It’s easy to forget how unique games are as art. To enjoy the vast majority of games, from complex strategy role-playing to Tetris, you have to be able to see, to hear, and to touch. This doesn’t elevate games over film or sculpture, but it does isolate them as a medium, a peculiar crossroads between physical, visual, and performance arts. The demands videogames place on their audience, however, make them uniquely inaccessible.
Dark Room Sex Game is one of only two games, discounting text adventures, I’ve encountered that don’t rely on a visual presentation. The other is Soundvoyager for the Game Boy Advance. Both forego graphics for play based purely around sound, and both are ultimately short experiences with simple inputs. But how do you design a deeper game experience for someone who can’t see? The Nintendo Wii has introduced gaming to a broad, new audience through simpler control schemes, but Wii games are, in many ways, even more stimulus heavy than games played with a keyboard or two-handed controller. The remote emits sound and many games require broad physical motions. But how can a designer utilize that interface so that a player with a spinal injury can play?
There are many design lessons waiting to be found in making games as accessible as possible.
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