Improving Games for Those with Cognitive Disabilities | Designing for Disability

Video games are for everyone. And they can even be enjoyed by those who live with disabilities if game developers make certain design decisions, or introduce special options. In this series of videos, I’ve been looking at how to make games better for those with auditory, visual, and motor disabilities. We’ve looked at colourblind modes and controller remapping and subtitle standards. And for this final episode in the series, I’m looking at one more category: cognitive disabilities. This covers everything from epilepsy to dyslexia to learning difficulties.

And while it might seem like a challenging topic to approach, there’s plenty of smart stuff designers can do to improve their games for those living with these disabilities. Part 1 - Simulation Sickness Simulation sickness is, to put it simply, your eyes telling you that movement is happening, while your inner ear tells you that you’re actually just sat still. That mismatch can cause your body to react in a pretty uncomfortable way.

You’re going to see it the most in 3D games - especially first and third person ones. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, so giving players plenty of options will allow them to hopefully find a set-up that works for them. So let players turn off features that affect the movement of the camera, like weapon bob, head bob, screen shake, and motion blur. Giving players control over the game’s field of view angle is also good - as are sensitivity controls, as these reduce large swinging movements.

And for first person games, you might want to let players turn on a crosshairs of sorts - even in games without guns, like The Witness. As a designer, it’s good to be mindful of big, unexpected camera movements - try to use smooth transitions, instead of quick snaps and fast zooms. This is obviously a massive deal for virtual reality games, but that’s a whole topic in of itself. For now, I’ve put links to a GDC talk and a Gamasutra post on VR simulation sickness in the description for this video.

Part 2 – Sensory Load A related area is people being overwhelmed by the level of visual activity on the screen such as bright lights, constant flashes, and lots of things going off at once. This can affect a wide range of sensory processing issues from autism to migraines and, even at the far end of the scale, photosensitive epilepsy. Sensory overload in games is generally based on two things: quick flashes and regular moving patterns. So identify things that may cause a player to be overwhelmed, and let them disable those features. Just Shapes & Beats has a mode to turn off flashes. And Stardew Valley lets you change the falling snow effect, which is a pattern that can trigger sensory overload.

You may want to use the tool that Ubisoft and the other big publishers use, called the Harding flash & pattern analyser. They have a service where you can upload a piece of recorded gameplay and have it analysed to see if there’s anything that doesn’t pass its criteria. Part 3 - Dyslexia Dyslexia is an umbrella term covering people whose reading ability doesn’t match up with their general developmental level. In video games, it can cause players to struggle to take in written information and dialogue text.

To combat this, try to make text as clear and easy to read as possible. Just like I said in the subtitles episode - go for a clean, sans serif font, in mixed case rather than all caps. Go for 1.5x line spacing, and avoid more than 70 characters in a line. And make sure your text is on a solid background so there’s nothing interfering with the letter shapes. But there are also fonts that are specially designed to be easier to read, like the free-to-use Open Dyslexic, or the premium FS-ME. The developers of the pixelated horror game The Last Door offered Open Dyslexic as an option and the creators said that 14% of people who finished the game used this typeface.

Also, try to avoid text that advances automatically. Some players need a bit more time than others to read and comprehend the text on screen. Maybe let it stay on screen until the player hits a button and moves on to the next line. Part 4 – Executive function Executive function describes the way we receive, process, and then act on information. For those with learning difficulties, it can take longer to work through these steps. So here are some key ways to make it easier.

Simplified information Telling players what to do in clear, simple language is a good start. In a game like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, characters will explain your next objective in a cutscene - but then the game will also explicitly tell you what to do in a few simple sentences, where key words are highlighted. This text will stay on screen for the duration of the mission, so players are reminded what they need to do.

And then you might want to think about options for filtering that information. Things like filters on map screens to only show the really important stuff. Or the hex grid in Civilization V, which makes it easier to understand the world map. Navigation aids Knowing where to go can be a challenge for some players. So consider options to turn on waypoints, mini-maps, objective markers, and even big floating arrows. Red Dead Redemption 2 lets you turn on a GPS to provide a red line towards your objective. And Super Mario Odyssey’s assist mode draws blue arrows on the floor, which point you towards the next part of the game.

Tutorials and practice Tutorials are important to help all players get up to speed with how things work. But you can boost their effectiveness for players with cognitive disabilities by letting them replay these tutorials at any time. Or at least access helpful instructions from the menu. In interface-heavy games like Cities: Skylines, optional tool-tips and help windows can remind players what various parts of the game do - even if they’ve already finished the tutorial.

Practice modes are great, too. Many competitive games offer modes where you can train with a customisable character, or play offline against bots. This allows people to practice their abilities in a stress-free environment. This works in single-player games, too, of course. Hub worlds, like the castle in Super Mario 64 give players a chance to learn the controls and practice at the game in a safe, challenge-free area. And the practice menu on Bayonetta’s loading screen gives you time to figure out the controls before going into battle.

Pause, and game speed Another consideration is pausing, which gives players a moment to take a breath, and consider what to do next. This pause screen can contain helpful information, like the current objective. Or it can show a static image of the game, so players can take a moment to assess the environment without worrying about baddies and hazards. Some games build pausing into the experience, like in the The Sims where you can choose to stop time in the simulation while you look around. Or in Fallout, where the VATS mode turns a frantic shooter into a more considered, tactical game.

A number of games are also starting to let players simply slow down the pace of the entire game. Tricky platformer Celeste allows you to change the speed of the game, as part of its assist mode, to make those precise jumps easier. Manual saving Manual save slots let players have more control over the experience. They can save the game, and then try out different strategies - safe in the knowledge that they can return to an earlier save point if things go wrong. It’s best when these save files come with screenshots - to help players remember at what point the game was saved.

Difficulty modes Allowing the player to reduce the difficulty of the game can be a great inclusion. This gives people more time to figure things out, and more opportunities to make mistakes before getting a game over. Most games simply offer up an array of options, like “easy”, “medium”, and “hard”, which tweak things like the health of the player character and enemies, or the awareness of guards in a stealth game, or the speed of other drivers in a racing game.

But other games let you change, or even turn off, individual mechanics and systems. Something like Dishonored lets you tweak everything from enemy damage and attack frequency, to the strength of potions and the bravery of guards. And Darkest Dungeon lets you turn off stressful features like corpses that get in the way after monsters die. And some titles go even further than that. Underwater horror game SOMA offers an option to let you turn off enemies entirely. And Furi lets you become invincible, so you can blitz through boss fights without the stress of dying.

So, making your game more accessible to those with cognitive disabilities isn’t the astronomical task it might seem. But like all of these videos, the best way is to get your game in front of players who live with these disabilities and work with them to provide options that will improve their experience. The more you can do, the closer the whole industry will get towards ensuring as many people as possible can benefit from everything games have to offer.

And that’s a wrap on Designing for Disability - for now, at least. I’ve got some other ideas for future videos on the same subject. Thanks for watching! And thanks to Ian from Game Accessibility Guidelines for his help, once again. You can find the full series on accessibility by clicking on the playlist button that’s on screen right now.