What Do You Mean Accessible Gaming?

One of the goals I've set for games I want to create is for accessible gaming. What is that? Simply put, making the game usable my as many people as possible, by being aware of how people with disabilities play the game.

For people who don't regularly work in the disability area, it often gets confusing and sometimes beyond awkward to address disability without having personal experience. Sometimes people are also insensitive to having a disability - insensitive to anyone other than themselves really - so I'll also point out that almost everything needed to address the specific use-case of disability, improves the usability and gameplay of the games themselves. I'm not going to mention disability-specific technologies.

There is an example of a blind gamer playing Zelda OOT by listening to the sound in 3D: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmmqarQRSSE

Notice that he relies upon the 3D sound features for orientation, and there is a nice usability for some of the actions that have unique sounds. Some players might not have immediately noticed the sound events, but may have subconsciously relied upon them to enhance their gameplay. For this gamer, it became a critical feature that allows the game to be played.

There are other things to notice, including ways in which we could improve the game not just for a blind gamer, but for any gamer. Did you notice that he would save, then jump to figure out where objects were? Did you ask yourself how did he know where to go left or right or up or down - they weren't things that seemed to have unique sounds to them. He explored his environment and figured out where things were through trial and error. There are sounds the avatar makes that don't always naturally convey being blocked or walking in place, that could easily be created and enhance the game. There was a moment where he continually jumped down into the pit to orient himself - because that was the only way to feel out the map - that made me wonder about other game mechanics and features I might add to keep that action in more plausible game terms: what if the character had a pocket full of pebbles that could be thrown and get audio feedback and the camera might follow for awhile such that he wouldn't have to jump? How might that lead to other ways for players to interact with the game that might not have been thought of otherwise? Using the pebble game mechanic we might have a better understanding of how far a ledge is before I jump or I might be able to trigger a trap or find how deep a cave is without walking into it; all sorts of ideas might come into play.

So something such as "3D spatial sound" isn't just a cool feature, it is something that we might consider as being required for any well-crafted, accessible game. That requires everyone from the artists who create the art (and sound maps for that art) to the developers (to ensure the 3d video engine matches the 3d audio functions) to the designers (ensuring unique sounds for unique events and allow users to configure them ) to the testers (ensuring the 3d sound works as intended; torches don't sound like jet engines from 20 feet away, you can't hear through solid walls, etc.) understand it.