Games Designed To Be Easier To See

October 15, 2020 By Andy Robertson

Working on the accessibility database has made me look at games differently. The first thing I do when I test a new game is go to the options settings to see what you can change to make it more accessible.

Examples of games that are easier to see: Hue, Ear Hockey and A Good Snowman is Hard to Build

It’s also changed how I look at game design as a whole. Along with offering specific settings to make games accessible, some of my favourite games of late have been those that have been designed avoid the barriers that may prevent players from enjoying them.

This inspired me to put a list together of games that were designed to be easier to see. These titles either have settings or are are created from the ground up for low vision players. 

Many of these games include:

  • Fonts: Larger, scalable font sizes and bold fonts, like Moving Out.
  • Zoom: Ability to increase the size of all objects on the screen such as in Untitled Goose Game’s zoom feature.
  • Contrast: Settings to adjust contrast and brightness, as well as distinct colours with good lighting, like Splatoon.
  • Non-Visual Cues: Sounds and haptic feedback that help direct the player, like Lego games.
  • Colourblind: Modes that invert colours or change colours to accommodate different types of colour blindness, such as in Hue.
  • Screen Readers: Functions that read text and menus as they are highlighted and appear on the screen, such as in Eagle Island.

You can see the full list here: Games Designed to be Easier to See, that Christy Smith (thepuppiesNpink) helped me originally compile. Some of my favourites are:

  • Frequency Missing, a point and click adventure designed to be playable without any sight. You touch the screen to hear a sound of different items. My moving your finger on the screen you can home in on them to interact, pick them up, or start conversations. 

Gameplay from "Ord". Screen displays the word "Raccoon." and options to "Wrestle." or "Bribe." the Raccoon.Ord Gameplay

  • Ord, is another game that offers a visual design that focuses on super large fonts. This was in part the aesthetic style of the game, but also meant that the words were easier to see with a visual impairment.  
        
  • Krunker is less likely candidate. It’s a fast moving shooting game that you play in your browser. However, the settings it offers to adjust the screen mean that you can make the heads up display information very visible. These setting are likely included to make the game work on different size screens, but have a secondary accessible benefit because they are implemented in a flexible way.
I hope you enjoyed this little tour of some games that are designed to be easier to see. It shows that inclusive game design is as important as accessibility settings.

There are more visual accessibility settings in the database for you to explore, including:

You can browse more of these settings on the Accessibility Data Page.