Saturday, 29 January 2011

NEW IGDA GASIG Forum

Image of a mock-up warning sign, that reads 'Warning Mosh Pit' with three people tumbling on top of one another.

Very splendid to see the IGDA's GASIG (Game Accessibility Special Interest Group) get a new and active Forum. It's free to join and all are welcome no matter what your level of experience.

And to balance that, other game accessibility related forums do exist. Plus I always like to pop by RetroRemakes, which is a great place of support for indie developers.



Thursday, 27 January 2011

One-switch Baseball: MLB11 The Show

Hans Smith in MLB 2010, linked to the one-switch one-button mode he has asked for and seen included.

Really great news popped up in my inbox yesterday regarding Hans Smith one-man charm offensive to make one of his favourite PS3 games more accessible.

I could rabbit on here, but I'll simply pop you onto the first source of the news, GayGamer.net's excellent article on Sony's MLB11: The Show, so you can read it as fresh as I did.

Link via Sheri Rubin (with thanks!)

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

Reflections on Game Accessibility

Mock-up image of three colour-blind tests, but with joypads within rather than numbers. The surrounding text reads, igda - perspectives newsletter - year in review.

The January 2011 IGDA Perspectives newsletter contains a two page segment on the 'game accessibility year' 2010, from my own personal perspective. If 2011 tops 2010, consider me a happy-bunny.

Big chunky thanks to the IGDA, and especially to Beth Aileen Lameman for giving Game Accessibility such great coverage.



Update: Repaired IGDA Perspectives link.

Monday, 17 January 2011

Dance 21




Great to see local dance outfit "Dance 21" get three golds from the judges on national TV dance competition "Got To Dance" on their own merits. Essex is proud!

Update: Many thanks to Mary of Dance 21 for sending me the full clip from the show, now posted at the top. Still brilliant.

Sunday, 16 January 2011

Excitim Switch Accessible Camera and CD Player

Excitim switch accessible Sony CD Player.

Excitim switch accessible digital camera.

Excitim have released more superb looking switch accessible gadgets very recently. A very fine looking mini ghetto-blaster for those wanting a simple switch accessible music CD player.

Very nice too, is their 10 mega-pixel Canon digital camera. They've found a really elegant solution for switch access via the USB socket. Would be great if Canon would keep this as a standard way of taking photos using a single click method.

Monday, 10 January 2011

"One Switch Games"

Image of John Adam's one switch games, Frosty the Snowman, Turtle Crossing and Filberts Food Fenzy.

Games programmer, John Adams, has recently released three on-line switch games, under the banner "One Switch Games" (nothing to do with OneSwitch.org.uk). They are...

Frosty the Snowman - Slow paced game, putting you as a snowman constantly walking from left to right, where you have to jump over sometimes unfairly placed objects.

Turtle Crossing - A 3D version of Nintendo's ancient Turtle Bridge game, but much easier. Keep an eye on the fish for an idea of when a turtle may dive.

Filberts Food Fenzy - A targeting game based on the even more ancient Gremlin/SEGA game Frogs.

You can comment on these games at the Unity forums, to give John advice, thoughts and encourgement.