[games_access] Accessible Pinball

[Barrie Ellis]

"The Unique Design Challenge of Pinball Simulations" is an interesting 
article (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051003/adams_01.shtml). Pinball 
Simulations seem like one of the most obvious genres of games that can be 
made highly accessible for many disabled gamers. Off the top of my head:

1. Game speed control. From VERY slow to how ever fast the designer wishes.
2. User-definable controls with the ability to mask multiple buttons to a 
single control. There's no reason why START, the plunger, LEFT flipper and 
RIGHT flipper couldn't all be operated by a single button.
3. Gap adjustment for how widely the flippers are spaced apart. Or 
alternatively, bounce pins for the gutters (not sure on the terms, but 
something to help stop the ball going out of play so easily).
4. 3D sound that can be exagerated to aid partially sighted/blind gamers.
5. Simple, clear menus that can be spoken.
6. Simplified graphics modes. E.g. just the outlines of the playing field. 
Perhaps with a line thickness control.
7. Variety of viewing angles, including one that tracks the ball at various 
overhead distances.
8. Wide difficulty level settings (choice of balls, ease of play).


As for the Cafe Press idea - who designed the AudioGames logo? Might they be 
able to come up with something that catches all? Might be an idea to use 
something including the blue badge symbol, as it's so well known around the 
world.

Halloween Monday sounds good to me Michelle.

Barrie
www.OneSwitch.org.uk







----- Original Message ----- 
From: <hinn at uiuc.edu>
To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 9:39 PM
Subject: Re: [games_access] Ernest Adams mentionsaccessibility issues in 
article


> Nice!!! Thanks, Reid, for following up with him about that --
> nice, honest response from Ernest.
>
> Yes GDC06! Speaking of...we need to start meeting again
> regularly so that we can get everything planned out now that
> we're officially on the program. :) More details coming
> soon -- How about starting up again monday, oct 31 (yep,
> halloween!) at 12noon (new york time)/11am (chicago time)?
>
> T-shirts and mugs...not a bad idea. Anyone have some cool
> logo ideas for a cafepress store?
>
> Michelle
>
> ---- Original message ----
>>Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 15:27:27 -0500
>>From: Reid Kimball <rkimball at gmail.com>
>>Subject: [games_access] Ernest Adams mentions accessibility
> issues in article
>>To: IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List
> <games_access at igda.org>
>>
>>http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051003/adams_01.shtml
>>
>>I'm glad he admitted he didn't know about the issues at
> first, which
>>kept him from writing about it in his 1st publication of
> the Bill of
>>Player's Rights. We still have much work to do I guess and
> GDC '06
>>will be big for us to get the word out. I'm thinking t-
> shirts, coffee
>>mugs, hired entertainers! Well, maybe not...
>>
>>Also, my independent captioning group is now working on
> Quake4. Our
>>project will be called, (drum roll please...) Quake4[CC],
> *ding!*
>>
>>-Reid
>>_______________________________________________
>>games_access mailing list
>>games_access at igda.org
>>http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/games_access
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