• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Furukawa Speaks! We discuss the announcement of the Nintendo Switch Successor and our June Direct Predictions on the new episode of the Famiboards Discussion Club! Check it out here!

Discussion What accessibility options do you use/need?

paranoodle

paranoodle

no longer on fami
Pronouns
they/them
This was mentioned in the moderation feedback thread, and the idea of an accessibility ST seems really cool but before it's set up, I thought it'd be nice to have a more casual and friendly conversation on the topic than the thread from the other day. Let's keep this thread focused on the player side of things and not dev choices. We all know the devs can choose whatever they want, this is about us actually (or hypothetically) playing it.

So, regardless of whether it's because of disability or any other reasons (no pressure to share specifics if you'd rather not), what accessibility options do you typically enable in games? What options would you use more often if they were more common, if present at all? Are there any counter-intuitive options you'd have an easier time with?

For me personally, as someone with developmental disabilities:
  • Absolutely need subtitles (SDH if possible), I can't parse speech in most situations and games are one of the hardest ones
  • Need some form of journal, dialogue history, quest log, etc, (or even just being able to talk to NPCs again to ask them to repeat) because my very-short-term memory is shot
  • Greatly benefit from visual cues being included for audio cues (but I can usually scrape by without depending on the game)
  • Greatly benefit from animation cancelling etc in action games because I easily get minor hand spams that can get me killed in games where you have to commit to actions
  • Need some sort of explicit visual cue for actions that have to be timed (like parrying in action games), and this is my personal counter-intuitive one: I have a much, much easier time with needing quick reflexes/timing for these (where I do pretty okay) versus ones that require some wind-up (which frankly, I can't do at all. even the ones with more generous windows)
If I get those I'm good to have a good time, but if I can't I'll usually just settle for lower difficulties and try to brute-force my way through my issues. What about everyone else?
 
Thanks for making this thread @paranoodle - really great OP, I'm sure will give this thread the focus it needs.

For me:

Text needs to be bigger in menu's and on screen in general. A couple of games I'm going to pick on - God of War (2018) and Fire Emblem Three Houses have text that is uncomfortable to the read so I'm skipping over it - often there's plenty of space on the screen so no real justification for it.

FPS games absolutely must have significant aim assist and gyro - ammo quantities should be unlimited where possible. Many FPS games are near impossible for me so I need a lot of help. Metroid Prime on Wii is the best I've seen.

Must be able to pause

Adjustments for enemy aggressiveness - I often need more time and to be able to compose myself without feeling a threat of loss whilst getting my bearings or lining up my character.

Adjustments for damage - same as above

Anything assigned to clickable sticks needs to be able to be recalibrated - My hands are unsteady on the sticks so when I press these they go all over the place usually causing something else to happen in the game accidentally.

I benefit from minimalistic controls. Some games like to take a separate button for each function approach - often it's confusing/disorientating.

That's all that I can think of for now but I'm sure there are more.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
0
TaySan said:
Text enlargement whenever it is available. I have poor vision and have a hard time with text in games.
Click to expand...
This so much, and let it be like REAL text enlargment. I remember games with the option to use bigger fonts, and then the font is only like 2% bigger
 
Subtitles. Always. not really an “option” but a smooth frame rate is a must for me or its headache/migraine city. Frame pacing issues? Lemme lay down in the dark for 3 hours after.
 
I always turn on subtitles where available because I sometimes have issues processing what characters say especially if they are talking quickly or are difficult to hear or understand.

I like journals or things that remind you of objectives because sometimes I miss info when characters talk or I forget where the game wants me to go next.
 
I wouldn't say I need it per se (I'm not hearing impaired), but I always appreciate subtitles. I'm not entirely sure why, but I figure it is to do with being autistic and the way I process information. Suspect text is simply easier for me to process than voice.
 
Subtitles personally i like reading them even if i understand the language. Only bummer is that some games have real small ones wich sucks if you are playing from the couch across the room.
 
Love this!
Ok so, I have MS (with many of it's fun side symptoms 😂, I'm paraplegic. I have intermittent issues such as slow cognition, poor dexterity, limited mobility my arms, fatigue, continence is interesting to say the least 😂.
Also, aside from the disability aspects, I'm a pretty casual/low maintenance kind of gamer.

-Things that are pretty key:
-Being able to pause the game to collect myself or go to the bathroom etc without sustaining any damage/repercussions.
-being able to adjust the difficulty (preferably at any point in the game)

-Things that I appreciate there being because I often struggle remembering locations and things I need to do:
-a quest log or journal feature of some sort.
-a good map! One that shows where I am at that moment as well as some sort of marker for quests/stores/landmarks etc.
-being able to fast travel to key locations.

-Being able to make the days go faster or slower at will or at least being able to do things like "go to bed and wake up in the morning/afternoon/night. I like to take my time to fully explore an area but I also can't waste all my gaming time waiting for the clock to get to a particular time.

-Due to the dexterity and cognitive issues, I need pretty simple buttons for example "press A to attack." Rather than "press ZR and Y and press + to access menu" or something equally complex lol.

-I often just don't have time to sit through a huge cut scene, so skip skip skip please haha.

-subtitles for sure, I tend to zone out if I find there's a lot of talky talky 😄
 
Luckily I don't need accessibility options per se, but what I use on options, that in a grander scheme can be used for that are:
  • FOV slider for any FPS (and FPS should have this. I don't like to puke on my keyboard)
  • Button remapping (not always, but sometimes I do want to and I think it should be in any game/console)
  • Subtitles (I have problems understanding english with a heavy accent. Also you should be able to change the font size and color)
  • Changing the sensibility of my mouse/gyro (I personally see it more of controller configurations, but stuff like this still counts, right?)
  • Being able to change to volume of anything. Not only the master audio, but also the BG-music, sound effects, voices etc.
 
I cannot perceive three-dimensionally in the real world, so you'd think I'd be ideally prepared for deducing the depth of objects on a flat sceen, but, weirdly, I'm more prone than most to mixing up foreground and background elements, unless clearly seperated, and experience above average frustration at visual noise or, on the opposite end, a lack of distinct colors and silhouettes.
 
  • Subtitles is definitely something I will need, because it's difficult to hear people saying unless they are not fast speakers. In fact, even if a dubbed show is better if it's also subbed in addition to it.
  • Brightness is something I would appreciate, because on-screen objects that are too dark just won't do, unless of course they are merely background and nonessential.
  • Maps are a good thing to have, because it allows for easier navigation especially on larger areas, since the feeling of getting lost is discouraging.

Thank you for reading.
 
0
I will say, even if they still often leave to be desired (font sizes ahoy), I'm really glad subtitles are a lot more common now than they were 10-20 years ago, hopefully that means we'll be in an even better spot overall in 10 years with a more furnished set of commonplace accessibility options.

Zellia said:
I wouldn't say I need it per se (I'm not hearing impaired), but I always appreciate subtitles. I'm not entirely sure why, but I figure it is to do with being autistic and the way I process information. Suspect text is simply easier for me to process than voice.
Click to expand...
If you haven't run into the term before, I'd recommend looking into Auditory Processing Disorder, it's not uncommonly found alongside ADHD or autism (I have all three) and there's some symptom overlap between the three even outside that. I don't know how it is for you, but for me on bad days speech just sounds... like a language I don't know? I can hear everything just fine, but my brain can't translate the sounds into actual words. On good days I can mostly follow along but it's still way way easier with subtitles to generally anchor me, and make up for the sounds I fail to parse.
 
I wish subtitles could be a system wide thing.

Also ditto on menus. Tiny menus especially in bad quick port jobs is terrible.

I’m someone with moderate glasses nothing crazy thick, and I have some hearing issues from my child hood.
 
0
I don't know if it counts as accesibility, but I don't like when the game audio options are tied to the console language and there is no option to change it in game. let me choose freely
 
Subtitles only so far.

English is not my native lenguage so subtitles help me a great deal sometimes. I remember that several games on the PS2 and even PS3 don't have subtitles.
 
0
paranoodle said:
If you haven't run into the term before, I'd recommend looking into Auditory Processing Disorder, it's not uncommonly found alongside ADHD or autism (I have all three) and there's some symptom overlap between the three even outside that. I don't know how it is for you, but for me on bad days speech just sounds... like a language I don't know? I can hear everything just fine, but my brain can't translate the sounds into actual words. On good days I can mostly follow along but it's still way way easier with subtitles to generally anchor me, and make up for the sounds I fail to parse.
Click to expand...
That's interesting, I hadn't heard of that before. I don't think I have it as bad as you describe (though I'm sure there's different levels), I guess it's just that reading subtitles feels less taxing than following a conversation solely by vocals?
 
It's not really an accessibility thing i guess, but i need scrolling text to be able to read properly. I find it more difficult to read text that just suddenly appears in full into a textbox--i often just glaze over it or dismiss it entirely.
 
0
Zellia said:
That's interesting, I hadn't heard of that before. I don't think I have it as bad as you describe (though I'm sure there's different levels), I guess it's just that reading subtitles feels less taxing than following a conversation solely by vocals?
Click to expand...
Yeah that makes sense! I personally like getting to have a like... simultaneous view of the entire sentence as opposed to hearing words one by one, too.

And yeah APD has a pretty wide range of levels, and for me there's a lot of factors that can affect how well I can or can't parse speech (if I'm tired, if there's background noise, if I can see the person speaking, etc)
 
0
Button mashing should never ever be mandatory for any new games. There should always be an acessibility option regarding this.

Subtitles and remappable controls are a given, too.
 
This is a great thread! Thank you for everyone who has shared their stories so far, I dont want to specifically pick anyone's points out but there are definitely issues brought up in here I just hadn't considered before as accessibility barriers, and I'm also learning about conditions I wasn't aware of either :)
 
Subtitles and text log since my memory and comprehension are kinda bad lol. I also really enjoy when the text log lets you replay audio as well if there's voice acting. Helps with the language learning!
 
0
I use colored subtitles for better distinguishing characters on screen. it's genuinely helpful
 
I don't use them super often but the option of having subtitles is essential. Should be standardised across the industry as well, especially for any game coming from the big publishers.

Outside of that I don't really need anything else but the more options in that regard the better really.
 
0
I use subtitles. I'm not hard of hearing, really. But my hearing isn't the greatest and the mix of games is usually pretty poor.
 
0
Subtitles are something I always turn on, especially since mostly non of my native languages are represented in games.

Left handed mode where possible. This is something that doesn't really apply to most games, but games that do (looking at you Etrian Odyssey) physically hurt to play or are straight up unplayable for me. Also a reason why I gave up on the aforementioned Etrian Odyssey games. They're great, but it relies on the player to draw on the bottom screen and controlling the character sometimes simultaneously. I draw with my left hand, so it's impossible to also move the character with the control stick without doing some gymnastics.

Back in the Wii era I was lucky I could just play however I want. I held the Wii remote in my left hand, whether it was meant to be the opposite or not. When Skyward Sword came out Nintendo said they made Link right handed because people hold the Wii remote in their right hand. To me it didn't and still doesn't make sense, you could perfectly play the game in either hand and it doesn't really affect the gameplay. It just looks weird seeing Link hold the sword in his right hand. I (not so) secretly disliked that change. Would be better if they could program Link to hold the sword in either arms and let the players choose.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom