IGDA Game Accessibility Special Interest Group

Reconfiguring Controls without Barriers



Image of The Near Future Lab's Playstation ControllerThis looks promising. The Near Future Laboratory created a way to control a Playstation via Ardunio circuitry. Does this mean that a PC could be used to control a Playstation? I've long hoped for something like Sensory Software's "The Grid 2" running on a PC/Mac having the ability to support disabled people to play games console games.

I like the idea of being able to connect and mix up what ever methods of control you need, then having software assist you with controls you struggle with, to play games on any modern games console. And why stop there? Why not anything you can interface with in a wireless manner.

Game developers in the main seem to remain ignorant as to the importance of offering a way for gamers to reconfigure their controls. Annoying. This sort of thing could offer a real solution for many.

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Visually impaired players: The unseen inhabitants of Azeroth





Great post over at WOW.com Linsy Smith writes about the visual disabled and World of Warcraft. She says
But there's a catch. Like me, Elfly is disabled. I'm a VIP (disabled shorthand for visually impaired person) and she's (in her own words) a blindy (shorthand for, well, a blind person). This means we play with our noses touching the screen and get lost. A lot. To give you an example for what the world (in-game or real) is like for me, nip to your nearest Azerothian tavern and quaff flagons of mead until you get completely smashed and the screen goes all blurry, alternatively just click here. Anyway, between the pair of us, we're so blind that we both think Blizzard should insert white canes and guide dogs in patch 3.3's game files. Though, given the game setting, maybe that should be an ornate white staff of sightlessness and a guide wolf?
She goes on to write about the issue at great length and is a great must read.

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