Accessibility and difficulty in games.

[Tanukitsune]

People have been throwing the term "accessible games" a lot lately and while I'm pretty sure it's a very clear term, but what exactly makes a game accessible? Is it something subjective?

I think we can pretty much agree than most of the retro bad and hard games are not accessible, they don't you what to do, you don't know where to do, you're left in the dark. Some games actually still do leave you in the dark, but that's part of the gameplay, but you still learn about the game as you play along, while the other games... it seems like just don't care or have have the mentality of making things easy for you is making you weak.

Is a game accessible when it explains how it works through narrative and gameplay effectively? You know what to do, you know when you did something wrong and you know when you did something right? All of the "tough but fair games" seem to enter in this category.

But does difficulty make a game less accessible? Even when it's the "good" kind?

But what makes a game unaccessible?

And I find Street Fighter IV very unaccessible...

Why? You have to memorize many different and complex moves for each character and then they have counters, cancels... Most of the more modern fighters have either added an "easy mode" which makes special moves easier or they simply made the moves easier.

Is really as simple as that? Is accessibility making a game easier to understand and play without making it easier? Can a game be somewhat difficulty AND accessible?

[thorn]

I thought accessibility meant that the game was capable of being played by people with physicial disabilities. Depending on the person, that might have something to do with flexible controls or enough redundancy in the audio/visual feedback for them to be able to cope.

One amazing story is the blind guy who completed the Oddworld Abe games.

[Noyb]

A big part of accessibility is recognizing that gamers, often through no fault of their own, have wildly different abilities and skill. You mention difficulty in terms of button inputs and timing. Some gamers are physically incapable of responding to rapid tests of reaction time. Some gamers are physically unable to interact with games that require more than one input button. Accessibility is all about getting gamers like these to be able to play your game, which does not mean dumbing down the game for others lucky enough to be more physically capable.

Rob Fearon, creator of the Squid Yes Not So Octopus series of arena shmups had a lovely article on this: http://www.merseyremakes.co.uk/gibber/2009/10/entitlement/

I’m sure you’ve read this in some form or another across many forums, comments sections, articles and debates. It might come in the form of “Games used to be hard, I grew up on them, that’s the way I like them and you cannot take that away from me”. It might come in the form of “They’ve already got their games, leave mine alone”, there’s a thousand variants that can all be boiled down to someone essentially shouting “what about me” at the world, always done in a manner that implies that they are absolutely entitled to hold the superior position here. It could be that they’ve been playing games for 20 years, it could be that they believe only hard or obtuse games are proper games and everything else is Wii-fodder but it always comes down to “What about me?” at the end of the day.

Well, y’know, what about you? You guys, gals trotting this out – you’re not special y’know? More to the point, you’re not entitled to a bigger say than anyone else for an arbitrary reason. You’ve all got no more nor less right to be able to play games than anyone else. And that’s important, y’know? I’ve been playing games for over 25 years now and last time I looked I didn’t have a certificate of service that entitled me to have a bigger say in what games should be and if I did, I doubt it’d say “yeah, you can have games but no-one else can because you’re special. Love, The Gaming Police xxx :mwah:”.

Game Accessibility is a great site to read for more about this subject: http://www.accessibility.nl/games/index.php?pagefile=home

Can a game be somewhat difficulty AND accessible?

Yes.

[Tanukitsune]

I think I might have chosen the wrong word then? I'm talking about making games accessible to the general public, not only people who can beat a bullet hell game blindfolded? What word should I use then? Should I just say "Making games accessible to the general public and difficulty?"?

I have SYNSO and I like that it has a version for the color blind.

[vimes]

I've learned about Usability in Human Computer Interaction; but the strict sense of the term applies badly to gameplay...

So, the best approximation to judge a game's usability is asking wether or not the player can :

• understand what is requested from him / what problem he is confronted with
  
• identify and select the tools that are available to him
  
• comprehend what is the impact of those tools in the world
  

If game design decisions, bugs, artistic choices or whatever come in the way of saying "Yes" to all those things, then the usability is compromised.

Difficulty covers different layers of gameplay :

• the complexity of the problem to solve
  
• the tolerance to improper input (e.g. if you've got a reflex challenge, the time window in which the input it still considered to be on time)
  
• the punishment's magnitude for bad input of failure to solve problems.
  

And lastly, accessibility covers the evolution of the complexity, tolerance and punishment.

From my experience, manic shooters are very usable but some of them a clearly not accessible, and they are always difficult .

[syntheticgerbil]

It would seem me that outside of good artistic or visual design, which I think attract most of the general public, accessibility should require a lower learning curve so that things like controls and how the game works become obvious quickly instead of assuming you've already played a ton of others in the genre and throws it all at you at once. The downside of this is that most game designers seem to get around this by adding tedious tutorial levels at the beginning or my personal pet peeve where you can't use certain moves or controls simply because you haven't gotten to the part where it's going to give you a tutorial on them. I think some experimentation is always ideal for any player and being held by the hand might hurt raise the learning curve instead.

I don't believe accessibility is solely a matter of easiness in a game but instead about a game being easier at the beginning and smoothly making it's way to the peak difficulty. I can imagine a game becoming too difficult for the player in the end will make most quit, but a lot of times I personally experience games where the difficulty is very uneven where one part you are yelling cursewords and then you might hit a section where everything becomes simple and less stressful again. Also just as bad is when a game has a sudden difficulty spike.

I agree with Vimes, I'd probably never recommend a shooter without some sort of clean auto-aim system to anyone looking to get into shooters. So many games and years and I still get annoyed and stressed when I have to aim myself quickly and under pressure in first person view. When games require a certain amount of precision or twitch gameplay, I imagine it's still frustrating to those that are "hardcore," but that those people are more willing to stick it out.

On the other hand, I don't think general or unskilled players really care about beating the game often and seem to be happier or more prone to playing games without some story and world set up, hence the Tetris effect and all. I don't know how different Street Fighter IV is, but in general fighting games seem to be really accessible because you can get away with just smashing a bunch of buttons in the arcade and still have a good time. I don't play fighting games, but I suppose beating one even on normal difficulty requires you to learn all of the tedious button combinations and yet doesn't make in terms of accesibility.

[Tanukitsune]

So I should called the thread usability instead?

Deathsmiles is a bullet hell and it's VERY accessible, I'm pretty new to this genre and I can reach the final level with one credit, something I could never do with other games of this genre on easy. Although it only has a small "arcade tutorial" which I think is enough to explain an arcade game?

[syntheticgerbil]

I think accessibility makes sense as long as you just make note that you aren't talking about those that are disabled.

Deathsmiles sounds like a good example, but that's a game where I'm guessing the uncomfortable young anime girl art style will put off the more casual gameplayer. Bugs me a little personally, but I was never the audience. I have no idea how the whole "moe" thing gets normally perceived in Japan.

[vimes]

Just to clarify : I have no stance whatsoever toward games that are very difficult and not accessible - I'm not a fan of them - but they are a matter of taste and you can justify those choices pretty well. For instance, I disagree with syntheticgerbil, when he says that "certain amount of precision or twitch gameplay" is "frustrating to those that are "hardcore,"" : Rock Band or Guitar Hero on highest difficulty is not for everybody but I know a huge amount of people that live for the feeling of achievement of getting 5 stars ... and the path to that doesn't seem to be that frustrating to them.

The only thing that really bugs me is very low usability : it's interesting to make some of those unclear - otherwise you couldn't get the sense of experimentation - but when all of them are unreadable, I really loose the will to give the game a chance.

[Tanukitsune]

I think accessibility makes sense as long as you just make note that you aren't talking about those that are disabled.

Deathsmiles sounds like a good example, but that's a game where I'm guessing the uncomfortable young anime girl art style will put off the more casual gameplayer. Bugs me a little personally, but I was never the audience. I have no idea how the whole "moe" thing gets normally perceived in Japan.

Frankly, I don't get the "moe" thing either, it's probably for people who like cute girls?

The game is innocent enough, except for ONE ending, which is the obligatory bath scene.... SOME OF THESE KIDS ARE NOT EVEN TWELVE! BAD JAPAN! NO COOKIE FOR YOU!

At least the last time I played a Japanese game the "kids" were the "I'm 16 but I look like an adult!" kind.

I don't think Japan can make a game without at least one beach/bath scene with underage girls in it... Even Valkyria Chronicles has one!

Just to clarify : I have no stance whatsoever toward games that are very difficult and not accessible - I'm not a fan of them - but they are a matter of taste and you can justify those choices pretty well. For instance, I disagree with syntheticgerbil, when he says that "certain amount of precision or twitch gameplay" is "frustrating to those that are "hardcore,"" : Rock Band or Guitar Hero on highest difficulty is not for everybody but I know a huge amount of people that live for the feeling of achievement of getting 5 stars ... and the path to that doesn't seem to be that frustrating to them.

The only thing that really bugs me is very low usability : it's interesting to make some of those unclear - otherwise you couldn't get the sense of experimentation - but when all of them are unreadable, I really loose the will to give the game a chance.

Many of the older cRPGs (DOS old) are like that, it's even worse when some of them are still unclear when you're using a guide!

[syntheticgerbil]

For instance, I disagree with syntheticgerbil, when he says that "certain amount of precision or twitch gameplay" is "frustrating to those that are "hardcore,"" : Rock Band or Guitar Hero on highest difficulty is not for everybody but I know a huge amount of people that live for the feeling of achievement of getting 5 stars ... and the path to that doesn't seem to be that frustrating to them.

I guess I was thinking more about story type games where there'll be one or two sticky parts in there that are ridiculously hard or punishing and require too much of the player, not really where you can pick and choose little sections as a challenge.

I figured completionist type players will force themselves through the most annoying of challenges just because they can't give up while those that are more into the high score or the bragging rights of it all would probably be thrilled the whole time to have something near impossible thrown at them so that they can hold it above others who haven't done as well as them.