22nd May 2018 - Games with Disabilities

Today's Topic - 22nd May 2018

Submitted by @Julian

Would you still game with a physical disabillity? To split this up a bit:
Write if you would still game if you were A) blind, B) had no arms or C) had no fingers.

Also: Do you think games are accessible enough and can you come up with ways to make games more accessible?

Emms - Yesterday at 10:37 PM
It would really depend considering there are many types of controllers and such which work for the right people, there is not much, but it is out there, but in my opinion, it's kind of accessible, if you want to consider what platforms or so, but being blind would have some really specific, not being able to hear could work out with subtitles, if you have no hands and such, that would be a harder solution, but coming up with something would work, like with eyetrackers, which could work, but there are many ways it could work and so forth. I think there should be more solutions to people with disabilities

Space Tacos - Yesterday at 10:42 PM
It all depends on the disability, I guess. But it's overall very tough to understand the experience of lacking something you have. So I'd rather not talk as if I can would know that. Being blind has been one of my primary fears ever since my eyesight became deteriorating, and I imagine I just wouldn't be interested in even trying to play. But I've seen people who play stuff like Halo and rhythm games off of audio cues, so what do I know? Maybe once you get to that point, it doesn't feel as disadvantageous and/or impossible to play blind.

But nowadays there are so many ways of communicating input, playing with one hand or even no hands is a definite possibility I can imagine. And I'm pretty glad that things are shaping up on this front with special controllers, rebindable buttons, major developers being interested in this area.

TheSlyBrit [EU - PC] - Yesterday at 10:44 PM
If I was blind, no. If I had no arms, yes because you can totally learn to play with your toes/mouth on a special controller. There's a dude with no arms that uses a mouth controller. No fingers is basically the easy mode of being disabled. Yeah, it'd be harder but you could theoretically still use those push keyboard things.

I've actually tried games that are audio only, they are...really bad to say the least. Deaf people don't have it great on the gaming front.
GirlRoss(DoF) - Yesterday at 11:14 PM
As someone who has been gaming with partial color-blindness, profound near-sightedness, loss of central vision and light sensitivity their entire lives (the majority of which can't be corrected with traditional lenses), while there are certainly avenues of support for some of my problems, a lot of my compensation has manifested from just heightened sensitivities to my input options and gravitating toward less sight-intensive tasks where picking out individual targets and the like is key. I am very challenged for instance by mass-scale RTSes where micromanagement is essential to optimal plays, and first-person shooters where I thrive best generally are ones where mastering close-quarters tactics is just as worthwhile as ranged ones.

This extends well beyond video games. In miniatures games I take pride in being able to eyeball distances and determining LoS more accurately than many of my sighted opponents--but I also use a telescopic monocle in my daily life and that comes into play as well. I also do a lot in the hobbying side of things to be sure my models will be distinct from others when they're sharing table space with painting bases certain colors and the like, and I memorize general stats so that when I see big masses of dudes across the table I can just ask my opponent to point to models and name them, then I just remember what they are as they move and act.

But back to games, there are a whole lot of things that can be done in video games to promote ease of play on the visual side of things. Anyone who's played around with Overwatch's graphical compensations knows some of what I mean, but sheer flexibility in that department to cater to specific challenges so they can be corrected person-by-person is huge.

Unreal Tournament 2k3-4 was a boon in this department, as I could customize HUD colors from map to map, assign reticles, etc. League of Legends also had several valuable options, and those of you who have watched Summoner's Rift evolve as a map might not understand how enormous the graphical changes have been for me. There's a stunning difference between how accessible League's graphics are now compared to how they used to be. Before the map changes I had to spend months acclimating to specific cursor speeds so I could always remember where it was by feel, especially for the winter map, which was impossible for me to play on with my light-sensitivity being what it is.

a lot of compensations are just practical concerns that a lot of a game's player base could do without, but that would be vital to players in my shoes. To use League as another example, vision control and assessment has always been a challenge for me as so much of it is dependent on looking at the mini-map. For years I have wanted a hotkey that could superimpose the minimap on my screen whenever I needed it, and to this day it is still the most important change I'd make to that game.

Firecakes - Yesterday at 11:26 PM
I would take the extra effort to continue finding ways to play games if I had a disability.
If I were completely blind, I'd imagine I would be limited to rhythm games like Rhythm Heaven. 3D games would be too much trail and error for me. Given enough effort, I may still be able to enjoy games like word scrambling and card games (if the game sounded out my available hand).

If I had no arms or fingers, then that rules out games with tons of controls. I would still find enjoyment in my favorite game, Crypt of the Necrodancer: all I need is a dance pad! I can still play stuff with simple controls like One Finger Death Punch, and I know Kongregate has a One Button tag for games you can look through.

As for making them more accessible, I've seen games with the option to change the color scheme for those who are color-blind, which is cool. While larger game companies have the resources to offer such assistance to people to help them play their game, I can't imagine it's a subject that is on most developers' minds when creating a game, especially smaller companies. I think having a resource for identifying possible issues a person can have playing a video game and showing easy implementations to help with said problems would alone be a huge help to developers who don't necessarily have this awareness or just don't know of how to have their game be playable to those with certain disabilities. I would love to experiment with a game that you can theoretically play with just sound cues (but with imagery still available), like being able to use headphones to determine the direction of sound, the timbre, the loudness, and make judgements from that.
The point is that I love games and I would go out of my way to find enjoyment in those that are accessible to me. I'll gain a new appreciation for games that I otherwise may not have tried before anyway.(edited)

May 23, 2018
chrys (jewel) - Today at 3:03 AM
Physical disabilities aren't limited to not being able to see, or not having limbs. In my case, it's not a "severe" disability, but I have vertigo. This effects me on how I play any 3D games, or generally any games with a first person view. It's also why I never play Tracer in Overwatch,  and why I'm cautious as playing Lucio. It's also extremely bad when I play Portal., since the constant velocity and jumping through portals make me wish I was dead. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to put on a VR headset. But most other games that I like, like turn based rpgs or visual novels, those are fine.
I'm not sure how to answer the "If I had blind/handicapped" problem because 1. I don't want to infringe on people who do have those disabilities and 2. I honestly have not researched enough on those disabilities, and their relationship with different types of video games.

I think the "are games accessible enough" question is too vague, and too open-ended. Are games accessible enough to  the blind? The deaf? People with epilepsy? And what type of game? There will be types of games that are more accessible some people than others, ie. what I had put above.

Old Senile Mushrooms - Today at 4:13 PM
I already game with a physical disability: my eyesight is so crap that fonts that are too small or not standardized become barriers for entry for me, and some games with auto-scrolling text that goes by too fast is the same. (Old adventure games without voice acting are common culprits.) Not only that, but I usually just accept in other games that my glasses will forever limit my field of vision and I cannot see my entire monitor at once, so anything that's small and, for example, on the top section is likely getting ignored especially if something more important is on the bottom section.

This creates problems in overwatch because I straight-up can't read the chat while playing, I need to be in team voice and it basically means I'd never be able to play with someone who couldn't mic for whatever reason. A friend of mine knows this and constantly gives me shit but it's ok because I take my revenge by maining symmetra who he despises but who I've found was pretty great for people like me who have shit aim due to a disability before a bunch of selfish wankers bitched about overwatch being too accessible and how they didn't want their serious hardcore league shooter to be the special olympics or something

if I went totally blind I probably wouldn't game anymore but honestly if I went totally blind, I'd...gaming would be the last thing on my mind.

I try to raise awareness about what makes games less accessible, both through personal and secondhand information. Things like colorblind options that aren't crap (not a lot of those exist), text font options, text/HUD size options, remapping the keys/controls, changing the gamma settings, etc. Things that don't really affect the game but would go a long way to helping more people be able to play it

Also, side-note: Myst can go fuck itself. It can go fuck itself with a god damn rusty pike. Fuck that game. What idiot thought writing everything in cursive was a good idea? Who the fuck can even read cursive? What is this, the 1800s? Why couldn't the remasters rewrite everything in english? I consider this an accessibility option and that game will forever be shit to me because it doesn't offer it. :rage:

MentalSnowflake - Today at 7:44 PM
I would definitely still play games, if I had a worse disability than terrible eyesight, it only becauses question of how, as games a rarely, but luckily more often, designed for people with disabilities. If you're lucky the game has custom keybindings and a colourblind overlay(which I don't know if it is very effective, because I don't know any colour blind people).
As others have mentioned previously there are plenty of alternative controllers. Overwatch has been successfully

I try to make my games as accessible as possible and im not totally stealing anything said here I am currently figuring out how to blueprint custom keybindings, because that doesn't change the design in a game. I try and advocate for clear contract, because the majority of my  favourite games I can't play if I didn't have my glasses. A sans serif font, because it is easier  to read for the majority of people, having but audio and visual cues for the same thing.
But most of all making accessibility one of the cores of the design and development of a project, because a lot of disabilities are overlooked by people don't who have them. And chances are that a bunch of solutions already exists, because if there is any part of the game development that will create change it's an indie game that has yet to gain actual traction