Accessibility gaming: share your stories

Inspired by this weeks Bombcast, I thought I'd open up discussion amongst us all ( but particularly my fellow gamers with cerebral palsy) about the things in game design that can sometimes provide physical frustration. For myself. I share the experiences brought up in by the listener (apologies if your reading this, I've forgotten your name) about struggling through QTEs with delayed reaction times, but I also totally come undone when faced with races lol it's the most simplistic thing in the world but trying to finesse anglogue sticks around race track corners just doesn't happen for me. Anything stick out for anyone else?

I have cerebral palsy that affects my left side, and it basically means I can't play games with a mouse and keyboard. Haven't finished listening to the Bombcast yet though.

It bothers me that in a mainstream game like Battlefield 4, I have to go into the settings to allow me to distinguish between squad members and enemies. This wasn't really an issue in previous games, but Battlefield 4's color pallet doesn't really help me since I also suffer from distinguishing purples from blues...which is pretty much the only alternative besides yellow, green, and red. What's worse is the fact that I can't change it when I'm watching youtube videos since it's the default setting for most gamers.

(i.e. I'm referring to "colorblindness")

@panelhopper: Nice thread idea! This is something I've been thinking about recently as I'm developing my first game and have been considering solutions to colorblind issues thanks to Vinny and Jeff's constant struggle. And this seems like a good place to ask a quick question to duders with motor difficulties:

Would you appreciate settings that might make gameplay more forgiving in terms of wider windows for reaction times or even smaller hit boxes giving the player character more room to dodge? It seems like a sort of touchy subject, and could easily be misinterpreted as, "Hey, you're not as good at this game because of your uncontrollable physical situation. Here's easy mode.". But I want to make sure my games are playable by as many folks as possible, so if there's interest there or ideas for specific accessibility options I'd love to know.

Thanks!

@joshwent: for myself, I certainly would appreciate wider windows on QTEs or simply a mode that requires less speed. As another example of how this might help, I remember struggling lot with God of war 3 because of rapid button presses and the thumb on my right hand simply doesn't respond that fast. But that's just me. I've also known people who struggle with the standard controller but find arcade sticks far easier

Button mashing. God of War I remember being the worst, either 2 or 3. There was one part I had to physically try a half dozen orientations of controller and hand to try to maximize my ability to mash a fucking button. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

This is a fucking terrific idea for a thread. Seriously. We've needed this one for a while.

I'm legally blind due to severe astigmatism, macular degeneration, and a retinal detachment in 2003. With glasses, I see about 20/200 or so out of my left eye, and my right is essentially blind (I see a blob, with a bit of peripheral vision). For me, my biggest struggle in gaming is with small fonts, particularly in the HD era. Mini-maps can be a royal pain too, particularly something with terrible color blindness structure (i.e. GTA V). It frustrates me in this day and age that we don't have more visibility options for gamers, particularly when it comes to font sizes and adjustable color schemes for multiplayer games. Great looking games like Dragon's Dogma are rendered completely unplayable for me because I can't read through the equipment screens or see the writing. Multiplayer games like Call of Duty become frustratingly difficult because teammates and enemies all look exactly alike, and without the ability to adjust the colors above their heads or through other significant visual markers, I'm not able to enjoy them beyond watching friends play.

It also has to be said that it can be frustrating to not get a glimpse at the text and visual options in live QLs of games like Elder Scrolls Online, particularly when questions like "how many nipples would a cat lady actually have?" are getting airtime instead of my questions about font size or UI. I realize the visually impaired are a small minority of gamers on this site, but these kinds of questions are important to us and can make or break our enjoyment of games.

Very mild cp here. I've gotten better with age can usually do the button mashing myself against AI(except god of war 1 fuck that game sometimes). Friends on the other hand meh. Its funny I use to avoid beam ties in dbz games on purpose against my friends. In WWE games I just accept the loss and get ready to reverse the incoming move. The one game that I really feel I get held back on is rockband/guitar hero I cant do anything with a orange button in it. Also its hard to use my foot to pedal quickly enough for long periods of times on the drums.

@sparky_buzzsaw: I don't know man, most of the people I know are visually impaired to some extent. I think we might be more than a minority.

@hockeymask27: oh my god, guitar hero! Yep, the orange button is definately beyond me as well. Like you my CP is mild but not having complete finger dexterity is definately a barrier in games like that.

Yes, but retinal detachment is not managable like hyperopia/myopia is with glasses. It's like having a curtain closing on your eye vision. Pretty bad.

But sparky, wouldn't handhelds suit you much better since UI's are usually big and you're holding the screen close to you?

@sparky_buzzsaw: I really think there should be a greater range of visuals options for games, especailly on PC were many OS already have things like high contrast options.

@trafalgarlaw: They do, yes. My 3DS and PSP get a fair bit of play.

@joshwent: there are a whole bunch of ideas of both options and design considerations for all kinds of impairments here, including several examples of different approaches to colourblind friendliness -

Http://www.gameaccessibilityguidelines.com

I am all for a Lords of Shadow-esque "turn off QTE's" button in any game that has QTE's. That way, I'm one menu option away from never having to look at those fucking things again.

My only real problem is eyesight. I don't have horrendous eyesight, but I cannot read small text. I had to squint when I played the PC version of Dragon Age Origins until I found a bigger text mod. I understand that implementing bigger text options can fuck with your UI design, but I'd rather be able to clearly see text than have a pretty UI. This is usually only a problem in games with tiny text.

Not related to games, but it's also why my PC's screen resolution is set to 1360x768 instead of 1920x1080. There is an option to scale text, but it doesn't scale all text and it makes some windows look really bad. Steam also doesn't see fit to allow you to zoom in on their store pages or make text bigger, so if I want to view that then I have to do it in 1360x768.

Generally speaking, though, I don't have any physical disabilities that have caused me problems when playing games. Vibration aggravates my wrist, but I can usually turn that off.

@believer258: ... Unless you have an Xbox one. They forgot to include the option to turn it off at system level like you could on the 360, meaning it's pot luck whether individual developers decide to let you do it.