DevLog 5: Accessibility

All games have a target audience. As game developers, we need to ensure our games reach as many people in that target audience as possible. Adding accessibility features to the game is a great way to achieve this. There are two broad areas for achieving this: we can introduce support for additional languages, or we can introduce ways to change how the user and the game interact to make it easier for disabled people to play.

In the development of Gravity Labs, both areas have been considered. We included the ability to switch between English and Polish, and added an option to make the game suitable for people who are photosensitive. Let’s look at how we achieved this:

Let’s start with the option to change languages. This is done through the settings menu for the game, which is shown in the image above and has been deliberately designed so that if the game is not set up in the language you understand, you can still navigate to the area needed to change this. In our last DevLog, we looked at how we are making the process for supporting multiple languages easier for designers. In short, all the game’s translations are handled by a custom script, with no text for any supported language stored in the game’s code. The support for changing languages stretches beyond this mechanic, though. Gravity Labs is being built with the premise that it could include in-app purchases, and when changing language, the prices for all purchases is converted into the official currency for that country. Furthermore, I am looking into a way to detect the platform locale and use it when initially setting up the game, so it selects the current system language automatically; however, this has not yet been implemented.

Secondly, we have the photosensitivity setting, which is also found in the game’s settings menu. This will remove all flashing lights and potential triggers for adverse effects stemming from quickly changing colours in the game. This setting directly affects how the game level ‘pipe’ gets generated; instead of picking random bold colours, it now uses a noise algorithm for a smoother gradient transition. Additionally, this will also affect how some power-ups behave, reducing some animated visual elements. Pseudocode for the pipe colour generation logic is shown below, along with images showing the effect in-game.

Thanks for reading!