accessibility Archives - Page 2 of 5

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

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.

When Accessibility isn’t Accessible

A black and white door with a red universal symbol of disability on it

by Erin Hawley

Society often frames accessibility as something abled people do to make the world easier to navigate for disabled folks, whether it’s an ambulatory contractor building a ramp at a restaurant, or a hearing employee putting captions on their organization’s videos. But the reality is that disabled people are also making their spaces and creations accessible to other disabled individuals. This is powerful because we know best the importance of having true inclusivity for community spaces, both online and off. The problem is, sometimes, making things accessible is not within our abilities.

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.

Convention Tips for Spoonies: Nerding Out with Fibromyalgia (and Other Disabilities)

Aerial shot of a convention hall packed with people looking at booths

Guest blogger: Elaine Tamblyn-Watts is an Ottawa-based Anglo-Anishinaabe writer and editor. She was supposed to become a foreign correspondent, but she developed fibromyalgia and had to drop out of journalism school, so now she watches a lot of cartoons and gets a lot more work done. Elaine served as copy editor for The Charlatan for the 2016-17 year, put out a poetry chapbook called Fingernail Moon, and is currently working on about nineteen other projects.

My best friend is a cosplayer. Between her eye for detail, her sewing skills, her sheer resourcefulness, and her courage in the face of frequent glue-gun burns, she’s got a real knack for it – and it shows. For her, our local comic con is bigger than Christmas. She waits for it, prepares for it, works late into the night beforehand and early the morning of. Last spring, she dragged me along with her.

Psyched as I was for us to hang out together, especially in full Teen Titans cosplay, I didn’t handle it super well. The lack of sleep barely fazed her, but it had me looking more like a Walking Dead extra than a 2005-era Cartoon Network Raven. I stumbled through the convention center parking lot with very little grasp of what I was getting into. After five minutes in the main con area, I nope’d back out again to hunt down some coffee and silence. By the end of the day, I was miserable and exhausted, and I figured conventions weren’t for me.

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

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.

No Dice? No Problem: Web-Based Solutions for Tabletop Gamers

Guest blogger: Lydia Rivers is a writer who enjoys service dog advocacy, gaming, and nerdly fandoms. You can find her with the good folks at Anime Herald, advocacy on her personal blog, and Twitter @Planet_Bork.

The saying is “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but for me, games are apples. Even if I only have time for a single Sudoku, I have to play something to maintain my mental health. And it’s not easy for disabled social gamers. Even if we manage to avoid ableism in our gaming groups, a myriad of other circumstances can physically isolate us from our friends. Many years ago, I developed major depression from limitations interfering with this hobby. Fortunately, for isolated gamers, technology has presented increasingly sophisticated solutions to our problems. Web-based tabletop gaming (and distance co-op in general) has changed my life by enabling my social gamer – and therefore allowing me to avoid comorbid depression.

Night in the Woods: Where It’s Okay Not to Be Okay

Night in the Woods: Where it's OK to not be OK. A cartoon cat image with big, yellow eyes

Guest blogger: Deborah J. Brannon (codename: Geek Dame) spends her days in the Southeastern United States, scribbling furiously as a freelancer and speculative fiction writer. In her free time that may or may not exist – it’s in a box somewhere with a cat, she really doesn’t like opening it – she plays video games and reads books and talks about both incessantly. Find out more at www.geekdame.com or follow her on Twitter at @geekdame.

“The point remains that this is the setup for some great stories.”

“Or terrible, horrifying, traumatic experiences.”

“Great clearly means different things for us.”

Gregg and Bea, Night in the Woods

Welcome to Night in the Woods. There is death here and disappointment and decay. There is also connection and catharsis and care. It’s okay not to be okay, and it’s okay to change your mind. You may face a cosmic horror, or meet the truest heart – all in a playfully illustrated, easy-to-navigate video game.

Autism and the Virtues of Single-Player RPGs

Guest blogger: Amalena is a freelance writer and editor, and just received her BFA in Creative Writing. She loves fantasy novels, singing opera, and video games. You can check out more of her work on her blog, Some Girl with a Braid, and follow her on Twitter.

As an autistic individual, there’s a special place in my heart for single-player role-playing games. I started with Skyrim, fell in love, and have since added other games such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Portal, Diablo, and Assassin’s Creed to my computer.

As an autistic, one of the best things for me when it comes to games is the predictability. While exploring the world can provide plenty of unpredictability as far as spawning adversaries, especially for the first time, doing replays removes much anxiety-inducing uncertainty and allows pure enjoyment. I also know that completing the storylines will result in positive social interactions from the NPCs populating the virtual environment. In real life, social disability colors all my interactions. I don’t know if completing my questline will result in a positive experience; I’m liable to put my foot in my mouth at any moment, sometimes without realizing it. Video games are generally devoid of those situations.

Accessibility in Destiny 2: A Deaf Gamer’s Perspective

Thanks so much to Chris for writing this guest blog post and sharing his point-of-view as a deaf gamer. Follow him on Twitch to see some stellar Destiny 2 action.

September 6, 2017, was a big day for both old and new Destiny players; Destiny 2 was finally released on Playstation 4 and Xbox One!

From my experience with Destiny 1, it was a game that you could pick up the controller and possibly never put it down. There was a rewarding feeling, with all the grinding, when you completed something hard as a team.

So now that Destiny 2 is here, I’ve been playing it almost non-stop! To tell you the truth, I wasn’t planning on buying Destiny 2 because I didn’t want to get addicted to it. I didn’t want to deal with the frustration of trying to find a team to play with when it’s required to have a mic to coordinate with the players. I don’t use a mic because I’m deaf. I don’t want to annoy people by repeatedly asking “what?” every time I didn’t understand them; but I ended up getting the game anyway, knowing that I may run into the same issues again. However, Bungie (developers of Destiny) somewhat made it easier to actually find people with the overhaul of the Bungie.net website; now it’s easy to post your LFG (looking for gamers) on there, and people tend to immediately join up.

Geeky Gimp Birthday Event: Streaming for AbleGamers Charity #SoEveryoneCanGame

The Geeky Gimp's Live Birthday event for AbleGamers Charity August 27

Join me on my birthday for a fundraising event to benefit AbleGamers Charity! On August 27th, from 2pm to 8pm …