[games_access] Top 3 Top 3 and IGDA GASIG Awards Ceremony 2008

[Barrie Ellis]

Hmm... Okay- point taken on the pinball side of things. Certainly I've seen
it done with Pro-Pinball Time Shock and it works pretty well. I also get the
strong sense that on a PC, if you turn frame skipping off, CPU Killer would
enable you to slow the game down. What ever the case, I'll rejig the text on
the blog.

Easy is quite subjective I guess. I'm hoping these are easy concepts to
grasp and are amongst the easier to implement. Implementation will be
tougher for some. You certainly have far more experience than me in game
development so I can only argue my case so far. Still think the other
examples hold. Thanks for your oppinion.

Barrie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Reid Kimball" <reid at rbkdesign.com>
To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 9:21 PM
Subject: Re: [games_access] Top 3 Top 3 and IGDA GASIG Awards Ceremony 2008


> What if a game uses a physics engine? Slowing down the ball in a
> physics based pinball game will make it unplayable. The ball won't
> have enough momentum to carry it through the pinball obstacle course.
> A solution could be slow motion play mode, but that also presents
> other problems. Using slow motion can impact the timing of scripted
> events and messages being sent and received by the internal game
> systems.
>
> Unless someone has direct involvement with the development of a game,
> it's impossible to know what underlying technology issues have been
> implemented that can make accessibility features easy or hard to
> support. I once worked on a game that was made for consoles and then
> ported to the PC. Because of how the controls were setup for the
> console system, made it incredibly difficult to allow reconfigurable
> controls for the PC. I hear of this technology issue constantly on
> console games ported to the PC.
>
> Game design and technology has evolved drastically from the early
> 1980's. We're now using simulation based physics and AI systems that
> are open to influence by variables. Making games that use physics,
> such as most sports games are, can be very difficult. Half-Life 2 is a
> physics simulation based game is believe me, it's quite a head ache to
> solve some gameplay issues. Slowing down vehicles will not create
> enough velocity to create a strong enough force of impact to damage
> enemies if you try to run over them or crash through a wall.
>
> We're doing a disservice to game developers if we claim implementing
> accessibility features are easy. It will harm our credibility and
> damage trust in our working relationships.
>
> -Reid
>
> On Dec 2, 2007 12:46 PM, Barrie Ellis <barrie.ellis at oneswitch.org.uk>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Reid,
>>
>> Thanks for your suggestions. I appreciate the point that some access
>> features are harder than they first seem to implement. But there
>> definitely
>> are easy to add features for specific genres. Quickly:
>>
>> a. Driving games - imagine OutRun - adding wider difficulty level
>> adjustment
>> such as much more generous time limits to complete a stage is very easy.
>> b. Pinball games - allowing for adjustment in ball speed as a menu option
>> seems pretty straight forward to me.
>> c. Golf games - allowing an Easy Play option whereby hook and slice can
>> be
>> turned off also sounds very easy to me.
>>
>> Maybe the Extra Suggestions part is confusing the original message. These
>> are intended to show some ways devleopers can stretch out and go a bit
>> futher with that type of accessibility.
>>
>> I wouldn't want us to scare off developers by saying there are no "easy"
>> accessibility features for developers to add. I really don't believe it.
>> If
>> Atari could do it regularly for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980's...
>>
>> 2. If it's really that contentious, I'll change it - but "3 most
>> requested"
>> isn't bullet proof either.
>>
>>
>> 3. Why don't we make a Top 3 Most Requested Accessibility Features for
>> each
>> disability area? Sounds like a good idea to me...
>>
>> Barrie
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Reid Kimball" <reid at rbkdesign.com>
>> To: "IGDA Games Accessibility SIG Mailing List" <games_access at igda.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 8:07 PM
>> Subject: Re: [games_access] Top 3 Top 3 and IGDA GASIG Awards Ceremony
>> 2008
>>
>>
>> > Hi Barrie,
>> >
>> > I like what you have but do have a couple suggestions.
>> >
>> > 1) I agree with Richard, there are no "easy" accessibility features
>> > for developers to add. I have said that adding closed captioning to
>> > games is easier than a physics or rendering system and it is true, but
>> > creating the captioning system itself presents tricky design problems
>> > and depending on the sound engine, maybe even technical issues. In
>> > general, I don't think we have the right to designate whether an
>> > accessibility feature is easy or not for a developer to implement. How
>> > hard it is will depend on the developers technology foundation and
>> > programming/designing talent they have.
>> >
>> > 2) On the contention of Top 3, why not slightly change the wording so
>> > it's Top 3 Most Requested Accessibility Features.
>> >
>> > 3) Why don't we make a Top 3 Most Requested Accessibility Features for
>> > each disability area. Richard can submit a list of his top 3 for
>> > blind/visually impaired, I'll submit mine for hard of hearing/deaf and
>> > so on.
>> >
>> > -Reid
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>>
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