American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections Special Issue on Technology RECREATION
by Daniel Hawkins
Reprinted with Permission from AccessWorld, Winter 2024
You may be familiar with the game Forza Motorsports, which received the award for Innovation in Accessibility at the 2023 Gaming Awards. Hearing about the release of a video game made accessible for blind players was very exciting to me. However, I found out I was unable to play it due to the combination of my blindness and hearing loss. In searching the web for any information on accessible games for those who are deafblind, I was not able to find anything. There are many games accessible for people who are deaf or people who are blind, but not for those who are both deaf and blind.
Maybe that seems to make sense at first. You might think that switching between visual cues and audio cues is all it takes to make a game accessible to either party. So what would a game for the deafblind even look like?
Let’s dive into what deafblindness is, and what is required to make games accessible. Then let us investigate suggestions and examples of accessible video games.
Deafblindness is a disability with dual sensory loss. Both vision and hearing loss affect how a person interacts with their surroundings. Many people believe that you can take the skills and resources of blind individuals and deaf individuals and combine them, and you get deafblindness. Yes, but no. Deafblindness is much more than that.
There are many skills and resources that a deafblind individual can utilize from both the blind community and the deaf community. Often, however, changes are needed to better accommodate the deafblind. For example, think about a phone call. A blind person can hear the person on the phone just fine. A deaf person can use text or a TTY, or they can sign over a video call. A deafblind person cannot hear a voice call and cannot read print to text; they must use Braille and Braille only.
But hearing and vision are also spectrums. To understand how to create a fully accessible experience, we must know the different types of deafblindness and what features and adjustments deafblind people may benefit from.
As the writer of this article, I am in this particular category. I have total vision loss with profound hearing loss. This means as a player I will not be able to see the game, but I can hear some of it. I only have one good ear that uses a hearing aid. Individuals with this vision and hearing loss combination may use most resources and skills utilized by the blind.
An example of accessible technology is using a screen reader where the voices can be adjusted for speech rate, pitch change, and volume. With limited hearing, some users may still hear sounds, but special sounds in a game such as sound effects, background music, spatial sounds, etc., will not be helpful. If the game is utilizing text to speech to convey useful information, background music or decorative sounds may interfere with gameplay. Braille display support will also be helpful in gameplay, but may also slow down reading text, which means games that have a timer or require quick responses will not be accessible.
Individuals with total hearing loss and low vision may see some of the game but will not hear it. Games that rely on sound for gameplay will not be accessible. If the game does not have good color contrast or large print, or if it has quick action motion, users may not be able to play. Low-vision users may need the ability to have all text displayed in large print with high color contrast.
Individuals with both total hearing and vision loss, as might seem evident, cannot see or hear. They may rely on American Sign Language in tactile format, or when interacting with technology, they may use Braille displays. If there is no screen reader support that also supports Braille displays, there is no way for the totally deafblind individual to interact with a video game. Games that rely on sound will not be useful due to the user’s hearing loss. Games that require quick turnaround and fast action may not be feasible, due to the slower reading speed of many Braille readers.
It can be overwhelming to come up with a fully accessible video game that can be played by everyone. Granted, not all video games will ever be fully accessible, due to specific concepts or the nature and sheer variety of games. However, there are many out there right now that can be made accessible with some thought and feature fixes. Below are a few video game examples that can be made accessible.
Checkers or Chess is a great example of a turn-based video game that can be made accessible and enjoyed by everyone. Since this is a turn-based game, it gives each player time and control to read what is on the board, decide what to do, and then make a move. To make it accessible for deafblind players, all aspects of the game must be fully accessible with a screen reader that is also translated to Braille. Since both Checkers and Chess are laid out in a grid-like pattern, a screen reader can navigate a grid very easily. If there are labels for rows and columns calling out moves, any player will know which position is which. A deafblind player also can have a physical board next to them so they can feel physically the position of each game piece. There should be status messages that announce when a player moves a piece and the outcome of said move. With these accessibility considerations in mind, the deafblind can easily play Checkers or Chess online.
Any turn-based game that can output to a Braille display has the possibility of being fully accessible. This requires that other aspects of the game aren’t inaccessible; for example, most traditional role-playing games have turn-based combat, but also require that the player navigate the game world in real time, where audio cues would most likely be necessary for full access. Even with this taken into account, many turn-based games are candidates for accessibility. Most traditional games would be accessible if Braille support were included. This could be anything from traditional card games to board games such as chess and Monopoly.
Considering that the player must read all game information in Braille, games that limit a player’s turn based on time may make games less accessible. For example, the game Hearthstone, discussed in past issues of AccessWorld for its accessibility for those who are blind or have low vision, would be accessible in regard to game output, but may be difficult for some due to the limited time available to take turns.
Racing games can be difficult for a deafblind person to play, and tricky to make accessible. It is a good example of how substituting visual and auditory cues can make something accessible for the blind or for the deaf. For this situation to be made accessible for deafblind users, information must be conveyed in another format. Messages can be displayed on Braille displays, but haptic feedback can be used for different vibrations on the left or right side of a controller, for example. Since this is not a turn-based game, it relies on hand-to-eye coordination. In this case, it would be physical feedback-to-hand coordination for deafblind users.
Before video games came to be as we know them, basic computers would have text-based games. In these games, all game information was provided through text, and the player would type commands to interact with the game environment. There are (modern) text-based games today, and they can easily be made fully accessible for everyone. Make sure proper systematic structure and headings are in place, that proper focus order is followed, and everything appears to a screen reader and Braille display, and the game should be fully accessible in the majority of cases. In this case, no timing or quick action is required. No accessibility features need to be created, since those standards already exist and are commonplace.
With these considerations in mind, we can start thinking of more all-inclusive video games that everyone can play. Granted, there may be some limitations on how the game is played, creativity might be needed to make accessible adjustments. The tradeoff is that everyone can play! Something made more accessible to some makes it more usable to all, regardless of whether they have vision or hearing loss.
Feel free to reach out to your local deafblind community and meet individuals who have various degrees of vision and hearing loss. Learn how they interact with video games!