[games_access] Polygon article & gamescom

[Thomas Westin]

Hi Barrie and others,

Yes, very nice article!

I agree that opening up parameters for users to tweak would be great, but some settings of parameters could brake the game. For instance, setting a value to float or integer could crash the game. Other issues could be setting a too high speed which could create bullet-through-paper effects with the physics engine (i.e. making objects go through walls etc). 

So yes, opening up parameters should be done, but exposing them requires good technical understanding of the end user (and could be a support nightmare). Of course, this could be handled by providing an accessible editor with restrictions on data types and ranges, but all possible combinations is really hard to test in practice. Again, this could be handled by having a huge disclaimer notice, saying that editing these settings is not supported, at your own risk etc. In Terraformers, we opened up a couple of parameters in a simple text file, with a notice of being careful, and that worked out quite well, i.e. not too many support issues (although some users have requested more tweak options). 

So, be selective in what parameters to expose, accompanied by a disclaimer and an accessible editor is what I would recommend.

And, no I will not be at Gamescom I’m afraid. 

Best regards,
Thomas

9Aug 2014 kl. 16:02 skrev Barrie Ellis <barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk>:

> Quite a few other game access bits and bobs here: http://switchgaming.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/game-accessibility-lucky-dip-and-mini.html - plus grumpiness. 
> 
> I feel that at the minute, in the field of commercial games, there's a few new successes with colour-blind modes, a few reduced control modes (FIFA for example), a few with decent reconfigurable controls, some subtitles done reasonably well..... I wonder why the simplest of fixes for off-line gaming: making game parameters available to users to tweak, is almost never seen.
> 
> In a car game, I want to be able to tweak the top speed of my car to what ever I want from 1mph (constant) to top speed with all the variations inbetween. I'd like to be able to do that for my choice of rivals too. This may be happening in F1 2014. We'll see....
> 
> In a sports game (and many others), I want to be able to tweak how passive-aggressive my opposing team/enemy is. I want to be able to make it easier to score/succeed. FIFA again has the ability to practice against a team and you can reduce the number of players on both teams. I'd like to be able to do that in the main game if it suits my abilities.
> 
> In a FPS, I'd like to be able to adjust my stamina/health from low to infinite.
> 
> These are the easiest things in the world to make available to a user. I'd love to know what good reason game developers have for choosing not to implement these, once they realise the potential benefits. For many, these are not cheats. They're just a way to play. I doubt it's even that tough to make free for all on-line areas where users can tweak games as they wish, but play within the confines of a group of friends they know and trust, perhaps of similar/matched abilities.
> 
> 
> It's cool that with the likes of the Titan One/Cronus adapters, we've quickly got amazing physical access possibilities now with modern game consoles (see this redux section: http://switchgaming.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Gaming%20Redux) although this adds a lot of expense and hassle. This is despite/because of Sony and Microsoft putting blocks on their machines for using alternative controllers. It's pretty shitty though that there's still so little flexibility in most commercial games. It's still poor that there's no easy way of finding out what games have accessibility features that may suit. I'm not sure where the answers are going to come from.
> 
> Barrie
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 9 August 2014 14:31, Ian Hamilton <i_h at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Nice Polygon article, loads of accessibility people in it:
> 
> www.polygon.com/features/2014/8/6/5886035/disabled-gamers-accessibility
> 
> Some good responses on twitter - "this matters so much" "such an important topic" "probably the best polygon article I've ever read" "I'll design my next game accessibly darn it" etc.
> 
> Also is anyone going to be at GDCE/Gamescom? I'll be there from Monday night to Thursday afternoon if anyone's going to be there and fancies a chat?
> 
> Ian
> 
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