[games_access] Game Accessibility Guidelines - Breakdown per Genre

[Dan Fischbach]

Hello all,
It looks like GAG is built on WordPress so it should be pretty easy to add
tags and categories as needed to help put some suggestions under various
genres of games.

If you'd like, get in touch and I'll be happy to start editing this.

As we know there are a wide range of visual impairments. Some barriers to
play may be tiny text, while others are more of an artistic choice made by
the developer and they didn't realize that this is a barrier to information
the visually impaired player needs and thus needs to work harder to obtain
this information versus a normal sighted player.

Some examples that we could specifically put in a Racing Game would be:

In our Racing Game the developer may have decided to not include any
on-screen GUI for our engine overheat status, gas, and speed levels. They
may have instead opted to show this via a render of the inside of the car
the player is controlling. (assuming first-person view here with hands and
steering wheel, etc. I'm thinking a more serious racing sim.) This display
can change based on the environment the player is racing in. The player may
lose sight of the readings of the meters or other things rendered. One
example of this would be if the player were driving through a forest where
the sun was shining brightly through the trees. Shadows from the trees and
bright sunlight would be changing the scene's lighting rapidly, possibly
causing the player to lose focus on this area and they wanted to check
their status.

Ideally though, the player shouldn't be focusing on this at all, but the
road.

I can see some audio features helping here. "Warn me when my engine is X%
close to exploding" seems like a viable, adjustable Options menu item. This
allows more skilled players to be free from distraction (Maybe they don't
care if their engine explodes) and helps those that would like to know,
whether they have some disability or not.

One option I would like to see in a racing game would be a track
highlighting option. This option would not be needed if the environment,
other cars, and lighting were fine, but sometimes players can get
disoriented as to where the track continues. I've personally experienced a
little disorientation in the newest Rainbow Road in Mario Kart 8
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1nR9usUAKo> as the track sometimes blends
into the background. The whole track doesn't have to be highlighted. This
reorientation can be done in the form of a "light path" or trail that's
active for a few seconds like in this UT2K4 example
<https://youtu.be/h-MrzmQEJhw?t=761>.

Dan Fischbach, Net+, MCP
W: danfischbach.com P: 609-458-7920
Proud NJIT (BS) and UCF/FIEA (MS) graduate
Please consider the environment before printing this email

On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 3:42 PM, Andreas Lopez <andreas.lopez93 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hey Steve and Tara,
>
> includification does the same as gameaccessibilityguidelines.com it just
> says how you can get various accessibility things per disability/impairment
> in there, not per game genre.
>
> I want to give filter options of real-life examples of how it could work
> in a RPG, versus how it would work in a Racing game. So a dev can be like
> "Okay I make a racing game, what can I / should I include?"
>
> So they would click on a filter 'Racing Game' or something and then it
> shows the various accessibility features possible for Racing Games. Sure,
> many are cross-genre, but we could specify the same accessibility feature
> with another example.
>
> Let's take the example of Assistive Steering / Controls.
>
> In a RPG it would be things like fast travel, toggle-walk, auto-move to
> POI (like modern MMOs feature), etc.
>
> However in a Racing game it would be automatic breaking, turning-aid,
> anti-skid, etc.
>
> It's the same accessibility feature, but needs to be utilized completely
> different, and even further the visually impaired could handle the RPG
> better than the Racing, because reflexes and reaction are less required (at
> least in the example of movement), so even to a degree the target group is
> different.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Andreas Lopez
>
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>
>
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