House of Games #49 — Accessibility

🎧🎮 In this week’s episode of House of Games, we tackle the vital, yet challenging topic of accessibility in video games. 🕹️ Discover how subtitles 📝, custom controls 🎮, visual clarity 🔍, and game difficulty settings ⚔️ can affect gaming accessibility and transform the game experience! Which features are costly to implement, and which ones bring the most benefits? 🤔 Click play and join us on this enlightening journey! 🚀

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:21 Introducing the Theme; Video Game Accessibility
03:02 Accessibility Features: Subtitles & Voice Acting
12:47 Accessibility Features: Custom Controls & On-Screen Prompts
24:02 Accessibility Features: Colorblind Modes & Visual Clarity
30:35 Where Do I Even Start With Accessibility?
31:56 Accessibility Features: Visual Clarity Continued
36:22 Accessibility Features: Game Difficulty
40:35 Rant About Game Journalists
43:02 Accessibility Features: Game Difficulty Continued
52:43 Rant About Game Journalists Continued
53:21 Closing Thoughts

Your Hosts and Their Games
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2436180/Sunset_Moon/ — Wishlist Sunset Moon on Steam!
https://www.play-asia.com/red-colony-trilogy/13/70fmjh — Buy the Red Colony trilogy on Switch!
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/24596/Red_Colony_Uncensored_Threesome_Bundle/ — Buy the Red Colony trilogy on Steam!
https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/knifeboy-rebooted-switch/ — Buy KnifeBoy on Switch!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/889130/KnifeBoy_Rebooted/ — Buy KnifeBoy on Steam!
https://ottowretling.medium.com/list/game-development-427e99aefd01 — Read Otto’s blog about game development!
https://discord.gg/mYM72SQ9CP — The discord server for Game Hub Umeå.

Games
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/pikmin-4-switch/ — The homepage for Pikmin 4.
https://www.ea.com/games/mirrors-edge/mirrors-edge — The homepage for Mirror’s Edge.
http://www.starwars.com/games-apps/star-wars-the-force-unleashed — The homepage for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/knack/ — The homepage for Knack.
https://www.playstation.com/en-se/games/bloodborne/ — The homepage for Bloodborne.
https://en.bandainamcoent.eu/dark-souls/dark-souls — The homepage for Dark Souls.
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/uncharted/ — The homepage for the Uncharted franchise.
http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/ — The homepage for the Assassin’s Creed franchise.
https://www.ea.com/games/simcity — The homepage for the SimCity franchise.
https://www.thewitcher.com/ — The homepage for The Witcher franchise.
https://thelastofus.com/ — The homepage for The Last of Us franchise.
https://mariokart.com/ — The homepage for the Mario Kart franchise.

Game Hardware
https://store.steampowered.com/app/353370/Steam_Controller/ — The Steam store page for the Steam Controller.
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/accessories/access-controller/ — The homepage for the PlayStation Access controller.

Resources for Making Games
https://godotengine.org/ — The homepage for the Godot Engine.
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/inputs/index.html — The documentation for input handling in the Godot Engine.
https://unity.com/ — The homepage for Unity.
https://unity.com/features/input-system — The homepage for the Unity input system.
https://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/ — The homepage for the Game accessibility guidelines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm24XyRPMwg — The GDC talk “Critiquing Game Visuals: Common Problems and How to Solve Them” by Ally Overton.
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/the-last-of-us-part-ii/accessibility/ — An overview of the accessibility options for The Last of Us Part II.

Other Links
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/ — The IMDB page for Interstellar.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/ — The IMDB page for Fight Club.
https://tommyedison.com/ — The homepage for Tommy Edison, the blind film critic.

Get all the links and the transcript for this episode right here: ⁠https://medium.com/@ottowretling/house-of-games-49-accessibility-60e19ff02399⁠