With Hollow Knight: Silksong’s huge launch in full swing, community debate about its qualities and flaws has gone back and forth, with some players insisting their criticisms about things like the game's difficulty are valid and shouldn’t be instantly dismissed as "hate."
For myself? Definitely! But someone shouldn’t be prevented from playing a game because of a disability. Just like how Frostbite engine games have great accessibility options for colour blindness.
Disability, accessibility and gameplay accessibility are two different things and should be treated as such. There is also a very hard line between what is possible to help someone with a disability. Enjoy a medium that requires certain minimal physical traits.
The color blindness deafness rebindable controls as many things that can help the disabled and these should be expected whenever possible. Hell a lot of these are built directly into your operating system and don’t require any effort from a game developer. They just need to make sure not to get in the way of already existing tools.
But gameplay accessibility is an entirely different beast and even very minimal. Gameplay accessibility can create an entirely new gameplay experience to the point where it’s not the same game. If the developer wants to add those, it should be up to the developer and what they’re targeting, both as an audience and as an artist.
We should always demand disability accessibility. We should never demand gameplay accessibility.
Colorblind accessibility is easy to implement and pretty much everybody can do it after reading a wikipedia article on colorblindness.
On the other hand, balancing a game for several difficulties is not easy and takes a lot of time. Plus, it doesn’t always make sense. Part of the game is the struggle. If you’re skipping the struggle, then you’re missing a part of the game.
Tbh it’s a reflex and dexterity game, among other things, so it is not for everyone. In the same way a game that requires memorising melodies is not for me, since I suck hard at it.
I suppose there could be a mod that simply doesn’t let you die and you can explore the whole world.
There is no other way to make a platforming section easier, unless you add more anchor points etc., which requires actually changing the world (essentially, you remove the platforming section), so those could still be a problem.
I can see they have lots of options!
However the platforming seems to be slightly different? In case of HK I suppose that invincibility-like mode is what I suggested brought to the extreme (I.e. you can just walk over spikes etc). Maybe the other thing that could work is slowing the game down so that timing is easier to get.
I think it’s an interesting discussion accessibility from this point of view. I think everyone draws the line at some point, between accessibility and simply making a game with some principles that represent the soul of the game.
And the game is fundamentally not the same with some of those accessibility features enabled. Good on the devs for targeting a wider audience but fundamentally they have different game play experiences.
Not every designer wants to have multiple experiences in their game. That should be entirely up to the designer and demanding them add entirely new experiences is unreasonable.
Color blindness support, rebindable controls, subtitles, on screen audio visual cues. There’s plenty of things that can help the disabled that don’t change fundamental aspects of the game. If a developer adds these but doesn’t want to compromise the intended gameplay as they see it then they shouldn’t have to.
End of the day. It’s art that is being sold to be consumed. If you don’t like the art, then it’s not for you.
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For myself? Definitely! But someone shouldn’t be prevented from playing a game because of a disability. Just like how Frostbite engine games have great accessibility options for colour blindness.
Disability, accessibility and gameplay accessibility are two different things and should be treated as such. There is also a very hard line between what is possible to help someone with a disability. Enjoy a medium that requires certain minimal physical traits.
The color blindness deafness rebindable controls as many things that can help the disabled and these should be expected whenever possible. Hell a lot of these are built directly into your operating system and don’t require any effort from a game developer. They just need to make sure not to get in the way of already existing tools.
But gameplay accessibility is an entirely different beast and even very minimal. Gameplay accessibility can create an entirely new gameplay experience to the point where it’s not the same game. If the developer wants to add those, it should be up to the developer and what they’re targeting, both as an audience and as an artist.
We should always demand disability accessibility. We should never demand gameplay accessibility.
Colorblind accessibility is easy to implement and pretty much everybody can do it after reading a wikipedia article on colorblindness.
On the other hand, balancing a game for several difficulties is not easy and takes a lot of time. Plus, it doesn’t always make sense. Part of the game is the struggle. If you’re skipping the struggle, then you’re missing a part of the game.
Tbh it’s a reflex and dexterity game, among other things, so it is not for everyone. In the same way a game that requires memorising melodies is not for me, since I suck hard at it.
I suppose there could be a mod that simply doesn’t let you die and you can explore the whole world. There is no other way to make a platforming section easier, unless you add more anchor points etc., which requires actually changing the world (essentially, you remove the platforming section), so those could still be a problem.
Celeste is a game about reflexes and dexterity. They implemented tons of accessibility features, including ways to make platforming easier.
I have never heard of the game, i guess you are referring to https://celeste.ink/wiki/Assist_Mode?
I can see they have lots of options! However the platforming seems to be slightly different? In case of HK I suppose that invincibility-like mode is what I suggested brought to the extreme (I.e. you can just walk over spikes etc). Maybe the other thing that could work is slowing the game down so that timing is easier to get.
I think it’s an interesting discussion accessibility from this point of view. I think everyone draws the line at some point, between accessibility and simply making a game with some principles that represent the soul of the game.
And the game is fundamentally not the same with some of those accessibility features enabled. Good on the devs for targeting a wider audience but fundamentally they have different game play experiences.
Not every designer wants to have multiple experiences in their game. That should be entirely up to the designer and demanding them add entirely new experiences is unreasonable.
Color blindness support, rebindable controls, subtitles, on screen audio visual cues. There’s plenty of things that can help the disabled that don’t change fundamental aspects of the game. If a developer adds these but doesn’t want to compromise the intended gameplay as they see it then they shouldn’t have to.
End of the day. It’s art that is being sold to be consumed. If you don’t like the art, then it’s not for you.