how much effort you put into including everyone.  As you design your game, however, remember that all design changes that you make can be a barrier you're putting in for someone that wants to play your game.  I, personally, don't want to be responsible for causing someone to have a seizure, so I don't include many rapidly flashing colors in my games.

So far, I have only pushed for accessibility from the money perspective.  Let's say that you don't care if many, if any, play your game.  You just want to make it.  Good on you.  I get the feeling.  You should still at least look at making your game at least somewhat accessible.  Good art strikes a chord with those that engage with it, and not everyone is you.  Art games have a different audience, even if that audience is a population of one.  Getting your vision or point across to that one person is still the point of an art game.  Making a game accessible will only help you get that vision across.  It's still worth spending time to consider things that make your game easier to engage with.  Like a handrail on a ramp, not everyone will need them.  Those that do will certainly appreciate it, though.

Obviously, this is a deep topic and can take a developer deep down a rabbit hole trying to accommodate everything possible.  I am not advocating for that here, but I do want to bring it up, since whether you like it or not, putting accessible parts into your game will change the way a non-trivial amount of players view it.  When I playtest my tabletop games, if my prototype is not color blind friendly, I don't have nearly as many play testers as I would otherwise.  It may be shallow of me to say it, but losing those play testers makes my game objectively worse.  Not only do I lose their input, which could be the change I need to take my game from good to great, but I am also souring the well to be able to use them in the future.  That's a straight up lose-lose for me.  Your experiences may vary, but I would be surprised if you didn't run into at least one person that was disabled in some way in your playtesting group.

This is absolutely not all that I could talk about in terms of accessibility, but I feel like I have done at least a good introduction to the topic.  As always, if you want to talk about it more, think I missed something, or just want to comment on this episode, leave a comment on this episode or reach out to me on Twitter.  My handle there is @jcsirron.  I'm still Chandler and thank you for listening to this Side Quest.