Building Cognitive Accessibility Into Your Games

Hello everyone and welcome to building cognitive accessibility into your games. Hi, I'm J. Justice. I'm a consultant. I work independently, but I'm available for full-time. So my most recent work has been on the game Stray Gods, which just won game of the year at the Australian Game Developer Awards. So congrats to that team. I've also consulted on Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realm and the upcoming Read Only Memories by MidBoss. And with me I have some amazing developers that I am so excited to be getting to speak alongside. Please introduce yourselves. Yeah, hi. My name is Tara Voelker. So I am the accessibility lead for studios at Xbox. And I first want to say that Jay does not do themself enough justice. This panel would not exist without Jay. They literally did all of the work

prepping the submission. I didn't even give anything to Jay on time and they still made it happen. So I wanted to talk Jay up. When I am not here at Xbox doing accessibility stuff, I'm the co-director of the Game Accessibility Conference where I get to work with amazing folks and one of the people that I love when I get an opportunity to work with is the great Morgan Baker. Wow, that's a great transition. Hi everyone. I am Can you hear me okay, too? Am I close enough? Cool. Awesome cuz I can't hear myself. So I'm Morgan Baker. My pronouns are she/they and I'm the game accessibility lead for Electronic Arts. In my free time I like to organize e-sports tournaments, play tabletop RPGs and play with my two corgis, Midna and Zelda. Can you guess my favorite game? But it's a pleasure to be here and I want to reiterate, thank you Jay for inviting both of us today. Absolutely excited to talk about my favorite topic,

cognitive accessibility. And hopefully, you will show on your surveys that you will definitely submit at the end of the session that it's also one of your favorite topics. So, please do not forget to fill out your surveys because that is how we know how well we did. So, I will only ask that twice, once at the very beginning and once as a reminder on the end, but please do not forget to fill out the surveys at the end. And Morgan, thank you for sharing your pronouns. I forgot to share mine. Mine are she/her or he/him. Uh she/her. Okay. All right. So, let's get started. What is cognitive accessibility? Reducing or removing barriers between players and games that relate to cognition, design or features that enable players to comprehend the information presented to them so they can make informed decisions. You guys want to expand on those definitions? Yeah, so we all have a little bit of a different background in accessibility and just game design and game development in general, but I talk a lot about gaming being a three-step process. That the first thing we do is we get information from the game. What do we

see? What do we hear? If it has haptics, what do we feel? And we take in that information and then we process it. And then as we process it, we determine our course of action and then output back to the game. We tell the game what we want to do. And it's three this three-step process that is playing a game. Doesn't matter how complex it is. But cognitive accessibility specifically is something has interrupted the processing part of that three-step uh process for for playing games. And so, when we're talking about cognitive accessibility, we're talking about making sure that people can process the information correctly so that they can provide the right uh output to the game based on the information that they have received. Yeah, absolutely. And adding on to that, too, it really ties into the idea of like perception. So, making sure that you can process this information comfortably, you're able to comprehend it, and you're able to use the product with ease. Of course, when we talk about cognitive accessibility, it's universal

and everyone wins when we're constantly thinking about it. And so, it's really important for us to consider these barriers that occur in the nature of processing information. Okay, so we've defined it very clearly. The next step, who is cognitive accessibility for? Everybody, everybody, but really though. Players with conditions related to processing information, including but not limited to ADHD, TBIs, PTSD, and many other neurological and mental conditions, and literally anyone who needs it, can be both situational and temporary. You guys want to expand? Yeah, I think what a lot of people don't realize is, you know, yes, having ADHD is going to impact how you interact with the game. Having a traumatic brain injury, like um having a number of even one good severe concussion can interact how you play with games. And um even things like PTSD, again, about how do you process information, can all be part of part of it. And sometimes it is neurological,

sometimes it is going to be more specifically related to mental health. Um one of the things that you're going to see up here is like we we all have cognitive disabilities. So, like you notice we're all up here with our notes and everything. They're like, oh yeah, like we we wrote stuff down to make sure that that we can hit it. So, for us, you know, it is a wide range of things that all have a very set uh set that all have a very similar set of needs. Um I cannot talk about the irony about putting a talk uh about cognitive accessibility by a bunch of people with cognitive disabilities at 5:00 p.m. on a con day. Like we are struggling. We're struggling hard up here. Um so, you know, who is cognitive accessibility for? I mean, it's it is for us. Exactly. And also too, I like that I wrote down my It says suiting at a cognitive accessibility. I like wrote down notes for myself cuz I'm like, "Come on, Morgan, you got this."

But I haven't narrowed down to thinking about cognitive accessibility for myself. I often think about conditions as we've talked about like processing, but we also have like processing speed, learning, memory, attention, focus, mental endurance. And all these things overlap in this holistic every disability, every condition, whether it's permanent, temporary, or situational, it is holistic in this nature. And so, again, it's for everyone, but especially we want to think about those who really, really need it. And if you want to think about hard numbers, remember that a lot of people who have processing disorders may not even consider themselves to be disabled. So, there's millions of people who would benefit from getting more accessibility that would actually address some of the issues that they're having with processing information. Well, and I think something that's really common is there are a lot of people who first off never receive a formal diagnosis or or diag- diagnosed super late in life. So, not only do we have people who do have these diagnoses who don't identify as disabled, there

are people with these conditions who have no idea that they have these conditions and that they basically been playing their life on hard mode the entire time and no one told them. Yeah, I that's totally true. And especially we have to really recognize that there is a stigma sometimes too around it. And we want to have that contextually when we're thinking about our games and designing our games, knowing that, you know, people will have different world views with cognitive accessibility. Of course, I there's nothing wrong with I have ADHD, OCD. I'm like a hot mess express over here. Choo-choo, all aboard. But you know, I think though it's important for us to think about that stigma constantly to make sure that we are approaching our cognitive accessibility with the utmost sensitivity for our players. Very well said. All right. What challenges do people who would benefit from cognitive accessibility face when playing games? Some challenges or barriers include cognitive overload, sensory overload,

unclear objectives, over stimulation, illegible text, and overcomplicated instructions. And we're going to expand on a lot of these challenges cuz they come up many many times. Oh, yeah. There There are so many and they do repeat themselves. When I think about, you know, these challenges, one of the things that I tend to think about is basically for some reason the amount of info coming in short circuits the processing part. Like it's overcharged. It's a transformer exploding. You know, you want to continue, but the input is way way too much. And, you know, that just means when that happens for a lot of people, you shut down. Um but that's only for certain people. There are going to be other people where the reverse happens. There's not enough information coming into the machine for you to justify continuing running it right now. So, that's when you get distracted. You do something else. Um but at the same time when we expand and talk about mental health disorders, like that machine basically uh I mean, it has its

fight or flight triggered. Like it can literally mean that you are transported somewhere else and you you are not playing that game anymore. You are in a heightened state of adrenaline um such to an amount that like you can't actively control what you're doing or what you're thinking. And so, like it goes it goes wrong in so many different ways and it's uh I mean, because of all of the things that Jay just outlined. Yeah, especially too when we talk about like over stimulation and endurance, we have to think about the short-term versus that long-term as well, right? So, the idea of the short-term of so much information being thrown at you at once that your brain I say it works. Uh let's be honest. Where we have the long-term of the constant pressure of trying to process information and every single person has different thresholds and so we need to design accordingly thinking about these different thresholds. So, like for example, we

have different thresholds that relate to someone who may have like a visual processing disorder versus an auditory processing disorder versus anything else. Maybe it's sensory. Maybe uh it's sensation and all these things kind of combine together to create well, what we need to address cognitive accessibility, right? Uh and so that's something we constantly need to think about and actually for myself sometimes I describe it. Uh this might not be helpful, but I say I have a basket and I can only put so many beans in the basket before they all just start spilling out and everyone has like different types of basket sizes for like yeah, my so I have bad auditory processing. So, my basket for auditory is very small, but I have good visual processing. So, that basket's much bigger and so we need to think about constantly how we can accommodate and think about our designs and our games in a way that is accessible and approachable to everyone with different size baskets. I told you it's not a perfect thing. Just roll with me here, okay? No, but I I think you can roll with the

basket analogy cuz what's what's really nice is like, you know, I I have a basket, but I'm just really particular about how full my basket is. Like I just want it to always be the same level. There was actually a really great talk at the Game Accessibility Conference um by a uh accessibility consultant named Shell Little and they talked about uh the sweet spot uh you know, between being overwhelmed and boredom and how so many things can add beans to that basket. And so for uh Shell, they have talked about having ADHD. And for them, even just having like, you know, something that's like an animated like circle that shows your amount of mana, but if it's constantly moving, every time that's moving, that's adding a bean into the basket. Like, none of us are saying, "You know what the cool core loop of my game is? Watching that animation." Right? Like, that's not what we're saying. Like, that was not the core loop for fun. And if someone came up and tell you told you like, "Hey, all

I can do is watch that animation of that little potion bottle in the corner." You'd be like, "Oh, crap. There's a whole bunch of game they're not getting to." But, that's because that animation put too many beans in the basket before they actually got to go and play and enjoy your game. And as Morgan said, there's a lot of things that add beans to that basket. It can be the sound. It can be animations. It can be haptics. There is a lot. It could be your inventory management. Um but again, as Morgan highlighted, it could be different for everyone. And I'm sure that it's different Jay. I don't know what beans add to your basket. We're just running with the beans in the basket now. Yeah. This is the beans in the basket panel. All right. So. But yeah, the the big barrier, it's like all of these things are different bricks in a wall. And the the big wall, the thing that makes people stop playing games that they were otherwise really enjoying is the fact that they're unable to process the information because there's there's too much of something or there's not enough of something. And the the big issue that we have is that a lot

of games don't really take into account that you don't need to be throwing so much information at the player. You can figure out a way to make something maybe more modular, maybe more customizable so that you can pick and choose the things that are going to be getting an input. And we're going to talk more about that on the next slide. Okay. So, this is how we do it. What are some of the best practices for cognitive accessibility? Uh you guys had some great suggestions earlier. Uh allowing manual saves anytime, we all need this. Offering trigger warnings. Offer easy-to-understand subtitles. Share accessibility info ahead of launch. Regular testing for light and motion sensitivities throughout production. And evaluating menu animations or UI to determine if they're truly necessary or offer the ability to turn the little mama thingy off. All right, please tell us more about some of these cuz I think these are really great suggestions that can help people who are currently developing games get the idea for making it more accessible in the pipeline before they finish. Yeah, so one of the first things I want

to call out about this list is some of them you may not realize unless you live in the cognitive cognitive accessibility space like we do is it's not immediately clear wait, why does that help? Like having easy-to-understand subtitles. Like why does having easy-to-understand subtitles work? I mean, obviously it's more again different deaf like clearly you like that's a required feature, but like I don't have um you know, any sort of issues with being hard of hearing, but I always play my games with subtitles. And why is that? Well, if I'm taking in enough information like if there's a bunch of sounds like at some point my brain will still not really understand what's being said. And so I still need that secondary channel of information to reinforce what I'm hearing to kind of lock it into place. And you know, there I mean there's I don't want to like I I could personally talk about this slide for the next 45 minutes. Um but I think what I just kind of hit on that one, maybe I'll let Morgan and

Jay talk about more and then I'll just give a 20-minute lecture on trigger warnings. That sounds good. Okay, all right, Morgan. Yeah, no, but I think you're bringing up a good point and it kind of goes back to the universality of when we're thinking about cognitive accessibility, right? Design for one extend to many is beneficial for someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, but also beneficial for someone who has auditory processing or the intersectionality of it all. For example, we don't just talk about clear subtitles, but like making them big and making them have like different colors, maybe can show you have opacity in the background, so they're easier to read. And this is because people may have like an SLD in reading, dyslexia. Um and actually the intersection of that and deafness as a fun fact is extremely high. Um so as a little tidbit for today, uh and just keep in mind that these features are beneficial for someone who has like say deaf or hard of hearing, they have a hearing condition, or it can be beneficial to someone who has a visual processing, auditory

processing, or like honestly subtitles are just really nice because maybe your kid is in the room and they're being really freaking loud and you're like, you know, I don't know what's happening in this game anymore. Amp it up the subtitle size. Well, I think even like the example of like uh you know, having kids in the room or other people in the room like as someone with uh ADHD, one of the reasons like having manual saves is really, really important to me is because I will lose track of when the game last saved and I will get distracted. Even if it's my favorite game in the entire world, Alan Wake 2, I will get distracted and I will need it to be able to make sure that it has saved because I I know I'm going to end up getting so distracted I won't come back. So being able to be like, "Hey, I need to save right now." Uh it's also really important because there are times I know I'm getting ready to go into something that is going to be cognitively challenging and there is nothing worse than starting a really cognitively challenging task, but the save being like 10 minutes before that

cognitively challenging task starts. So all of a sudden like not only did I just die, but now I have to redo whatever I did, which I don't remember for sure. Like, "Oh, it's a puzzle that I should already know the solution to?" Nope, it's gone. Like as soon as I was completed, my brain has dumped that information. We're not coming back to that. So, if I have to redo that now to get to my new cognitively challenged thing, I'm going to have a lot of issues. So, being able to, you know, make sure I've saved so that I always know, "Hey, I get to have a point where I can start fresh or I don't have to remember that thing that I did 20 minutes ago cuz I got to save after it was done." is really, really important to me. Same. I can't tell you how many games I've just never gone back to cuz I was like, "I'm not doing this again. I swear." No. So, sharing accessibility info ahead of launch is extremely impactful and I'm so happy to be seeing so many more companies do this because it tells your like extremely large disabled audience that there is going to be a way for them to experience this game. It gives the uh

gives people an idea of what to expect and it gives so just really helpful information about like how your game is going to be able to be experienced by others. Like it's just It's It's fantastic and I really appreciate getting to to see that a lot more and I hope that it is something that gets done more as well because it shows that the the company and the developers had taken the time to uh do research and to really implement these practices into their game because they're they're ready to go with this whole list. And like there's been a a bunch of titles lately that I've had have you noticed the the Ubisoft ones that came out? the the Ubisoft ones are great. Um and uh Jessica Is it Roche? Roach? I love how I gestured towards Morgan like she would be able to tell tell me how to pronounce that. Uh but she uh works at Ubisoft uh in their marketing division and she did uh I'm just going to plug others people's talks uh this whole time. She did a great talk uh about their accessibility marketing plan and how Ubisoft specifically built a framework to get that accessibility out ahead of

the game's launch so that players can make informed decisions because especially in the cognitive accessibility space, being able to make an informed decision as a the is absolutely key and uh you know, we will get a little bit more into that. I actually submitted a bunch of slides for Dead Space, which isn't even the title I worked on. That was Morgan's title because they you know, did some great stuff around informed decisions, which is why trigger warnings are so important. Yes. I brought it all the way back around. We talked I talk a lot about trigger warnings. They're very important. to when we get to that slide. All right, first up, what are some examples of cognitive accessibility in games that you've worked on or played? How are they beneficial? Can I please do this one because I love this one so much. Okay. So this is an example of an always available training area from Jedi Survivor, which was a fantastic game. I absolutely loved it. This really helped the player it like experience getting to train as a Jedi and if you forgot how to do a move like it didn't take you out of the game play

at all. You were meditating as Cal. It was something that was always present. You could just get to a save point and you could just do this and it it really helped keep the flow of the game going without making it feel like they were like no no one's going to ever say that this is like oh it's easy mode or whatever. Like you're not going to be able to make a player feel bad for needing more training because there's something that is just part of the game play experience and it was just so well done. I I just I I've I've had other games that were similar like Monster Hunter has a very easy access training area as well. But this one just felt so like rooted to the the core of the game itself that it was just just perfect. Like it it made it easier to beat bosses that I don't think I would have been able to beat otherwise I was able to practice so often and not feel like it was taking me out of the game cuz it was just part of what Cal has to do to be the biggest you know, badass in the galaxy. So yeah. And then it's super encouraging when you have it built into the game and it feels natural to use it like that. Like if players feel it's integrated, they are more likely to use it and build up their

skills and have a better likelihood of having that memory retention. If this kind of thing is like tucked away in another menu or isn't you know something that's only locked to a specific difficulty or whatever, they're going to be less likely to use it because it's othering. And you know, players with cognitive disabilities like we don't want to be othered. We are regular players. Um and so taking that time as a developer to make these instances core to the experience and as weird as it sounds give the player permission and know that it's okay to do this is actually really important. And your language and how you access these things really can help inform how comfortable the player feels in engaging stuff like your tutorials, your trials, or even going back and looking up information that they already had available. Yeah, and it's one of those things too where it's not only something that's there that's a nice to have, but it's encouraged to use. It's something to help people like hone in on their skills and get better or how many times like raise your hand have you put a game down for like 2 weeks and

then when I don't remember any of the controls, I don't remember anything about this game. And so this is a perfect thing, right? Cuz it's helpful for let's say you pick up an item and you're like I just literally don't get how to do this. I want to like practice it. I want to understand it more, really comprehend the mechanics around it and really have that information processing in that kind of space with no sort of penalty to practice. But it's also like helpful too if you're just like I literally just don't remember what's happening anymore. That's that's happens to me all the time and I can see many of you as well. All right, next up Dead Space. Uh this one I mean technically this is your game. I just put the slides in so I'm not sure who's supposed to I mean maybe maybe we can do a little a little twofer here. Like So um in addition to ADHD I do have PTSD and for me being able to make an informed decision is really important. Um I am really lucky that I have most of my PTSD under control. But I need to be able to make informed decisions. Like many

disabilities, how impactful it is varies day-to-day. There will be days that like I am unstoppable and I can see things related to my trauma, absolutely no problem. There are other days if I'm not in a good spot, that seeing that content can actually trigger a physical flashback. Um I hope that you never have to experience one, but if you do have one, your body literally feels like it did at the time that you experienced the trauma. Um and it is weird. You're both in your body and not at the same time. It's not It is not great. Zero out of 10, do not recommend. And there there are some games that have some like pretty shitty content warnings. Like um I won't name the game, uh but there was one that I played that the content warning was basically like, "Hey, this game talks about serious topics."

Cool. The topics in the game were actually um I mean these are graphic. It was rape, the Holocaust, and child sexual abuse. And what like how are you supposed to make an informed decision around those things if you're only told, "Hey, there's serious topics in here." Like maybe one day I I don't want to play a game about the Holocaust. Like it's okay for me to make that decision. And it's about empowering me to make those kinds of decisions. And as a person who loves horror games, who very frequently have these very serious or traumatic title topics, I really really want to have that, which is why I was so obsessed with the Dead Space remake. And I can also to reiterate something. So we actually did a talk at G A Conf, which you're the co-director of. Uh I

did a talk with Christian and myself talking about this where specifically for Dead Space, there is kind of two features happening. One is that you can hide the scenes, visually hide them. And the second one is that we have a content warning that comes up before the scene happens. And we try to time it so that players, if they read the content warning, they can make that informed decision to say not today. Maybe I'll pause and you know, come back later. And actually, this goes back to like informed purchasing decision conversation where actually the motive website has an entire section dedicated to these content warnings that show how they work, but also to details each content warning so you can just read them before you even jump into the game. So, we try to do that for folks so they can make that decision before they ever even purchase the game if that this is something that they want to experience. Yeah, and it connects back to what we were saying earlier. Like for me as someone with PTSD, my processing sometimes just breaks. And so, it's me

looking at my machine and being like, do I think it can handle the stress or do I think that my processing will shut down if I look at that topic, which is why having these are are so great and why again, like I cannot like stress how great of an example Dead Space is in both being very transparent about the topic matter that is covered and when it is covered and also telling you in the game. So, which is double great. As someone with PTSD and ADHD, oh sure, I could read oh chapter five is about this. Do you think I remember that when I get to chapter five? Absolutely not. So, the the in-game slider, like it helps both sides of my cognitive disabilities. Nice. I want to say if you have any questions related to that feature, definitely just go first to the G A conference talk because your question will probably be answered for that. Okay, and then this was the one that you sent me for Grounded which has an arachnophobia mode which I have arachnophobia, so thank god.

I mean, well, by we can do the same thing. You can talk about what it meant to you as a player and then I can talk about it from the developer side. Okay, so um unfortunately, this is a phobia that makes a lot of games just unplayable for me, uh but luckily, this one turns something that like I I physically cannot look at without feeling ill and like I'm going to panic and not be able to function to something that's honestly kind of cute. Like look at it. And the way that it the the the option comes up is just really like it's so neutral in tone. This game provides several accessibility options that make it easier to read, see, and hear. There's also an option to reduce the spider-likeness of the spiders in the game. Would you like to access those options now? It's yes so fast. Like it doesn't make the player feel shame. It doesn't actually like have any kind of negative connotation whatsoever. It's just an option. It's a completely a neutral choice and it just makes the game like playable. Like it's just accessibility in in a nutshell. Like we're not trying to tell you what's good or what's bad. We're just making it

playable for you. Yeah, and this was actually something that originated from out of the dev team itself. So, I do want to be transparent. This feature shipped before I was in my role, so I am telling the story of I have heard from the devs. I was not personally on the feature. I don't want to steal credit cuz they are amazing. Um but basically, there were some folks internally who were like, I am not into spiders. Um and so like this is making it stressful. So, there was actually user research done internally within Xbox where we ended up taking people from across Xbox, not just on this particular dev team, and talking to them about their experiences and how their arachnophobia manifests, which is why uh so it's not called the spider slider, but I like to call it the spider slider, um how that manifests. So, uh what you see here is the danger dumpling. So, this is the least spidery spider that you can get. But for some people, like the there was, you know, kind of a a middle ground of like, "Oh, when it is

full spider, that is when I can't handle it. But when it was like halfway through the spider slider, they were absolutely fine." So, that kind of shows that how how spidery it had to be to trip the phobia was unique for everyone. So, being able to customize it on unblocked people with that phobia. But again, it comes down to you kind of hit on it earlier of like, you know, being able to stand up to a spider isn't the key part of Grounded. It could be any creature. Like it didn't actually matter what creature it was as long as it fit in the Grounded universe. So, if we could unlock the ability for more people to play by just making it a danger dumpling instead of a spider, like that's pretty straightforward. Cuz again, like that it wasn't explicit in the game score loop that it had to be a spider. A spider makes sense for Grounded contextually. I mean, you're little people and you're finding bugs and all that stuff. But like why did it have to be a spider? No, it was really about this kind of combat moment and this having something bigger than you that you needed to be able to

make decisions around. You know, didn't actually have to be a spider. Do we include the example of the last phobia to the setting that they added? Oh. I don't know if we did, but I do want to talk the post to submit the screenshot. I know, I'm sorry. I'm kidding. No, that was my bad. Actually, that's really related to this, too, is was Horizon: Zero Dawn added recently a thalassophobia. Hi, I have thalassophobia. In fact, I found out from playing Sea of Thieves that I have thalassophobia. And while I was playing the game, I was on the ship and as it left the thing, I started to screaming cuz I was like, "Oh, no." And then I remembered my husband was like, "Are you okay?" And I'm like, "No, I'm not okay. This is terrifying." And then he's like, he just turned off my monitor. And I was like, "Oh." Oh my gosh, never again. And so, one thing I really, really thrilled Well, first of all, that game added a mode that makes it a little easier for me, which we can talk about that another time. But, for Horizon Zero Dawn, they added the lassophobia mode, which is like basically you have infinite

breathing, you have like all these different features to kind of remove the actual encapsulated fear around the actual fear of Sorry, I should have said the fear of giant open water. So, the idea of like, no way. Like, if you put me in a cruise ship, I will probably cry. Although, I really want to go on the Disney cruise so badly. Maybe one day, if you blindfold me, or maybe I'll Maybe if Maybe if just always have an interior cabin, I don't know. But, then again, I like horror games, so maybe it'll just be like a horror experience the entire time for me. Y'all having fun, you know, having your mixed drinks, and I'm crying, you know. I just I I know this isn't the topic of this panel, but I'm picturing you and being scared, but like it having like a kind of like Five Nights at Freddy's vibe because it's a Disney cruise. Y'all are hilarious. Oh my god. So, it's funny you mentioned Horizon Zero Dawn because the slide I forgot to put in for myself was Horizon Forbidden West because they added a feature that allows you to change your concentration time, and to have Aloy do an auto heal,

and also basically remove some of the load of trying to remember all the things you have to do at once to loot the the robots as you're killing them, to remember how to aim, to do everything. And it still works in a way to make it feel like you're still playing as Aloy. It doesn't make the game any more like easy. It It is still extremely challenging, but it removes a bit of the of the mental load of having to remember to do so many things to avoid dying. And it's just It It's just a fantastic accessible game overall, but I really appreciated the cognitive features that they added to make like hunting not quite as like arduous and like I died so many times, and I was like, let me just turn these features on and like, it just it just made the game just even more fun for me." All right. So, next, what uh cognitive accessibility features or design choices would you like to see become standard in the future? So, uh navigation assistance is one I added because I really appreciate games that don't just throw you out like naked and afraid. You're just in the woods. You're just out here trying to find your way.

Uh I want every game in the future to have just press L3, tell me where I'm going. Give me a ping. Give me direction, something. Um an easy-to-access controls guide, just knowing what controls do what. And I'll I'll let you go on about your favorite thing. I mean, yeah, useful trigger warnings. If you have a trigger warning that's not useful, like, thanks for wasting both of our time. Like, just please just make it useful. And Morgan, I know you suggested the um tutorials especially. That was what your thing. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Which kind of goes back to like Jedi Survivor. And actually another I'll bring up an example for y'all is Immortals Fenyx Rising. Is that how you say it? Uh yes, yes. Fenyx and I'm not deaf. But um Fenyx Rising. Yeah. Well, it's really nice though cuz you can actually click it through the tutorial. It's always inside the menu. And you can click on it and they show like visual demonstrations with like actual like, this is the input. This is how it's done. Which again, hi, how many people forget what the what the mechanics are of a game cuz like all the time for me. And so, the idea of having

those always available tutorials that also let you ideally interact with it because that helps with that kind of cognitive connection of like understanding the mechanics. But also too, it's good to have like those visual demonstrations of showing this is how and this is what it's supposed to look like to help kind of build that learning capability. In fact, I think here some folks will talk about this like tutorialization and I've seen folks even play around with the idea of like learnability, the idea of like being able to solidify that in the memory and then also being able to revisit it whenever you want to once again reinforce your understanding and reinforce your comprehension. And also too, if you just literally don't remember. Speaking of don't remember, persistent on-screen prompts like that you can toggle on and off as an option, but like I really appreciate how in Monster Hunter I don't remember how to attack. It's been 3 months. Oh, it's right there. Literally, it is always right there. I don't remember how to swing from tree to tree. Wait, there it is. Like it's just it's just part of the head-up display,

and it just makes it so much easier. And I would love if more games did this. Cuz I know that there's a big move to make games more cinematic, like you're watching a movie. And I'm like, but I I I I want something to remind me that it's a game. It's okay for the game to know it's a game. Like I'm I'm I'm good with it being a press A to attack in the corner like an arcade. Like So, I know it's aesthetic for a lot of games, but I think it can still be accessible. Oh, yeah. And I I'm one of the people who also like forget controls all the time, especially if there's a game where there's something like a stealth element where you're supposed to come behind someone and then like do something very specifically to stealth kill them versus like loudly throw an axe or something. I will accidentally loudly throw an axe unless that like "Hey, don't forget. Just Just press L1, and you'll stab them silently." Like I need to have that reminder. I'll just be like "It's a And no, and then everyone will be alerted, and I'll die cuz I could not in the heat of the moment remember what button is the do it silently, this is the stealth part of the game, you idiot button. I'm always the meme. I tried to kill a

guy and gave him my rations. That's me every time. There's too many controls. Oh man. Okay, and I remember Morgan, you had Well, not to do a spin a little bit more on better motion and license safety considerations. Mhm. Yeah, absolutely. Especially for this one. Remember we're talking about earlier like the overload and stuff like that, cuz it's not just the information you're presenting, but the extreme of that information, right? So, for example, if I have like Yeah, it's one thing to have a prompt that says like press A, but if you have a flashing in someone's face and they just all these visual effects around that's changing the way that someone can process the information. And so, we want to make sure or if it's moving around, too, which then we can talk about motion sickness, too. All of this is connected. It's the brain. Welcome to the brain. Yeah, I know, right? All three of us also get motion sick. Thank you for asking. So, we're just a combo, the three of us. But, um that's something we need to consider. And actually, I will give a shoutout to Electronic Arts, actually, which released Iris last year, which is

a free photosensitivity testing tool designed for games. Anyone can use it. You can go to our website and you can download the code. You have to build a front end for it. But, yeah, that's a tool that's available to everyone in this room right now. So, definitely check it out. And I definitely, um the cost is free $99. Again, um versus the other ones out there, which costs um significantly more money. It's just one I'm going to reiterate. If you're looking to do it, that one is very cost-effective in that you don't have to pay for it. And this last one I added based on my experience in game development class with other like indie devs who are just starting out and learning how to make games. Teaching everyone who is learning how to make games right now that it's a good choice to just at least attempt to present information in as many ways as possible when developing a game can actually help you figure out ways to make your game more accessible early in the process as opposed to trying to finish the game and then do it later. Cuz if you're thinking about how your player is getting information from you,

it will give you an idea of like where what where the gaps are in what you're making so that you can actually help them get over that barrier before you've even made it. And a lot of my classmates were asking me cuz they know that I do accessibility consulting, but I also like I'm working in Unreal and I'm learning how to make games on my own. But, like I can't I can't make a game accessible by myself. I'm just one person. I'm like, you You not have to single-handedly hit this checklist that we we all like have in our imaginations of every single possible access need. Like that's not what we're saying. We're saying based on what your game is, what information is important for you to give the player, and how else can you do that using the blueprints that you've learned in class? Like I'm not trying to tell you to learn everything right now, but knowing what you know, how else can you do this? Just starting with that small thought can really empower a developer to reach a goal they didn't know they could reach because they didn't know it was possible. the the gist of it is that I preach this everywhere, even in the drive-thru at McDonald's. Like we're going to make things more accessible. Ma'am, this is a Wendy's. Exactly.

Uh you know, I I absolutely love that um Jay added and brought this up um because it again gives me a chance to talk about Alan Wake 2. Um So, one of the the really key things is like you can do this like re-giving information to people in cool and creative ways that can be enjoyed by everyone. Um so, if you haven't played Alan Wake 2, it's a narrative horror um single-player uh game and it has a very complex story that has uh you swap in and out between two characters, but one of the things that the characters have is their mind board. And particularly Saga, who is uh playing uh she's an FBI detective trying to solve this case. As you go through, there is literally a board where as you learn new things, you pin it to the board and you get to connect pieces of information. And when Saga learns something important, it gets put on the board. And if she is able to draw conclusions from learning multiple

things, she's like, "Oh, case closed." Puts a note on it about what she learned from all of the information that she was able to collect. And this exists that the player is always able to go and look at it, and you can always go back through any of the key pieces of information that you have, and you can even go reopen closed case files so that you can learn more information. So, for me, that's a really really cool way of providing this information I received primarily via audio, via in-game conversations, in another way, but also going a step further and contextualizing it with other key pieces of story information that I have learned in the game, and that also helps inform what your next objective is going to be. So, you can also view your current game story objective at any given time on the same thing. So, for me, I view that entire mind board as like a great accessibility tool because it gives me that information, it gives me that recap, but

other people love it as well. So, like, you don't have to be prescriptive, just like Jay was saying. Like, you can come up with cool ways to integrate this level in accessibility that is new and radical and engages all of your player base. Yeah. And actually, this I know we kind of are touching and getting into this where so often times when I'm working with different studios and dev teams, when we talk about accessibility, um you typically can bucket into uh options, so play as you want. So, think of the idea of like turning down effects, turning down brightness, that sort of thing, versus that by design, what you're talking about right now. So, the idea of you can make a game accessible to people who have temporary, permanent, or situational cognitive conditions just by design, exactly as you're describing. You don't need This is like this story of all of our lives. It's often times when people say, "Accessibility, I have an accessibility menu." And it's like, "Yes, great, but like also too, what are

we doing in the actual fundamental design itself?" We can elevate our games when we're thinking about accessibility early and often fundamentally through the actual design itself. And this is an excellent example that you brought up for this. Oh, yeah, you can see I'm like getting a live like pedestal right now. Like, "Oh, it's accessibility by design." But, of course, it's a balance. Both will always be necessary, but this is an excellent example in the context of cognitive accessibility where you can have it baked in. That's right, I'm making a baker reference cuz my last name's Baker. Oh gosh. Okay. And that's it. Thanks for coming to our talk. If you have any questions, we have a microphone set up. Oh, the polite applause is so sweet. Thank you. And again, please don't forget to fill out your survey. Yes. If you liked us. If you didn't like us, please don't fill it out. Please do. Yes. Um I guess this is only Yeah, okay.

Hi. Uh Tara. Yeah. Hi. Very nice talk, and I I um I just want to add something uh that I experienced from the working with people with intellectual disabilities last few years. And uh that's a group that is highly dependent on personalization or individual settings. At the same time, they can't often do those settings themselves. They are relying on other people to do it. Like, for instance, at day activity centers, they have uh staff that uh needs to help them to set things up. And I worked also a little bit with games in in these settings, and one of the issues is that the staff is not tech savvy. They're not gamers. They don't have to help to work with people. So, it's uh a hard time to get them to actually learn how to make the set things understand what the game uh settings are and what it means for the person and so on. So, it has to be made super simple so

that the staff can actually uh understand how to adapt it for the individual person. Uh one way of doing it could to have like instead of having a menu with settings, you can have a like a wizard style like of the you get one question at the time step by step and then you could more easily at least make correct settings. But there's another way this is proposed by a professor here in the US called Gregg Vander Heiden who is kind of a superstar in accessibility is behind the W3C uh we had guidelines and many other things. And he has come up with this concept called the global public inclusive infrastructure GPII.net. And one of the ideas there is that you can have some uh universally available um um preferences uh that is individualized and easily available. Um So, um you could adapt any type of

uh application. Now, he is not talking smart about games, but I think it can be also applied for that. It would require of course that the game industry joins forces and come up with this a kind of a universal format that all game companies could um um apply in their games. So, it means that if a person with a uh intellectual disability would need something, all they would need is a QR code or some near field communication in a little card or something that Now, this this person is playing this game, adapt the game. I'm so sorry. You didn't have a question? No, it's just a a comment and then an addition to what you Thank you so much. you are focusing a lot on on the game itself that's great, but also think about the how to make the settings because otherwise all the features of um accessibility can be in vain because they will not be able to play the game

anyway because you can't do settings kind of been Yeah, uh we have limited time for questions, but uh this will this will be a great topic to cover at the uh the round table um the IGDA game accessibility sig round table, where we can have a and a proper discussion. Uh uh great point, thank you. Thank you. Hey there, I'm Lindsey. Um first of all, great talk. Um as someone with ADHD, like I resonated with so many things and it was just awesome. Um so my uh question my question relates to uh my role actually. I'm a narrative designer at Hasbro, so I work on tabletop. Um so working on working in narrative on tabletop um means that you're responsible responsible for a lot of the onboarding and making rules clear and accessible for um everyone. So I was just wondering in your experience with playing tabletop games, are there any is there anything that sticks out to you specifically that you think could

improve the onboarding experience? Ooh, good question. Well, uh so for me, um handing me a rulebook is like a no-go. Uh it just it's not going to work. Um so for me, it's always um like I am more like it it well, the number one way that I will learn a game is if someone is there to teach me. Um which I get, you cannot ship yourself with every game. Um as much as I'm sure you would love to. Um so for me, I do a lot better with like um so this is normally I do not do well with verbal instructions, so I acknowledge that what I get I'm getting ready to say also doesn't sound like it would make a lot of sense. So a lot of times, it's visually being able to see what is happening, like the cause and effect. So for me, it's not as much like verbally hearing instructions, like that's not going to work either, because I would will stop paying intentional. But having even if it's just like gifts in the

middle of written instructions like, "Hey, like you're watching a board game or here's your paper. Do you want to see this instead? Like go visit this website where we've inserted gifts in in the instructions." That is way more likely to sink in because I will see like the connection of what I just read and what it translates to in the game itself. So, that's something I need, but I know Morgan you've got a lot more like actual Morgan has actual accessibility work in board games, so Yeah, no, but it's absolutely true. When you're thinking about this, you want to connect the dots, right? And so actually well, speaking of board games specifically, one thing that I like is So, I used to do consultancy work over at Exploding Kittens, which is a lot of fun helping with accessibility there. Super cool. And one thing that they value a lot is making sure that they have very short videos that are super fast, but very instructional on exactly how the game goes. In fact, oh, I wish it was Carol's here she could say, but they have like literally a rule where it's like, "If you have it within X minutes, players

should be able to get it." And so this is something that's really helpful because it reinforces Hi, I have ADHD, so when I love board games, I will like drool. If you sit me down, I will just like not understand what's happening. I see all the colors and the pieces and I'm just like my brain goes this way and then people like, "Hey Morgan." I'm like, "Yes." Oh, sorry, you were talking and it compounded with the deaf thing. And so you want to be sure that you have things that can create these actual synapse connections for players. Show, don't tell, right? Interact. That's why too I like with board games where they have like uh like faux like put these five cards, pull from the deck and interact that type of stuff because it helps people go "Oh, I see." So, in a situation like this, you can kind of like design your games around that. So, you should check out though for Exploding Kittens, they did a talk last year on accessibility and how they've been thinking about it for board games. and They did a good one this year, too. It was awesome. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. Um just a real plug in also quick.

There's a game called uh Side Effects that has a QR code that you can watch someone actually role-play the whole um the game um logic in a loop. I love when there's a QR code to a video. I'm also an adult who has ADHD and I'm an occupational therapist, so I work with kids who have ADHD. I was lately diagnosed as an adult while working with kids who have ADHD on the spectrum and you know or and have also physical disabilities. I also a lot of myself and I was like, "Wow, this makes a lot of sense." And um I'm struggling. Wow, this makes a lot of sense. Oh my god, okay. Um I'm seeing uh you know a lot of them end up you know really relating to me and I was like, "Yeah, that was me. You are me and we I get you." Uh so um for my question is um for someone like me, I'm kind of trying to transition out of the clinical field and I've I've always been a gamer, always been I love ADHD and D&D. Those things go really well together for a lot of beautiful reasons. Um but I'm trying to get into more of the accessibility and

video gaming world and um I love the fact that you guys touched upon executive functioning. Um basically in all the way you break down stuff in making cognitive accessibility in games. What would you give as an advice for someone who's looking to get into and kind of doing what you guys do? So Great question. I know we all have such different paths. Yeah, so if you uh ask anyone who works in game accessibility, "How did you get into game accessibility?" We all came from radically different backgrounds because it's such a new field overall. Um you know stand-alone game accessibility jobs have not existed for a very long time. So there I guess the good news is there's not a clear cut like path forward and you can use your previous experiences and forge your own way. Um the bad news is is there's not anywhere clear cut so I can't give you a guidebook and you're going to have to forge your own way. Um but honestly I

think a lot of good accessibility work comes from connections and being able to learn from a wide breadth of people because everyone in accessibility comes from different backgrounds you are constantly learning from everyone else in like I learned from these two constantly. So I can say for me I came from education and I work in games now how did that happen? So yeah. Um so like honestly I I would start with finding a game accessibility community that is easy for you to connect with whether it's um finding people who are doing groups uh meetups locally or whether it's joining something online like the game accessibility conference has um an online discord. Yeah I've been in discord yeah. Yeah it just just finding those things and then making the the connections and you'll like again like I there isn't a guide but like you'll start to see your path forward as you get more information. So that's not very helpful but it's honest. No but it's true too just to add sorry

is that there's like also things like accessible game jams are happening and stuff like that and so that's a fantastic way to start and I will always say this it's good to focus on accessibility but accessibility touches everything in games right that's what we've been talking about there's probably people here from every single background you know doing different things in games and so the nice thing is to get into accessibility no one's stopping you right if you work in games you can just do accessibility and I think that's the beauty of it right? And then as you fall in love with it if you find that this is something I want to focus more and more on then you can kind of start exploring the career paths for that. I mean that's basically I was a game designer I mean like we just kind of all kind of fell more and more into this field in that way. So, Okay. I wish there was like a manual. I don't think any job has a manual in this industry. No. But, this one definitely doesn't. Do you need to slow down? Yes. Okay.

I am Frederick and I have a question for for Morgan about the the um Oops, sorry. About the trigger warning in Dead Space uh can you avoid spoilers with this uh How do you avoid spoilers in the trigger warnings of Dead Space? Oh, that's a great question. And I have to give the full-blown credit. So, for the trigger warnings in Dead Space, we call them content warnings. Pick your tomato tomato, right? Um but, the way we avoided that was we went through the entire script and the narrative team went above and beyond to make sure that they wrote language that wouldn't necessarily spoil the If you've played Dead Space, you can imagine that there might be spoilers as you're saying certain things that if you know the game, it kind of involves mental health at the end of the day. And so, it was completely on the narrative team and they went through and did like

mitigation and went through different risks, looked through the actual language itself to make sure is it telling the players what type of content and I talk about this in the J conference where a lot of the content warnings are grounded specifically in violence towards humans. And so, we made sure to write the warnings in a way that can convey that information quickly, one, but also make sure that it doesn't spoil anything else or kind of pull someone out of that immersion. I give the full-blown credit to the narrative team for achieving that. Okay, thank you. Great question. Yeah, that's a one, too. Like if you know the game. Hi. Um I work for a platform which is mostly centered around user-created content. Um do you have any suggestions for how we can, you know, add

accessibility but for, you know, UGC, for things that are end-user created? Is it like mods? Is art? Like what's the content? Uh sort of everything. It's uh VRChat. Oh, okay. Well, I think the first thing is um so accessibility in any space is as much about culture chain culture change as it is about the actual technical or design implementations. Um so honestly, like one of the first things that I would do is because it's reliant on UGC, um like you cannot personally go in and verify every single piece of content to ever to be accessible. I'm That's just not feasible realistically. Like that does not scale. And so honestly, what I would start with would be having an educational moment or push for your platform to do the education and training to give to your content creators so that they understand what it is and what it's important. So

the first step would be kind of creating that educational moment. But then the second thing is you'll need to figure out some sort of rewards. Like if they have done it, how can you reward them? So like one of the things that exist on uh not just Xbox but also PlayStation is our accessibility tags in the storefront. So if you meet certain criteria, like your subtitles are the right size, the right contrast, etc., etc., you can get the subtitle tag in the storefront. Having subtitles does not guarantee you the subtitle tag. So they have to be good subtitles to get the tag, right? So like is there a way where you could kind of have some process that, "Hey, if a developer has said like, 'Hey, we have done accessibility.' Is there a way that you can make their UGC more prominent? Can you give it a higher rating?" Um I don't know enough about uh I give VR 6, so I don't really go into VRChat and that kind of thing. Um but that's kind of how SEO works for accessibility outside of games, right? If you're adding like all text, then the SEO actually improves for it. So, you can think about it through that lens of rewarding I I love that. Rewarding the

players for the game by accessible design and those who are creating the content itself. So, I don't want to spread misinformation, but I think Roblox might have a very similar system to this. So, Oh, I think that's great. I think they they I think they even had like I think they have like put out they put out guidelines, too. They actually know All I'm doing is subconsciously copying uh what Roblox did a couple of years ago. Thank you. We have time for one more question. Hi, my name is Monica and I'm going to step my eye. Um Hello. I um recently like started a UI/UX tech club and I really want to include accessibility like in the planning phase as opposed to like and um but I'm I have no idea like at all about accessibility besides like, you know, like the link for the URL and adding ALT and then I'm so I'm learning a lot and I'm part of the video game development club at my school and I'm usually like in some kind of leadership or like game manager position. And honestly like we're all learning and

there's not much time, so I've experienced like at least in the game area where like accessibility is kind of just dropped off. So, I was thinking and I heard that there's not really a manual, but I was thinking are there any some like resources out there that are like super bite-size size so we can focus on one aspect of accessibility because we also kind of like not argue, but we're like, "What about subtitles? What about something else?" And I'm like, "I don't know which one to pick." So, it's it's kind of hard. Yeah, so there there is a a lot to like we've all been accessibility for years. So like what we would do would be different. So I guess there there's two things for for each individual title like what you go to tackle will not be the same because it is going to be dependent on your team size, your tech, what you've already done, um and what is the fastest, easiest, most bang for your buck is going to vary. Um that being said, uh there are a bunch of guidelines that are publicly available um including the Xbox accessibility guidelines, but they are very very dense. Um so for me, an accessibility expert, like those are really easy to work with

cuz I already have that background. Something that may be more easy for you to consume is um gameaccessibilityguidelines.com and one of the things with uh that website is it's broken down into basic, intermediate, and advanced. So that if you are brand new, you know kind of like hey, these are some of the most important ones that you you can start with and and tackle those. Um there is also some really great other things that um Xbox has put out. Um transparency, I did not work on them, but the team of folks who did are fantastic. Um such as um there's the Microsoft Gaming Accessibility Fundamentals Training Course, which is a a learning course that you can take that'll give you a lot of really great information. Um there is also everything has acronyms and I never remember any of them and I feel really bad cuz Brandon's right back there and he would like actually know the names of these things. Um but one is the you after the panel. the person There's There's one that has personas that like break down some common cons. The Gaming and Disability Experience

Player Archetypes. See? Oh, oh, I'm off the hook. I'm off the Gaming Accessibility Disability Gaming Experience Disability Guide. Gaming Experience Disability Guide. Uh and there's also a great one on um in-person events uh that uh Brandon actually wrote um but I would recommend all of those resources. Thank you so much for starting. Yeah, thank you. Uh and I think with that, we're out of time. They've opened the doors. Thank you. Don't forget to fill out your survey. Fill out your survey!