Designing Games for the Blind, Deaf, and Colour-Blind

For my first blog of the year, I thought I would explore the idea of Universal Usability in video games, and what can be done to make games playable for people with several types of disabilities. As mentioned in Professor Lennart Nacke’s lecture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRBUoYjn0VA), players with physical disabilities can benefit from simple one-button game design, but there are other disabilities that can affect a gamer’s ability to play video games as well. I was inspired to write this blog entry because of a video I once saw which really opened my eyes to the great capabilities of people with disabilities when it comes to playing video games.

The video is about blind gamer Terry Garrett, who was 23 years old at the time. Garrett managed to play through (and enjoy) a number of video games, particularly two games from the Oddworld series: Abe’s Oddysee and Abe’s Exoddus. The fascinating part of his story is that Garrett was able to expertly play those games using only his hearing and memory. In the video below, Garrett plays Abe’s Exoddus while explaining his process for playing video games as a blind gamer.

To sum it up, Garrett has a number of particular steps he goes through in order to figure out how to play a video game. The first thing he does is ask a sighted person to explain the layout of the menu to him, so that he can memorize how to navigate the menu. He also said he will sometimes find video walkthroughs online that he will listen to in order to get a feel for the game, and to know what to look for and aim towards. However, he just seems to save that step for games that he has difficulty in figuring out, because for Abe’s Exoddus, he never listened to a single walkthrough, but figured it out on his own. While playing the game, Garrett listens for sounds that give any hint to what is going on – footsteps, hitting against a wall, interacting with other characters, sounds that enemies make, and so forth. He also pays attention to sound landmarks, such as the sound of water, or footsteps that will hint at what kind of terrain his character is walking on. Garrett also relies heavily on his memory, as he memorizes sections of the game as he gets through them (including the number of steps to important objects or obstacles), and works his way through the game bit by bit using quick saves. (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/04/blind-gamer-plays-zelda-by-ear/)

Designing for the Blind

Garrett’s story can show us quite a lot about good game design, especially for blind players such as himself. For one, sophisticated sound design can actually be enough for a blind player to understand a game world. Every major action should make a unique sound, so that the player can decipher what is happening using only their hearing. For instance, walking, running, climbing, hitting a wall, or picking up an item should all make different and easily distinguishable sounds. It would not make sense to give every action the player character can take a different animation and not a different sound. Everything that is conveyed in a game visually should also be conveyed using sound, whenever possible. Characters, enemies, and objects should all make unique sounds. It is understandable to refrain from making all objects emit sound at all times, but at the very least, the player’s interaction with an object should make a sound. There should also be very clear audio feedback for a player’s success or failure, especially in important situations such as if the player character dies or has to restart an area. Without this feedback, a blind player would become very lost in the game very quickly, and would not likely be able to retain interest without any feedback on their actions. There should be different background sounds for different environments so that the player can orient themselves within the game world using sound alone. For instance, a forest may have birds chirping, or a stream may have the sound of flowing water. Even a change in music could be a significant sign that the player has entered a new area. All of these cues help a blind player to navigate through a game world using only their hearing.

Though I stressed using sound wherever possible, there is a limit to this. The game also shouldn’t overload the player with sound information, because this could easily become chaotic and confusing, not to mention stressful. Terry Garrett mentioned that he cannot play first-person shooters like Halo because there are shots and explosions coming from all directions, which makes it very difficult for him to figure out what is going on. Ideally, games for the blind would have plenty of sound information, but spread out rather than all happening at once.

For blind players, game menus should also be very easy to navigate. A simple menu with a few options from top to bottom or left to right is best, and if the menu were sound-based, then the player could figure it out without help from their sighted friends or family. Garrett also stressed that he relies heavily on the quick save feature in games, because it allows him to complete small sections of the game at a time. Without this feature, blind players would experience quite a lot of frustration by having to repeat sections again and again if they fail later on.

Finally, haptic feedback is another way that video games can be more accessible to the blind. Garrett said that he also enjoys playing Wii Sports because the haptic feedback allows him to figure out the game more easily. Though this may not be ideal for some physically challenged players, providing feedback to the player’s sense of touch is a good idea when possible, especially when it is used to supplement audio and visual feedback.

Designing for the Deaf

Since video games usually focus far more on visual cues than audio cues, it does not seem as difficult to design games for the deaf as for the blind. However, there are still a variety of video games that cause a player to rely on sound in order to progress. After some thinking, I came up with an example – the Lost Woods in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the Lost Woods, the player has to navigate through a number of paths by listening for music, and going down the path where the music is playing the loudest. The core concept of this is poor design for deaf players, since they would not be able to figure out puzzles based entirely on sound. Ideally, there should be some slight visual cues to lead the way as well.

However, the interesting thing about the Lost Woods in Ocarina of Time is that there already are slight visual cues that a deaf player could use to navigate the area, which most players aren’t intended to notice. Each path appears to lead to blackness, but the incorrect path shows a little bit of light in the middle of the blackness, so if the player really pays attention and looks at the paths from the right angle, even a deaf player can figure out which way to go.

On the left, there is a completely black, correct path.  On the right, there is an incorrect path with a light in the middle.

In addition, the path isn’t extremely complicated anyways, so even if the player couldn’t hear and couldn’t see the visual difference between the paths, they could figure out how to navigate using trial and error. Whether or not the Lost Woods was intentionally designed in this way, this is an excellent example on how to deal with making sound-based games, or sections of games, more accessible to the deaf.

Designing for the Colour-Blind

Ideally, in order to make video games more accessible for colour-blind players, colour should not play an important factor in games, but should simply be included for aesthetics. However, if a game requires its player to distinguish between colours as a part of gameplay, this can still be done in an accessible way for colour-blind players. Colour-blind players cannot distinguish between different hues, but can typically distinguish between different shades or intensities of colour. For instance, if a player was required to distinguish between red, blue, and yellow, this could still be done by using a dark blue, bright red, and light yellow, as long as the player would not have to label which of the colours was which, unless the game specifically told them beforehand. (http://jfly.iam.u-tokyo.ac.jp/color/)

Colours as seen by those who see colour, and as seen by those with Protanope or Deuteranope colour-blindness.

At first, I didn’t think that many games severely disadvantaged colour-blind players. However, after reading this article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13054691), I realized that colour is used as a key indicator in a great variety of games, to the point where colour-blind people would certainly struggle with playing those games. For instance, certain first person shooter games distinguish teams by colour, such as the red and green used in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, and so colour-blind players would not easily be able to distinguish between their team mates and enemies. Another example used is racing games such as Formula 1 2010, which uses red to tell the player to brake, and green for the player to accelerate, but colour-blind players would not get these cues.

On the left, Call of Duty Modern Warfare as seen by those with colour sight, and on the right, as seen by those with Deuteranopia, a type of colour blindness.

The best solution I could suggest would be to either give important colours a very different intensity, so that even colour-blind players can distinguish between them, or have other indicators besides colour in the game.

As a whole, there is plenty that could be done to design video games to be more accessible to players with different handicaps. Many of the solutions I have mentioned are good design practices in the first place, and so game designers should really make a conscious effort to keep these points in mind. Other solutions that are only for the benefit of players with a disability are still important to consider, because designing a game that is inclusive to all different types of players should be a key goal for many game developers. Of course, it can be difficult to always design games to be all-inclusive for players, but putting a little extra effort into game design could go a long way.