[games_access] Retro Remakes 2006 - Game Reviewers Needed!

[Reid Kimball]

I tried out about 8 of them,

berzerkerbotz
firestart
ghost busters
panther
super mario land plus
star wars
the goonies
three dck

berzerkerbots:
did not seem to be accessible, skipped

star wars:
I don't have a head tracker but even with the mouse and one button
clicks it was really fun. The production values are impressive in my
opinion.

ghost busters:
did not seem to offer any accessibility features (skipped)

panther:
crashed and skipped

super mario land plus:
could not figure out how to get past the scrolling opening title
screen. skipped.

the goonies:
crashed and skipped

threedck:
This one has a lot of potential it seems after playing with it for a
mere 3 minutes. It presents a very challenging interface and tries to
make it work for one switches. It also includes a voice synthesizer to
read instructions, though it only read the first sentence of each
screen in the control setup wizard.

firestart:
this one really impressed me and has a lot of potential I think. It's
an FPS that works with one mouse and two buttons (though could work
with one). They can make it a one button game if it was context
sensitive. If my crosshair is hovering over a door, it should open
when I left click rather than shoot my weapon. If the crosshair is
over an enemy, then it could shoot the weapon. Note that the crosshair
is separate from the mouse cursor. The mouse cursor is moved by the
user into different areas of the screen to move their character
through the 3d world. Moving the cursor to the top middle of the
screen will move the character forward. Moving it to the bottom middle
will make the character walk backward. Left top will turn left and
right top of the screen will turn right. Moving the bottom left will
strafe left and bottom right will strafe right. It sounds confusing,
but it actually works better than I expected.

I have some suggestions for improvement.
1. In the game, right clicking opens doors. As I describe above, all
actions could be done with one mouse button if the game recognized
context senstive events.

2. I would like to see my mouse movements restricted to a smaller area
of the screen, rather than the whole screen. Currently, I have to make
a lot of wide movements to make my char move.

3. Add analog stick-like sensitivity to the movement of my char. If my
mouse cursor is at the top middle of the screen, my char moves forward
at full speed. If the cursor is lower, more towards the center of the
screen but not quite, my char could slowly walk forward. Same effect
for turning. If my cursor is slightly off center  towards the upper
right, then I should turn slowly to the right. Current setup has an
all or nothing feel to movement.

All in all, I'm very happy with Firestart, I've never seen an FPS that
could be played with a single mouse. I'd love to see this control
scheme used for a console FPS game. With Microsoft's XNA just
released, someone could program the X360 controller to work in that
fashion. Hmmmm...

-Reid



On 8/31/06, Barrie Ellis <barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk> wrote:
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> Yes, I shall be writing up thoughts on the competition entries - but I would
> really appreciate the thoughts and suggestions  of others...
>
>
> From:
> http://www.game-accessibility.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=122
>
> The Retro Remakes 2006 Competition closes tonight. As I speak 60+ games have
> been uploaded to www.retroremakes.co.uk  - Now it's time to play!
>
>
> It would be very arrogant of me to say whether or not these games are
> accessible or not without consulting disabled gamers and others interested
> in this field.
>
> So... As the games become available from tomorrow, I would love to hear
> people's thoughts.
>
> Please feel free to post on this forum, to e-mail me at
> barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk , or to e-mail the IGDA's Game Accessibility
> SIG e-mail list at games_access[at]igda.org.
>
> More soon...
>
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>
>