[games_access] Peanuts from The Peanut Gallery - Top 10 Accessibility Features List

[Tim Chase]

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