ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies · published
With Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, we wanted to make the game accessible to as many players as possible. We weren't able to add all the accessibility features we had planned for the game back when it launched, but we were able to revisit this post-launch and implement additional adjustments for ZERO PARADES: Director's Cut.
We (Matt, Design Director here and Kay, Head of Engineering) want to share some more about this process and the solutions we applied to meet our accessibility goals for the Director's Cut.
We looked at the experts for guidance, talking to them and consulting valuable resources such as the Game Accessibility Guidelines and SpecialEffect DevKit.
We kept in mind that accessibility is useful to all people in different areas and degrees. Options that allow person A to play may also be a comfort feature for person B.
We knew we would have to make hard choices between accessibility options. Games are for everyone, no one deserves to be left behind. We made plans for later updates when we weren’t able to support someone’s needs at the time of the game’s initial launch in May.
We conceptualised areas of experience and interactivity that would need review. In each of these, we tried to cover the gamut (the complete range and full scope) running from hypersensitivity to non-sensitivity / absence.
The following are all the areas we have been able to facilitate with our accessibility improvements in the Director’s Cut.
Objectives we gave ourselves as a team:
Letting players interact with the game in a variety of ways.
Complete button remapping behind available to players.
Button and keys having the same semantic meaning across different contexts: global, dialogue, menus and the world.
Enabling every action in the game being performed with mouse and keys independently.
Buttons being mapped in the same style across different types of controller.
Game features:
Full controls remap available.
Click to hold / hold to click functionality.
Process we used:
Consider colour blindness: it's a broad range. This means no singular palette will be suitable for all.
Flash sensitivity: attempted guidelines on not authoring potentially hazardous scenes and VFX in-game.
Consider: does the game render at a variety of resolutions and aspect ratios? We may not have developer bandwidth to create a custom solution for all, but the game should still function across the resolution and aspect ratio of the player's choosing.
Game features:
Customisable text size and speed,
Dyslexic font option.
Outline thickness and colours for text and items.
Customisable UI colours.
High contrast setting: colours are swapped for brighter variants and menu backgrounds are darkened.
Photosensitivity setting: removes bright flashes from visual effects and animation.
Dialogue Reel seen in English, Dyslexic font and English XL font.
Dialogue Reel and HUD seen in XL size.
Process we used:
Review the story beats and presentation: ensure implementers don't have any mission which relies solely on audio cues to comprehend or complete.
Consider audio processing needs: low / high pass filters, per element volume bars and audio panning (in mono mode).
Game features:
Audio cues (e.g. Phone Ringing to visual communicate when a sound is happening).
Mono Mode panning, high & low pass filters.
Per element volume bars (distinct for music, sound effects, voice etc).
Example of an audio cue.
Considerations for the team:
Is there easy access to references for the controls?
Are the options per section of accessibility clear and easy to get to?
Are the game mechanics introduced appropriately to the player?
Story and missions: is there a reminder of what you did and where you were going?
Have we front loaded a selection of accessibility options to a first playthrough so that as little of the experience is a missed as possible?
Journal Concept: designed as a reminder of what the player is working on and where they are going in-game.
Initial settings screen concept: accessibility options presented to the player before the first playthrough has started.
Whilst we couldn't do all we wanted for the original launch of ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies, we have been able to work through a majority of the accessibility backlog and implement it for the Director's Cut of the game, which is available as a free update from October 1st for all owners of ZERO PARADES.
Some examples of the features delivered for the Director's Cut update are:
Audio cues.
Photosensitivity mode with remade / swapped assets.
More options for colour selecting UI elements (notifications).
More information provided on the reasons behind game states.
Gamepad vibrations, and methods to lessen or remove the vibration entirely.
Ultrawide support.
We can't wait to hear what you make of ZERO PARADES: Director's Cut and, as always, feedback on how we can continue to improve accessibility in ZERO PARADES is welcomed.