Accessible Game Components: UberStax

Close up of an instruction manual for a game card holder

by Erin Hawley

When playing tabletop games, I can’t hold up cards or display my game tokens in an accessible way. I often rely on card holders or self-made player screens. Being a disabled gamer means you come up with your own hacks to make the hobby work for you. In my search for more accessible player aids, I came across UberStax, a component holder that is completely modular to fit your needs. Imagine those scrabble tile boards, except taller and sturdier, and in a variety of colors.

Read moreAccessible Game Components: UberStax

Game Developers Conference: A Wheelchair User’s Experience

Cherry in their wheelchair in front of a map display for a game

Guest blogger: Cherry Rae

I recently attended my first Game Developers Conference, which was as intense as everyone who went to GDC promised me. It was also a successful and positive experience for me! However, I encountered some physical accessibility barriers.

I have fierce impostor syndrome and didn’t think I would be half as busy as I ended up being, but I experienced much more of the conference than I thought I would. I was invited to attend as a speaker on a panel discussing the current state of accessibility in games and where we see it going in the future. They also afforded me the opportunity to give the final presentation of the day-long Games Accessibility Conference that runs on the Monday of GDC.

The moment I said yes, I tried to figure out how accessible things would be. Aside from travel being difficult, as an autistic wheelchair user with very limited energy, it’s important that I plan and know what to expect in a busy and intimidating environment.

Read moreGame Developers Conference: A Wheelchair User’s Experience

Disabled Gamers Need A Way Out of Button Mashing

Two main characters from the A Way Out game, white men in prison clothes

by Erin Hawley 

Button mashing simulates physically difficult situations, making the gamer press a button quickly until a task is complete – which, admittedly, is kind of fun as a disabled person who can’t even lift a phone off the table. It has the potential to be exciting if implemented in an accessible way, but it’s rare to come across button mashing that I can complete myself. Due to Muscular Dystrophy, I don’t have the strength or stamina needed for this mechanic, and I often rely on someone else to do those parts of a game for me. It can completely ruin an otherwise fantastic gaming experience, like when you’re constantly fighting off zombies in Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Michonne, for example.

Read moreDisabled Gamers Need A Way Out of Button Mashing

Eye Win – Windows 10 Update to Improve Eye Tracking for Disabled Gamers

blue launchpad with Windows background

Guest blogger: April

Gaming with a disability can sometimes pose problems for a PC gamer. With many games requiring the use of multiple input devices at once, such as a keyboard and mouse simultaneously, sometimes games become difficult or completely unplayable to folks without certain motor skills. Fortunately, Microsoft is living up to their word and improving the Ease-of-Access options in Windows 10. A new Windows update releasing this month will include support for eye tracking. According to Microsoft’s support page, Ease of Access (found under the control panel) will allow you to control your PC with only your eye movements and the help of hardware by Tobii.

Read moreEye Win – Windows 10 Update to Improve Eye Tracking for Disabled Gamers

Disability, Intersex Identity, and Transgender Identity in The Orville’s About a Girl

Bortus and his partner walking down a hallway, a baby in his arms. They look like Klingons

Guest blogger: Joy Michael Ellison.

In case you missed it – or were trying to avoid it – The Orville is a new thinly-veiled Star Trek spoof created by (and starring) Seth MacFarlane. Yes, the creator of Family Guy is writing sci-fi.  At first, I thought the show was what I feared: it’s a little like your least favorite fan boy tried to write satire, but ended up spilling beer and heterosexuality everywhere.  However, somewhere between the dick jokes (and there are a lot of dick jokes), MacFarlane decided to follow in Gene Rodenberry’s footsteps.  In its third episode About a Girl, The Orville does what sci-fi does best: think through contemporary social issues.  About a Girl provides commentary on intersex surgeries. The only problem is, MacFarlane doesn’t seem to know that’s what he’s doing.

Red alert: I’m about to boldly spoil this episode.

Read moreDisability, Intersex Identity, and Transgender Identity in The Orville’s About a Girl

De-institutionalization and Cripping in Breathe, Directed by Andy Serkis

A white man in an old-fashioned wheelchair is outside, abled people surround him, smiling

Guest blogger: Aimee Louw is a freelance journalist, writer, consultant, filmmaker, and radio host living in Canada. Her blog centers on accessibility, crip life, sex, and media.

Based on a true story, Breathe covers the adult life of Robin Cavendish, a man who contracted polio in post-World War II England, when requiring a ventilator to breathe meant across the board institutional living and immobility. The story follows Cavendish’s journey from active and horny young man, to newly-disabled, depressed institutionalized patient, to disability advocate/ innovator. There is a large focus on the triumph of love prevailing over despair with his wife, Diana. As the trailers began, I popped some painkillers, and I settled in with my non-institutionalized boyfriend, J.

The film opens in an idyllic English countryside, with voracious young men playing cricket. The main character, played by Andrew Garfield, ogles with other young men at a pretty lady, Diana, played by Claire Foy. The swells of orchestral music that accompany the displays of Robin’s physical prowess forebode trouble looming for this strapping young man.

Read moreDe-institutionalization and Cripping in Breathe, Directed by Andy Serkis

Cripping Greengully: Accessibility in Charterstone by Stonemaier Games

Green board with square tiles, and one dice with a circle and tie symbol on it. The tiles on the board have tiny buildings on them.

“Wait, what? That’s bullshit! I won!” I yell as I imagine myself flipping the table (as I can’t actually flip it, and I wouldn’t do that anyway).

And so ends our third round of Charterstone, the latest tabletop adventure by designer Jamey Stegmaier. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my boyfriend so enthused by a board game, and I don’t think he’s ever seen me so angry about losing. At its core, Charterstone is a worker-placement game that feels similar to Stegmaier’s popular Viticulture. You start with two worker tokens to place on various buildings on the board, and those buildings give you resources, and those resources let you earn victory points. But what sets Charterstone apart from similar titles is that it’s a legacy-style game. That means, every time you play, you alter the game; this includes opening new mechanics, advancing the story, using special components, and more. It’s like unfolding a present after every game – and that surprise is addicting.

Or, as evidenced by my quote above, the discoveries can be infuriating. Without giving too much away, let’s say that an end-game card drastically changed the score in a way that was out of my control. My boyfriend Michael gloated, marking a victory on his score tracker, while I jokingly stated that the game was cheating. I thought I was going to be undefeated, having won the two previous rounds. But in my mind, I’m still a champ – or, if you listen to Michael, a sore loser.

Read moreCripping Greengully: Accessibility in Charterstone by Stonemaier Games

Star Trek and the Future of Disability – #CripTrek

#CripTrek logo with a Star Trek insignia, and a wheelchair icon in the middle. Images of DS9's Melora and Discovery's Ash Tyler as well

Guest Blogger: In addition to being a Star Trek fan, RoAnna Sylver is the author of the hopeful-dystopian Chameleon Moon series, and is working on a vampire series Stake Sauce and Death Masquerade. You can follower them on Twitter, or check out their blog

Spend time in a sci-fi fandom, and you’ll notice something, especially if you’re disabled. Even in universes where warp drive is everyday, disabled and physically/mentally ill people are conspicuously scarce, often absent. We’re told our presence would be “unrealistic,” but I think the reverse is true. It’s unrealistic, and very telling, for us to be missing.

Seminal SFF franchise Star Trek isn’t perfect, but it does better than most. Even non-Trek fans know Geordi LaForge from The Next Generation, the visually disabled engineer whose adaptive equipment lets him do anything able-bodied people can, and then some. But there are a lot more disabled (and disability-coded) characters throughout the series, including the new Discovery. No media is perfect, and often, Trek’s complex stories are simultaneously excellent and disappointing. But, fittingly for the forward-looking franchise, there’s a lot of reason to hope.

Read moreStar Trek and the Future of Disability – #CripTrek

Gaming While Learning Disabled: 3 Tabletop Games that Just Don’t Work

6 game pawns in different basic colors

Guest blogger: James Cole is a freelance writer living in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. He was diagnosed with a Learning Disability in Grade 4, in the wild and lawless 1980’s. James belongs to two board gaming groups, just started running a D&D campaign, and is wildly uncomfortable writing about himself in the third person. Yelling at James can be accomplished on Twitter, and you can judge his board game collection on Board Game Geek under the handle talentdepot.

I’ve made mistakes.

I try to be strategic in my board game purchases, but it’s complicated to navigate because of my Learning Disability.

I was diagnosed with a visual processing LD in grade school. Broadly translated, I have difficulty learning things I’ve seen. That includes basic things like math, spelling, and attaching people’s names and faces.

These three games are good, maybe even great games. Their reputation and reviews got me to purchase them. But they were unsuitable for me because of my LD. As a result, they’ve left my collection.

Read moreGaming While Learning Disabled: 3 Tabletop Games that Just Don’t Work

Black Disabled Art History 101 – Book Review

Image of a black man in a room, a young black boy projected behind him on the wall

Guest blogger: Jackie Pilgrim is an advocate diagnosed with Asperger’s, mother to a young adult also on the Autism Spectrum, and an International Speaker on Autism and Intellectual Disabilities. You can find her on Facebook, as well as on her blog, AutismsLove.

A young Black boy born with a physical disability learns about Black disabled musicians from the album covers of his father’s record collection. Later, he would come to realize the strength he gained from seeing those images and listening to their music when having to face teachers and other adults constantly telling him there were no artists who were Black and disabled like him. Leroy Moore’s passion kindled when he was a little boy has come full circle as he draws from his childhood discovery of not being the only, but being one of many Black disabled artists.

Black Disabled Art History 101 will open airways and doorways for Black disabled children’s imaginations to soar as they aspire to become artists or whatever else they want to be. Like Leroy, they too will draw strength from the images, knowledge, music and written words about and born of disabled Black artists. Readers of all ages will enjoy discovering a genre of history little known, beautifully crafted with colorful portraits of artists and their work interwoven with poetry in an age old storytelling style.

Black Disabled Art History 101 is a chronicle of art history unlike any other.

This is only the beginning.

Read moreBlack Disabled Art History 101 – Book Review