GASIG GDC San Francisco 2009
International Game Developers Association
Table of contents |
[edit] Miscallenous stuff to remember
[edit] Deadlines
As previously mailed on the games_access list, I'd like everyone to upload their proposed texts (using the template) no later than August 7, 12.00 PST (San Francisco time). We will start editing the final proposals then (Kevin and I).
If you have problems editing the wiki/forgot your user ID etc, it's OK to e-mail the text to thomas at the domain pininteractive.com. Please use the following header of the e-mail "GDC 2009 session" so I find it easily
(Final deadline is August 11 - I and Kevin need a few days to edit it all and Michelle need time to the final submission)
/Thomas
[edit] Important guidelines about writing
Don't forget to check out the Production and Programming submission samples and FAQ
For editors (Thomas and Kevin)
- Make a quick executive summary/flow chart of our sessions.
- Make a cohesive variety
[edit] Template
NOTE: As Michelle will be the one who will make the final submission there is no need for everyone to fill in all info in the template. The important stuff is the Session Description and the Takeway (see Important guidelines about writing above)
NOTE: if you have not presented before we will need your full contact information, otherwise it should already be in the GDC files. You can send that info to thomas at the domain pininteractive.com if you don't want to publish it here.
[edit] People
People interested in participating so far
Michelle (me) Mark Stephanie Thomas Richard Reid Eelke Kevin Barrie (Barrie -- email me off list for additional info) Eitan
Others? Dimitris? Giannis? Anyone else?
[edit] Session Title: Accessibility Arcade
[edit] Session Description
What topics will be the main focus of your talk? Please be specific by giving concrete examples of content. (400 words max)
So what EXACTLY does an accessible game look (or sound) like? Come find out at the Accessibility Arcade where attendees will have the chance to play a variety of games and use special game controllers designed for gamers with disabilities while discussing how the game was designed with the designers themselves.
Concise Presentation Description [provide a description of your presentation, as you would have it appear in the show program, in approximately 100 words. Write in third person, present tense.]:
So what EXACTLY does an accessible game look (or sound) like? The IGDA Game Accessibility Special Interest Group (SIG) brings back their popular “game accessibility arcade” from past conferences, including GDC 2006, where attendees will have the chance to play a variety of games and use special game controllers designed for gamers with disabilities. This session will be presented as “roundtables within a roundtable” – attendees will be encouraged to move about the room, try out the variety of games at each game station and discuss the game design with the creators of many of the games.
Intended Audience and Prerequisites [In 40 words or less, describe what section of our audience would best benefit from this session. Is prerequisite knowledge necessary for understanding the content of the session? Please write in third person, present tense.]:
Designers, programmers, and publishers interested in getting an opportunity to learn about accessible game titles through playing the titles while discussing them with the designers themselves.
Session Takeaway [In 40 words or less, describe what attendees will learn. Please write in third person, present tense.]:
Hand-on (or off, as the case may be) experience playing accessible games and knowledge about what it takes to create a mainstream game with accessibility features.
Extended Abstract:
- Note: The IGDA is sponsoring a special session called “Accessibility Idol” that will involve famous game designers presenting new game designs with accessibility principles in mind from the outset. Ernest Adams has confirmed and Keita Takahashi and others are interested in learning more before they make their final decision. In total we will have 4 designers involved and the session will run much like the show “American Idol” (only less acidic). Because of this session, we believe that GDC 2007 will have an increase of people interested in learning more about game accessibility. ***
- At GDC 2006, SIG members included a “game accessibility arcade” during designated break times for attendees (and attendees from different tutorials who were on break) to play some of the top accessible game titles. Due to the popularity of the arcade and the desire to reach more conference attendees during the main part of the conference, we are proposing a "roundtable within a roundtable" session where attendees can move about the room, playing accessible games and discussing their design with the creators of those games.***
The IGDA Game Accessibility Special Interest Group (SIG) brings back their popular “game accessibility arcade” from past conferences, including GDC 2006, where attendees will have the chance to play a variety of games and use special game controllers designed for gamers with disabilities. This session will be presented as “roundtables within a roundtable” – attendees will be encouraged to move about the room, try out the variety of games at each game station and discuss the game design with the creators of many of the games. Accessible Arcade Games will include Doom3[cc]; Terraformers; Strange Attractors; Destruction Derby; Drive; Sudo-san (Blind Accessible Sudoku); Demor; Universally Accessible Space Invaders; Audio Odyssey; Blind Guitar Hero, Gordon's Trigger Finger, and more!
Presentation Materials [List the elements you will you use to illustrate your talk, i.e., code samples, demos, MS Office, testimonials, video clips, etc.]
5-10 different games designed for gamers with disabilities that attendees will be playing.
[edit] Attendee Takeaway
What NEW information or knowledge will you share with the attendee, what will they gain, and/or how will they benefit by attending your session? (100 word max)
By trying accessible games, attendees will come away with an appreciation of what disabled gamers encounter and will see that it is possible to make games accessible while retaining the aspects of fun and challenge required for a successful game.
[edit] Speakers
Thomas Westin
Eitan Glinert
[edit] Session Title: Accessibility 101 crash course
[edit] Session Description
What topics will be the main focus of your talk? Please be specific by giving concrete examples of content. (400 words max)
Michelle's text to be inserted here
This talk provides a variety of easy changes to make your game more accessible and to reach a larger audience. Learn from what disabled gamers and developers are doing through modding your games or even injecting solutions which could have been done from the start instead!
One example is a deaf gamer who modified the music in Morrowind by swapping mp3 files to sounds with a lot of bass. Voilà, now he has gotten a haptic interface with the subwoofer, to feel when enemies are getting close!
Another example is the problems that color blind gamers may have with your games. Did you know that these problems are quite easy to fix and that will open your game up to a huge group of users?
A third example is an open source code library which can inject accessibility, such as slowing down the game for the mobility disabled. This type of change would be easy include from the start of development.
A top ten list of accessibility ideas will be presented, for example, the use of high-contrast modes and scalable fonts. This list gives a starting point to begin considering accessibility when developing a game.
Many more examples, concepts, and ideas will be shared at this session to get you a head start in expanding the market for your games, and gathering goodwill while doing so!
[edit] Attendee Takeaway
What NEW information or knowledge will you share with the attendee, what will they gain, and/or how will they benefit by attending your session? (100 word max)
Attendees will come away with a number of accessibility solutions which can be applied with little effort to reach more gamers.
[edit] Speakers
Thomas can talk here if no one else feels like it (used to do this kind of talk to my students anyway!)
[edit] Session Title: Accessibility Tech Talk (How to...)
[edit] Session Description
What topics will be the main focus of your talk? Please be specific by giving concrete examples of content. (400 words max)
Michelle's text to be inserted here
The focus of this talk is to highlight several successful game accessibility projects, providing the audience with some concrete technical details on how the problem of game accessibility was resolved.
Thomas Westin will talk about a coding framework with game accessibility implementation models (GAIM) captured as UML state diagrams. These are exported to XML to feed a Data Driven Finite State Machine which uses a dispatch table to define game engine methods to evaluate and execute. As such the GAIM is a high-level, implementation framework which can be shared across game engines, platforms and programming languages. A comparison study of accessibility features in AudioQuake, Half-life 2, Doom3[cc] and Terraformers is discussed. Finally, a prototype as proof of concept is shown. The presentation is based upon Thomas' master thesis in Computer and Systems science and his code library developed for the Independent Games Festival award winning game Terraformers.
Reid Kimball will discuss the work that was done on the Doom3 [CC] mod which was originally created so that deaf and hard of hearing players could 'see the sound' instead of hearing it. Reid will discuss the general principles of how the Dynamic Closed Captioning system works and how its open data driven structure enabled Doom3 to be translated by fans into any language, making it accessible to more markets. In detail, he will cover the priority queues, visual sound radar and use of text files.
Eelke Folmer will discuss the strategies used in creating Gordon's Trigger finger (A modification of Half-life 2 Deathmatch that can be played using only one button) and Blind Hero ( an accessible version of Guitar Hero for the blind). To reduce the amount of interaction to a one switch input tradeoffs have to be made, between cutting out interaction, automating interaction or using some scanning mechanism that allows for a larger amount of input to be provided. These tradeoffs may significantly alter gameplay and care must be taken that the game is still fun to play. To enable the blind to play Guitar Hero, visual feedback is translated into haptic feedback. Tradeoffs need to be made as our eyes can distinguish details at a much higher resolution than we are able to distinguish by touch. For both games we discuss what tradeoffs had to be made to make the game accessible.
[edit] Attendee Takeaway
What NEW information or knowledge will you share with the attendee, what will they gain, and/or how will they benefit by attending your session? (100 word max)
The presentation will help developers see that there are concrete solutions to the issue of game accessibility by providing some examples. Thomas Westin's work demonstrates that a general framework for accessibility is possible. Reid Kimball demonstrates that you can make an existing game accessible through the use of modding tools. Eelke Folmer shows that making games accessible requires tradeoffs and it is important to understand the effect of such a tradeoff on the gameplay as an accessible game first and foremost needs to be fun and enjoying to play.
< The following material provided by speakers - remove from final submision>
Thomas: The GAIM provides a framework to implement game accessibility. As FSMs are common in games it is easily adopted and should lower the resources needed and simplify the process of implementing accessibility. This is important as accessibility often competes with other features in games.
Reid (Just Thomas trying to write one up - please feel free to edit!): The Dynamic Closed Captioning system provides a solution to how games can be accessible for deaf or hard of hearing, as well as for gaming in loud or silent environments where sound is not possible to use.
Eelke: Making games accessible requires tradeoffs and it is important to understand the effect of such a tradeoff on the gameplay as an accessible game first and foremost needs to be fun and enjoying to play.
[edit] Speakers
Eelke Folmer Reid Kimball Thomas Westin
please add...
[edit] Session Title: Accessibility Community Talk
[edit] Session Description
What topics will be the main focus of your talk? Please be specific by giving concrete examples of content. (400 words max)
[edit] Attendee Takeaway
What NEW information or knowledge will you share with the attendee, what will they gain, and/or how will they benefit by attending your session? (100 word max)
[edit] Speakers
please add...
[edit] Session Title: Audio Based Game Design
[edit] Session Description
What topics will be the main focus of your talk? Please be specific by giving concrete examples of content. (400 words max)
Typically, audio is added after a game is designed. What if we were to consider ways to use audio as part of game play? Or… what if we had to rely solely on sounds for playing a game…? Let’s stretch our thinking in terms of utilizing audio to its fullest potential in casual games. Could casual games be made accessible to visually impaired gamers? Is there a viable untapped market here? We are going to close our eyes and tune up our ears by playing some audio based games. Then, we’ll open a fun, interactive brainstorming session for new ideas. There will be prizes and swag for the winners!
A concrete example of audio based game design is the Independent Games Festival award winning 3D game Terraformers. It can be played by sighted and blind, and includes a number of features to navigate and orient in a 3D world with sound alone. The game design is balanced betweens audio and graphics where some things are easier for sighted (e.g aiming with guns) while other is easier for blind (e.g land mines and keys are detected through 3D sound).
[edit] Attendee Takeaway
What NEW information or knowledge will you share with the attendee, what will they gain, and/or how will they benefit by attending your session? (100 word max)
Attendees will come away with a refreshed view of game design and new approaches to gameplay based on audio, as well as an enhanced awareness of accessible games and their current state in the industry.
[edit] Speakers
Greg Rahn
Thomas Westin
Eitan Glinert
[edit] Template
NOTE: As Michelle will be the one who will make the final submission there is no need for everyone to fill in all info in the template. The important stuff is the Session Description and the Takeway (see Important guidelines about writing above)
NOTE: if you have not presented before we will need your full contact information, otherwise it should already be in the GDC files. You can send that info to thomas at the domain pininteractive.com if you don't want to publish it here.
[edit] Name
Contact information
E-mail:
Phone number (including country code)
Address:
E-mail + Phone number can be sent to thomas at the domain pininteractive.com if you don't wish to publish it on this wiki
Speaker Biography
Tell us about your professional experience in the game industry
Speaker History
Tell us about past speaking engagements and the ratings you received
Session Description
What topics will be the main focus of your talk? Please be specific by giving concrete examples of content. (400 words max)
Attendee Takeaway
What NEW information or knowledge will you share with the attendee, what will they gain, and/or how will they benefit by attending your session? (100 word max)
Don't forget to check out the Production and Programming submission samples and FAQ
