IGDA Game Accessibility Special Interest Group

Ubisoft



Doughnuts! It seems as though Ubisoft's grand gesture to game accessibility stretches as far as adding basic text subtitles to future games. This is a good but very basic step. A little more appreciation of "The Sound Alternative" would have been better. A little more willingness to communicate with those pressing for accessibility in games would have been better still.

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COGAIN - Eye Tracker Game Competition



COGAIN - Eye Tracker Game Competition - Image from NASA 'Eye of God'. In a little bit of synchronicity with the Retro Remakes "Game For Helen" category, COGAIN have just launched their own Eye Tracker game competition: "Power of Gaze".

COGAIN (COmmunication by GAze INteration) have a short list of previously submitted eye-tracker games and 'leisure applications' on-line. The main restriction is that you need to be a student or a group of students in order to submit a game. Student's of Life should be able to apply too, surely?

[update: 18.9.08] - COGAIN have opened up the competion as follows: "Any student (undergraduate or graduate) or non-commercial participant (not a student but not a professional either) may enter the competition". Excellent!

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Ubisoft Commits To Include Subtitles In Future Products



Ubisoft Commits To Include Subtitles In Future Products - Image of an Opera with Surtitles. Ubisoft have started to listen to the deaf-community struggling with their games for want of some subtitles. Scanning through the comments over at Kotaku gives an idea of the problems gamers have had - and also some of the ignorance that causes these unnecessary barriers.

All fingers are crossed that Ubisoft will be offering full "Closed Captioned" subtitles - with description of important sounds, music and the direction of sounds. They could do a lot worse than to take a peek at Games[CC], Deaf Gamers and Game-Accessibility.com for guidance.

Via: Sandra Uhling on the GASIG mailing list.

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Strange Attractors 2



Strange Attractors 2 Strange Attractors 2 has arrived. It's possibly the most polished and ambitious one-switch game ever written. Kick the Tyres here (the demo) or buy the full game for $14.95 (£7.50 ish). It's superb. I love it.

For those wishing to learn more, there's a great interview with Eric Walker of Ominous Development over at AbleGamers.com.

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War Twat



War Twat - High Visibility Version.War Twat is fierce. And despite it's unrelenting difficulty, actually demonstrates some very fine accessibility traits.

1. It uses a nice and simple control scheme (the cursor keys and the CTRL key to fire) that also works to start and restart a game.
2. There's a high-visibility version.
3. There's a non-sweary version.

Not great for people prone to photo-sensitive seizures though I must say. Fierce!

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