Top Ten

International Game Developers Association

Table of contents 1 Goals 2 Top Ten 3 Brainstorming ideas 3.1 From Phil Vlasak 3.2 From Reid Kimball 3.3 From Barrie Ellis 3.4 From David Lant 3.5 From Tim Chase 4 Some unedited Stuff

[edit] Goals

The goal of this Game Accessibility Top Ten list is to catalog the top ten items a game developer can do

1. with minimal effort on their part and
2. without greatly hampering or intruding on general gameplay

Note that some of these items are more applicable to certain types of games over other types of games. However, the underlying ideas behind them should be applicable to most types of games.

[edit] Top Ten

Most up to date version here: http://tim.thechases.com/top10_2.pdf

1. allow all controls (mouse, keyboard, gamepad) to be remapped
2. add closed-captioning for all dialog and important sound-effects
3. provide documentation in an accessible format (HTML or plain-text)
4. provide assist modes (auto-targeting, training options, etc)
5. provide a broad range of difficulty levels from incredibly simple to difficult
6. make interface fonts scalable
7. allow for high-contrast color schemes
8. add audio tags to all significant elements (actors, doors, items, resulting actions, etc) in true spatial 3D
9. allow for a varied range of control over play-speed
10. announce accessibility features on packaging

[edit] Brainstorming ideas

some ideas here

[edit] From Phil Vlasak

• coordinates of your location. A key to tell you where you are at in feet, meters or sectors etc. and the direction you are facing, as in North.
• Distance to objects in front of you. Describes how far objects buildings and openings are away from you.
• Weapon pointed in the direction you are facing. Lock the weapon straight in front so when you turn it also does.
• Different walking sounds when changing locations. If you are on a path then you should hear when you leave it for some other area, or a key to describe the ground that you are standing on.
• auto range finding. When you face an opponent close up, you do not have to adjust the altitude of your weapon. This would not apply to turn based games or to long range weapons.
• indicator when nearing an object or wall. Voice or sound set off when within a short distance to an object or wall to give you enough time to turn stop or pick it up.
• Description of weapon success and failure. If you hit your opponent a change in its sound or sound of the weapon hitting your opponent. A description of which direction you are off if you miss, for example shot was too far left and the sound of your weapon missing. A different sound or description when stopping or killing your opponent.
• Sound glossary. A way to review the important sounds in the game with a description of what they represent.
• Alternative weapon firing key. A way to specify which key you want to use to fire your weapon, for example, control, space bar, or enter key.
• Opponent sounds. Make sure your opponents make a sound, either by talking walking, or having an engine or other sound that is unique enough to be identified as an opponent and located by adjusting the sound of the opponent based on its distance and direction facing.

[edit] From Reid Kimball

• closed captioning for all dialog and sound effects
• customizable HUD interface in terms of text size, font, colors used. Comes with preset color schemes and high contrast schemes. Think of it as a windows theme, when chosen changes the look and feel of the interface.
• computer AI driven difficulty settings. The AI collects various stats about the players performance and scales the difficulty in real time. This will allow the game to tailor it's difficulty to a hardcore player or one that may have slower response times to the action.
• Always present information and puzzles in several different ways. Word problems can be hard to read and comprehend for some. Along with a word problem, provide visuals. With a visual puzzle, provide written instructions, auditory feedback, etc. The more types of feedback and information the better.
• Design an optional context sensitive control scheme. A game might have 10 different functions assigned to 10 different buttons. To minimize this, those functions might be accessed by fewer buttons and only when a certain situation is satisfied. Example: Instead of the Open door button and the look at pictures button, one button called "action/interact" will change it's function whether the player is near a door or picture.

Number 10 should be something like:

10. Show on your game packaging material that you offer accessibility features. If you close caption the game, use the [CC] symbol. Specify whether it is subtitled only, sfx only or both. If you game has other accessibility features, use icons to indicate their presence. Many people who have a disability have no way of know if a game will be playable by them until they buy the game. If it is not playable due to a lack of accessibility features, they are not able to return the game and get their money back.

-Reid

[edit] From Barrie Ellis

• Volume controls. Should enable Individual volume controls over MUSIC and SFX from OFF to full volume. These should take effect over the entire game, menus included. These can benefit deaf and learning disabled gamers.
• User definable controls. Ideally featuring the ability to map multiple controls to individual buttons, rapid fire (if appropriate) and ability to use digital controls to operate analogue controls.
• Broad difficulty level options. Perhaps ranging from 1-10, 1 being the easiest, 10 the hardest. Level 1 should seem be extremely easy for the majority of gamers. Games that have lives or time limits could offer a wide range of choices here too.
• Subtitles for dialogue and sound effects.
• Trainer/help modes. Perhaps an option you can turn on that 'holds your hand' through a game, and points out various features to make them easier to understand.
• Easy to navigate menus. Quick start for a game, minimal number of controls necessary to navigate.
• More spoken text. Option for all text to be read out loud.
• Speed control over game. Variations from very slow to normal.
• Thought for partially sighted gamers (e.g. adjustable text size / colour scheme etc).
• Simplified control modes. Simplified controls for gamers unable to use many controls.

The Unique Design Challenge of Pinball Simulations is an interesting article ([1]). Pinball Simulations seem like one of the most obvious genres of games that can be made highly accessible for many disabled gamers. Off the top of my head:

1. Game speed control. From VERY slow to how ever fast the designer wishes. 2. User-definable controls with the ability to mask multiple buttons to a single control. There's no reason why START, the plunger, LEFT flipper and RIGHT flipper couldn't all be operated by a single button. 3. Gap adjustment for how widely the flippers are spaced apart. Or alternatively, bounce pins for the gutters (not sure on the terms, but something to help stop the ball going out of play so easily). 4. 3D sound that can be exagerated to aid partially sighted/blind gamers. 5. Simple, clear menus that can be spoken. 6. Simplified graphics modes. E.g. just the outlines of the playing field. Perhaps with a line thickness control. 7. Variety of viewing angles, including one that tracks the ball at various overhead distances. 8. Wide difficulty level settings (choice of balls, ease of play).

[edit] From David Lant

• Add customisable input devices. I.e. choice of mouse, keyboard, joystick, game pad etc. In adding this choice, all game functions must be available through the chosen device. That is, if I choose to use a keyboard to play the game, I also expect to be able to use the keyboard to navigate the menus and other game settings screens. Mixing and matching could also be available. E.g. mouse and keyboard. Whether this is done as a user configurable feature, or simply making sure that each game supports multiple input devices simultaneously, it is important to ensure that the player isn't restricted to only one device. People with motor difficulties might have no problem following a visual cue on the screen, but find moving a joystick much easier than holding a mouse.

• Provide audio feedback for all game vents, including menu and settings options. This could be user configurable again, such as toggling either audio prompts or signature sounds. As long as the manual makes it clear what the sounds mean, I don't necessarily require human speech for every option.

• The above brings to mind another fairly important point. Make the manual accessible. Text, or even better, HTML format documentation, so that visual and non-visual accessibility aids can be employed. HTML has the advantage that many web browsers already include accessibility features. AS long as the document is built in accordance with recognised HTML standards, it could be a zero overhead solution.

• Offer time compression or stretching capability. That is, for people with cognitive, physical or sensory disabilities, it may be necessary to allow the game to be played at a slower speed. Equally, some kinds of events, which would be visually quite stimulating, but audibly pretty uneventful, could be sped up in order to move the action on a bit.

• Ensure the player's game focus is configurable. By that, I mean allow the object or objective in the game to be set such that various abilities can perceive it properly. E.g. for targeting, add audio or high-contrast cues. For points on a track, or the track itself, do the same. When the game changes state, such as reaching a level or changing location, indicate this with something that various ability types can detect. It's no good if you're chasing an invisible animal through a forest, if there is no visual way for deaf players to follow it. So have it make visible footprints. Equally, don't just make visual footprints, add sounds so that visually impaired people could follow too.

[edit] From Tim Chase

• scaleable/selectable font sizes and colors (perhaps with selectable background colors to set your own contrast). Maybe even chose the font face
• make use of true 3d positional audio rather than just panning
• audio-tag all important objects?
• include closed-captioning for all dialog, and optionally for events

[edit] Some unedited Stuff

From: Tim Chase <agdev@thechases.com> Add To Address Book Subject: Format for "top 10"? To: hinn@uiuc.edu

Michelle,

You had mentioned wanting it in PDF, but what sorta paper layout?

 8.5"x11"?  bookmark profile?  half-sheet (5.5"x8.5")?  Slightly 

smaller? half-legal (7"x8.5")? What's your pleasure? :)

I was playing around with a few layout ideas over the weekend, but without knowing what sorta target I'm aiming for, it's a little harder :) Bookmarks were a tad small...putting such small typefaces isn't exactly accessible to those with poorer vision. What a bad example that would be...an inaccessible list of ways to make things more accessible :)

> So...we should probably bring this up at the next meeting, eh? > :) Any tentative top list list ready to look at?

I've got it at home on my iBook. I'll see if I can't get it posted on the wiki today or tomorrow for folks to peruse/comment/edit/revise/kvetch/whatever :)

I've wanted to bring it in to work recently to install Linux on it (thanks to the fat T1 pipe here at work, which beats the pants off dialup at home), so tomorrow's as good a day as any.

I like the idea of either half of either a standard 8.5x11 or legal 8.5x14 which should nicely hold the top ten on one side. As for the other side, it could either be blank or include further details on implementation ideas or the like. Can't go too verbose though--it's not a disserataion. :) While I like the look of half-legal, it can be a pain to laminate (v) though, depending on the size of your laminate (n). (you can burn a sheet of 8.5x11 laminate for each one...though if you've got an industrial-sized laminating machine, you can fit more on a page)

-t

Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2005 09:55:53 -0500 From: Tim Chase <agdev@thechases.com> Add To Address Book Subject: [games_access] "Top 10" list for GDC To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List <games_access@igda.org>

I've updated the "Top 10" page with what I feel to be a good list, though as usual, comments from the peanut gallery are always welcome :)

You should be able to find the online copy at

http://www.igda.org/wiki/index.php/Top_Ten

but for you who are impatient like myself:

   1. allow all controls (mouse, keyboard, gamepad)

to be remapped

   2. add closed-captioning for all dialog and important

sound-effects

   3. provide help files in an accessible format

(HTML or plain-text)

   4. provide variable degrees of aiming

assistance/auto-targeting

   5. provide a broad range of difficulty levels from

incredibly simple to difficult

   6. make interface fonts scalable
   7. allow for high-contrast color schemes
   8. add audio tags to all significant elements (actors,

doors, items, resulting actions, etc) in true spatial 3D audio

   9. allow for time-scaling
  10. one more idea here

I'm still looking for a good candidate for #10, my first though is to make it something like "get out there and do what you can from this list to make a difference". A list of ideas is nice, but not doing any of them fails to benefit anybody.

Additionally, I'm taking suggestions for the format in which to put it. A little off-list dialog with Michelle seemed to show that while bookmarks are nice, fitting all these ideas onto a bookmark requires a fairly small font. Don't want to make our "how to be more accessible" list hard on those with poor eyesight

) While some of us have minimal problems with 7-point font, I'm

sure most folks would smack me for trying that stunt. A full 8.5"x11" piece of paper was a bit large, hard to fill, and kinda unwieldy in general. My favorite ideas so far are half-sheets of paper...either of regular 8.5"x11" or of legal 8.5"x14", making the final result 5.5"x8.5" or 7"x8.5". I like the half-a-regular-sheet for the simplicity, but I like the half-a-legal-sheet for the asthetic dimensions (it looks and feels more like a "reference card" sort of sheet)

Comments, suggestions, ideas, etc. are all welcome. Hey, it's a wiki...you can even tweak it yourself :)

From: "Barrie Ellis" <barrie.ellis@oneswitch.org.uk> Add To Address Book Subject: [games_access] Peanuts from The Peanut Gallery - Top 10 Accessibility Features List To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access@igda.org>

Hi Tim,

Good work. A few questions and thoughts:

> 1. allow all controls (mouse, keyboard, gamepad) > to be remapped

Don't know quite how to word it, but it would also be very helpful if multiple functions could be remapped to individual buttons. E.g. with pinball, being able to make one button act as both flippers and the plunger can be very helpful. Perhaps, "...with the facility to map multiple functions to any button if required.".

> 2. add closed-captioning for all dialog and important > sound-effects > 3. provide help files in an accessible format > (HTML or plain-text)

Great, but what about console games? Perhaps on-line, downloadable instructions in HTML / plain-text?

> 4. provide variable degrees of aiming > assistance/auto-targeting

What about making this broader, as this sounds targetted (forgive the pun limping away) at FPS. What about simply "provide assist modes or training options", as this would cover all.

> 5. provide a broad range of difficulty levels from > incredibly simple to difficult > 6. make interface fonts scalable > 7. allow for high-contrast color schemes > 8. add audio tags to all significant elements (actors, > doors, items, resulting actions, etc) in true > spatial 3D audio

> 9. allow for time-scaling

Not sure what this means. Would this be the same as "Speed Control options"?

> 10. Reid's suggestion of Accessibility symbols/info on packaging and > promo web-sites?

As for the format, what about an A4 page split into two halves. One being in an Inaccessible format, and the other in a more accessible format?

The inaccessible Top 10 could have a mix of blurred writing, obscure foreign text, tiny or squashed/stretched fonts, nasty colour combinations such as yellow text on white.

The accessible Top 10 could be clear text (e.g. Arial font size 12 or bigger), black on white, with a web-link for the Top 10 list in greater detail, with a symbol / photo or two to emphasise what the list is about?

A4 would be easy to photocopy/print out from hard copies distributed at GDC, but I think we should also get an version on line that people can spread by downloading, e-mailing, and printing straight out.

Cheers,

Barrie

From: Tim Chase <agdev@thechases.com> Add To Address Book Subject: Re: [games_access] Peanuts from The Peanut Gallery - Top 10 Accessibility Features List To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List <games_access@igda.org>

Barrie,

It's a good thing I like peanuts :*)

> Don't know quite how to word it, but it would also be very > helpful if multiple functions could be remapped to individual > buttons. E.g. with pinball, being able to make one button act > as both flippers and the plunger can be very helpful. > Perhaps, "...with the facility to map multiple functions to > any button if required.".

Some games have provided this by accident (a tomb-raider game, IIRC, where I accidently mapped "action" and "jump" to the same key which prevented me from instantiating any "actions" because Lara would jump, misaligning with the target switch when the "action" triggered). It usually takes a great deal of intention to do this (meaningfuly). Pinball is a great example of an anomily...most games I've played would be irksome (to say the least) if things got mapped in pairs. However, by leaving it as a generic "allow all controls to be remapped", that can be left open.

> Great, but what about console games? Perhaps on-line, > downloadable instructions in HTML / plain-text?

Sounds good to me :) I'll genericify it a bit to "documentation", not just "help files"

> What about making this broader, as this sounds targetted > (forgive the pun limping away) at FPS. What about simply > "provide assist modes or training options", as this would > cover all.

Another excellent suggestion.

>> 9. allow for time-scaling > > Not sure what this means. Would this be the same as "Speed > Control options"?

yes, that's sorta what I was getting at. I'll change it to "Speed Control" unless someone can come up with something that makes it obvious what we're trying to get at here. The ability to speed-up or slow-down the game to adapt to players' reaction/cognition speeds.

> As for the format, what about an A4 page split into two > halves. One being in an Inaccessible format, and the other in > a more accessible format?

(the mathematician in me loves the beauty of the A5/A4/A3/... system) A5 (half an A4) falls between my two candidates...half a "regular" and half a "legal" sheet, and would be about the size I'm aiming for. I guess it would depend on what support & paper are available on whatever printer Michelle (or another IGDA rep, whoever would be printing them) has on hand. The accessible/inaccessable is a nice idea. I think I'd go front/back rather than side-by-side. Any other thoughts on this? Brilliant idea or bogus idea?

> A4 would be easy to photocopy/print out from hard copies > distributed at GDC, but I think we should also get an version > on line that people can spread by downloading, e-mailing, and > printing straight out.

Well, since I'll be shipping the result to Michelle in PDF, it's easy to post online too :) Additionally, the raw fodder is on the wiki. I can crank out a web-page and/or plain-text version of matters too if folks wanted to email/link them around.

Thanks again,

-tim