Reading in the dark - Game Over!: the world's most (intentionally) inaccessible game
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
|
12:31 pm
[Link] |
Game Over!: the world's most (intentionally) inaccessible game
Kes: Thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dariusk for sending me the url. Notice how easily the science fiction trope of an alien from outer space complements the idea of an inaccessible=hostile environment which much be adapted to: this is one of the reasons SF is so useful for discussions and interventions regarding accessibility and disability.
"Game Over!"
http://ua-games.gr/game-over/
is the world's first (and hopefully only) universally inaccessible game. This practically means that it is a game that can be played by no
one. But why was such a game created? Well, the goal of Game Over! is to be used as an educational tool for disseminating, understanding and consolidating
game accessibility guidelines.
Motivation and Rationale: Accessibility guidelines constitute a key instrument for designing accessible games. Unfortunately, as was discovered by several studies regarding the use of standards and guidelines in the field of HCI, plain text is a very ineffective medium for propagating design wisdom and successfully putting it in good
use. Although there are several reasons this fact can be attributed to, the ultimate problem is that guidelines typically come in an abstract, context-independent
form. This means that, in order for them to be used in practice, they must first be "translated" by taking into account the intrinsic characteristics of
the current specific design space. This task is not trivial, since it requires a very good understanding of: (a) the (negative) situation that each guideline
aims to remedy; and (b) the (positive) state that it endeavors to achieve. In other words, the developer who employs the guidelines must first have a concrete
idea - preferably through hands-on experience - of what each guideline is about.
In this context, Game Over! aims to provide game developers a first-hand (frustrating) experience of how it feels interacting with a game that is not accessible
due to the fact that important accessibility design rules were not considered or applied. The game was developed in the context of the Universally Accessible
Games (
UA-Games)
http://www.ics.forth.gr/hci/ua-games/index.html
Activity of ICS-FORTH.
The Game: The theme of the game is a reversal of the stereotypical space invaders scenario: the player assumes the role of an alien (named Resol), hopelessly struggling
to protect the universe from the merciless invasion of the terrestrial invaders. The game's title is actually a pun on the "Game not Over" motto of the
Game Accessibility SIG
http://www.igda.org/accessibility/
of the International Game Developers Association, while the subtitle is a paraphrase of the
Game Accessibility
http://www.game-accessibility.com/
project's "because everyone wants to save the Universe" slogan. The gameplay is quite simple (see Figure 1). The player controls a flying saucer that is
located near the top of the screen and can move left/right and throw bombs in order to destroy enemy spaceships, while at the same time is trying to avoid
incoming fire.
The game comprises twenty-one levels, each of which violates a fundamental game accessibility guideline. An overview of the title, gameplay and violated
guideline of each level is provided the
"Game Levels"
section of the site, while screenshots from some of the levels are illustrated in Figure 3. The player can select to play the game from the first level,
or directly jump to a specific level. At the beginning of each level, its title is presented along with some guidance (e.g., the controls that can be used,
the player's goal). In order to move from one level to the next one, the player must first lose three lives. Each time that a life is lost, one hundred
points are subtracted from the player's score. At the end of each level, a famous quote related to the level's content is recited (a "punch line") and
the guideline that was violated is displayed (see Figure 2). At the end of the game, a summary of the level titles and the corresponding (violated) guidelines
are presented.
Also refer to
Terrestrial Invaders
http://ua-games.gr/ti/
which was developed during the process of developing Game Over! nd addresses all the accessibility guidelines that Game Over! violates.
Tags: accessibility, disabilitytech, games
|
|
| |
That's a little silly.
Ostensibly this was necessary because you need an example to help 'translate' the accessibility concepts. But I read through the plain text descriptions of the inanely simple concepts and I got it. And I am not a game designer.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/25440517/1041918) | | From: | dariusk |
|---|
| Date: | April 24th, 2007 06:17 pm (UTC) |
|---|
| | | (Link) |
|
If you knew how much work it takes game developers to even start thinking about accessibility, you'd realize that this a person who had to resort to desperately silly measures to start a dialogue.
I'm thinking about even the people that are working on accessible games/media, when they first begin they often miss what seems the most obvious. Years back I was alpha testing an accessible game and the first page that came up where the player had to sign in was huge, with about thirty or forty links. I pointed out that this was going to be difficult or at the least incredibly time-consuming for players to navigate, and maybe the game designers could create subheadings with links to various regions of the page. Even the W3 guidelines on this point claim that Web pages should not include large numbers of links that difficult to locate on the page, and the W3 page that contains this guidline has about a hundred links on it. This is why giving the experience of accessibility hurdles often makes more of an impact that a written or spoken presentation/explanation. |
|
