Lady Eklipse, from Odessa in the Ukraine, has recently posted some excellent articles on game accessibility. Her History of Accessible Gaming blog post takes knowledge from my 2005 Pioneers of Accessible Gaming and other existing sources fleshing it all out into a very fine read.
Replay was an exhausting ear-blistering pleasure. It was a privilege to run the SpecialEffect stand populated mostly with games using simplified control methods mostly from my personal geek-a-tronic stash. So what did we have?1. A dance mat game using alternative controllers. These included single-switch play and a "pogo-dance-mat". In the end, Dancing Stage Fever on a standard TV just couldn't compete with DDR:UK's real coin-op dance machines positioned opposite, so the slightly shoddy Gottlieb Pinball and very brilliant Destruction Derby took the slack.
2. A one-point or one-press to play game. Shenmue Duck races raised some grins. I guess not everyone was expecting bow-tie wearing ducks. We played so that if you got a top three place, you won a prize. Including 1989 Nintendo bubble-gum. Tasty. That got swapped at times with Tekken 6 that got bashed within an inch of its life. Amazing how tough those accessibility switches are. Thought the table would collapse at one stage.
3. Atari Ms.Pac-Man played against a single ghost (there's normally four coming after you) using a one-handed ASCII Grip controller. Other times I ran Cookie Monster Munch using the Kids Controller. Googly. Star Trigon got an outing here too.4. Vectrex Minestorm. Quite a few people were left very confused by this. I had a single switch on a Flexi mount. Some people thought the Flexi was a joystick and were wiggling it about. Others thought the switch was a steering wheel. Later I put a switch on a Trabasack. Some people started to wiggle the Trabasack thinking it was some kind of motion sensitive controller. Nope. It's a one-switch game. Just play!
5. Pure one-switch games: Fotonica and Space Invaders. Both went down pretty well. People found Space Invaders very hard with just one-switch, so after a while I turned off the Space Invaders shooting at you. Wished I'd had the bass thump in effect, but it was loud enough there I guess. Ears took a few days to return to normal.
6. The un-game "Doodle-City" in Atari's I, Robot. This was to show off a free-play and no pressure area of a game. Atari did it first here with their art-toy. When this wasn't running, Uo Poko was up showing off a super-colourful multi-player one-switch playable game.
Most popular of our games was Tekken 6 for sure. And no red-ring of death for the Xbox nor melted Vectrex I was happy to see. On the stand I met some great people, such as the two Andy's from Ovine of Whacka Monty fame, Nintendisco and Mark of the inspirational Games Britannia. I was also chuffed to bits with the inclusion of "A Brief History of Accessible Gaming" in the Replay magazine available at the show.
Away from the SpecialEffect stand, tireless volunteer James Harkness beavered away getting a hugely enjoyable after-show party sorted with proceeds going to SpecialEffect and GamesAid.
And self-indulgently, I loved Blackpool's five miles of illuminations and was plenty impressed by the tower. Games I most enjoyed playing were mentalist Bishi Bashi Special, laser-disk Astron Belt and Badlands (one-switch), Pole Position whilst throwing bugs and glitches at me and the brilliant range of pinball machines. So huge thanks to the organisers Dave, Matt and Gordon and all others that supported us at Replay. Nice one.
"The first thing you notice when you enter a typical college dorm room is the mess, but what's the second thing you notice? If you answered the game consoles on a pedestal above the mess, you're right. After all, college students spend an average of almost two hours per day playing video games, a pretty big commitment when you remember they have classes, clubs, reading online, jobs, and social lives to see to. Parents and profs have long scoffed at this hobby, seeing it as a time-waster of the highest order, but new research suggests gaming might actually help college students make the grade.
Higher-Level Thinking and Multitasking Skills
College students have always had to be multitaskers, switching their brains from math to English to chemistry in the time span of a few hours, but technology has made multitasking even more important for today's college student. Today, students take online classes for college, and even offline classes have digital components. Students are asked to do more outside of class, such as completing virtual labs, blogging, and participating in online discussions. When they encounter this environment, video game players are at an advantage. A 2009 report found video games can help students improve their critical thinking skills. Gamers are used to multitasking and using the same higher-order thinking they need to solve chemistry problems to figure out how to successfully meet games' challenges. Just like college students must balance their virtual discussions with in-person learning objectives, gamers must stay on top of their health points, weapons, mission objectives, and allies.
Subject Application
Not only do video games help college students cultivate the general skills they need for college success, they also help students gain subject-specific knowledge. While not every subject can work well as a game, video games' captivating story lines and role-playing scenarios help students get engaged in ways no lecture can. An obvious connection can be made between video games and the narratives of literature and history, math and science can also reap benefits from this engaging medium. In fact, NASA has encouraged video game developers to create educational games to teach math and science.
"Wait a minute," you may be saying. "We had video games when I was in school too, and they were boring with a capital 'B.'" You're probably right. However, today's educational game-makers know how to use the right ratio of fun, challenge, and education to engage and motivate students, all while teaching them about the subject at hand. Part of the reason today's educational video games are so successful is simply the fact they use better visual and auditory stimuli, elements today's students thrive on. They're also successful because students enjoy being challenged and competing to accomplish a goal. Consider Geology Explorer and Virtual Cell, both science games put out by North Dakota State University. While they may not let students blow up enemies or trade game items, they encourage students to get involved in science by making them an active part of learning tasks.
Learning Disabilities
While most of the literature still advises parents of very young children to keep them away from games and television that could impact their growth, on the flipside studies show older students can use video games to overcome learning disabilities. According to the International Society for Technology in Education, video games can help people with learning disabilities because they allow students to work at their own ability levels, challenging them just enough that they grow but not so much that they give up. Video games also don't get annoyed when a student doesn't get it. If a student gets it wrong 100 times, the computer will be persistent. Sometimes it's just that persistence and consistency that learning-disabled college students need.
While it's unlikely you'll find an educational video game in a college student's Xbox, it's not unlikely you'll find that student more engaged in history or English because he can experience it as a game rather than a lecture. While video games probably won't be replacing conventional college education any time soon, they will likely be augmenting it from here on. Current gamers might already be ahead of the crowd."Guest post by Marina Salsbury. Marina planned on becoming a teacher since high school, but found her way instead into online writing after college. She writes around the Web about everything from education to exercise. Image by Ruberman Rodriguez.
Fantastic to see my colleague Bill Donegan, the guy behind the bulk of content on the Accessible GameBase, recognised in the gaming press. PlayGamer magazine have published a four page spread on gaming charities in issue 15 which is still in UK shops now.
Column inches are shared between the SpecialEffect Accessible GameBase, GamesAid and CODE. I of course don't believe accessible gaming is purely something for charities to tackle alone. In my view, it's simply the right thing for developers to be taking into account from day one. But until that day...
BBC Ouch! technology correspondant, Adrian Higgin-botham, has written a harsh but fair appraisal of the state of accessible gaming. In short, AAA 21st century video games don't have much in the way of accessibility features. And those rare games that are highly accessible, tend not to have the budget, depth or production values of AAA titles. Come on the mainstream, you are slacking!
Image via: David G on the Ouch! Forums
