This was a project within Future Games curriculum where we were tasked to analyze accessability in todays games and how to improve the experience.
School
Project
School
Project
1 Person
2 Weeks
Figma, Video
Editing
Researcher
& Designer
Introduction
As stated, this was a course we were tasked to analyze a game of our own choosing that has good accessability, see what it does and how it helps people.
Then take another game from the same genre that features little to none in terms of accessibility and see how what can be improved to further it's accessibility compared to the research from its counterpart.
I did choose to analyze from the 2D fighting genre since those type of games has always been near and dear to my heart, but I never did think about it's accessibility features before so it wouldn't only be an interesting research but also very learning in what I didn't pay attention to before.
And thus, I ended up choosing Mortal Kombat 1 for good accessibility analysis and King Of Fighters XV for improvements I could work on.
GOOD
ACCESSIBILITY
I chose Mortal Kombat 1 since I played that game a lot and knew it had quite an extensive set of acessibility features, but little did I know it actually won the 2023 Diamond Award from Ability Points for it's inclusiveness and extensive options of accessibility.
The game has more than often been quoted as:
"A lesson in elegant accessibility."
Not only that, but it's also one of the most popular games within it's genre for people with various degrees of disabilities.
This was a project within Future Games curriculum where we were tasked to analyze accessability in todays games and how to improve the experience.
VISUAL
Screen Reader
Colorblind Filters
Descriptivie Audio
Extra Audio Feedback
HUD Focal Point
AUDITORY
Volume Control
Audio Mix
Subtitles & CC
Detailed Audio
Directional Sound
COGNITIVE
Deep Tutorial
Visual Demos
Practice Modes
COMMUNICATION
Speech To Text
Keyboard to Speech
MOTOR
Remappable Controls
Input Shortcuts
Button Shortcuts
Assistance Toggle
Example of all the accessibility
settings and how it looks with
lowered focal point in the HUD
BAD
ACCESSIBILITY
Researcher &
Designer
School
Project
Figma, Video
Editing
2 weeks
1 Person
King Of Fighters
High Contrast Mode
As soon as I booted up and got hands-on testing on the game I immediately saw major accessibility flaws already from the title screen and going into the menu. What follows is what areas of accessibilities I chose to look into and my mock-up solutions on how it could alleviate some of those issues.
I wanted to create these mock-ups solutions while still staying true to King of Fighters already established identity, not breaking what is the games core identity.
VISUALS
The title screen with it's sign-in screen and menus already shows an enormous flaw for those with visual impairment. The font is incredibly small and squeezed together, making it almost impossible to read even for those without visual impairment.
Simple, yet effective solution to increase readibility and visibility is to change the font size to a bolder and bigger font with more letter spacing in between.
The games default color on the the menus windows borders and health bar is also a very strong, pastelle color. Easily causing eye strain and for prolonged sessions. Giving the player to freely adjust the color and the health bar, both with standard fill and gradient color makes it much more pleasing and safer for the eyes.
Original Health & Guard Bar
Mock-ups of implementation.
To further aid those with visual impairment, implementing a colorblind filter mode was also something that I thought should be an easy fix for the game, making the game more inclusive and easy to play.
The filter would be accessible from both the main menu and in-game pause menu. Changes would be seen immediately, finding the filter that suits the player needs.
Mock-ups of implementation.
As could be seen previously with the "high-contrast mode", that is just a black background, I wanted to improve it so that it actually resembles high-contrast mode.
With a toggle to turn it on and off along with a slider to adjust the level of the de-saturation of the background.
Learning a game is fundamental in order to enjoy it and ease new players into it. And 2D fighting games relies on that the player learns each characters movements and special attack in order to enjoy the game to the fullest.
In this case, King of Fighters relies on it's own iconography that is only familiar to veteran players, not thinking of newcomers or those with cognitive disabilities. And in order to know which button resembles each icon, the player has to quit the session and back out to the option screen to remap the controller buttons, causing unnecessary frustrations.
While the "EX" is green in the command list, it actually resembles the yellow bar in the downside corner of the screen. Why having the wrong color code is baffling to me.
Example of the games
command list.
Introduction
What I did here was to change the games in-franchise icons to resemble the face buttons on the controller, that would also change if the player had remapped their controller, while also explaining if the attack should be done in-air.
Changing the "EX" meters icon to actually resemble the same color as the bar it depletes from so it's instantly recognisable what it means.
Using the left over space on the right side to give a short explanation what "EX" means and how to pull it off, since the player also has to do a special input that is not specified anywhere in the command list.
This helps the player to instantly know how to pull off each move and what everything means, without qutting the session and backing out the menu.
LEARNING
The game is very strict with it's input commands in how to execute them, both with the movement input and the button input.
The game demands some extremely tight windows and short time-frame from the player for them to actually execute the moves, putting players with a motorical disability not only at a disadvantage, but at a nigh impossible level to actually play the game.
This is how to originally perform these moves with the controller stick and then end with a button input.
My solution is to utilize the right stick which is never in use. That way, players with motorical disabilities could just tilt the stick halfway up for its normal attack, tilt it fully up for it's stronger attack and fullest slightly diagonal for it's "EX" counterpart.
This would put people with a motorical disability at the same playing field as those without, and even make the game a lot more accessible and inclusive for everyone.
MOTOR
While I did want to create and dwelve more into audio options, I did not have enough time within the deadline since I had to pivot from one game to another.
But I would want to include some more detailed audio options since the SFX lowers or increases all SFX volume. I would want more detailed audio options such as projectiles, attack hits, blocks and footsteps so those parameters could easily be adjusted and more easy to distinguish for the auditory impaired people.
This project was a lot of fun and it was interesting working with accessibility within the 2D fighting genre since it's a basic type of gameplay but so much can be done for it to be more accessible for everyone, in so small, yet impactful ways.
Thank you for reading my accessibility analysis and what I would do to further make King of Fighters more inclusive and accessible from what I learned by analyzing Mortal Kombat.
CONCLUSION
As stated, this was a course we were tasked to analyze a game of our own choosing that has good accessability, see what it does and how it helps people.
Then take another game from the same genre that features little to none in terms of accessibility and see how what can be improved to further it's accessibility compared to the research from its counterpart.
I did choose to analyze from the 2D fighting genre since those type of games has always been near and dear to my heart, but I never did think about it's accessibility features before so it wouldn't only be an interesting research but also very learning in what I didn't pay attention to before.
And thus, I ended up choosing Mortal Kombat 1 for good accessibility analysis and King Of Fighters XV for improvements I could work on.
The games I chose for analysis was Mortal Kombat 1 and King of Fighters XV
GOOD ACCESSIBILITY
I chose Mortal Kombat 1 since I played that game a lot and knew it had quite an extensive set of acessibility features, but little did I know it actually won the 2023 Diamond Award from Ability Points for it's inclusiveness and extensive options of accessibility.
The game has more than often been quoted as:
"A lesson in elegant accessibility."
Not only that, but it's also one of the most popular games within it's genre for people with various degrees of disabilities.
My research and hands on with the game led to the results that Mortal Kombat does indeed include accessibility features for every type of disability. Some examples and what can be altered is as follows:
VISUAL
Screen Reader
Colorblind Filters
Descriptivie Audio
Extra Audio Feedback
HUD Focal Point
AUDITORY
Volume Control
Audio Mix
Subtitles & CC
Detailed Audio
Directional Sound
COGNITIVE
Deep Tutorial
Visual Demos
Practice Modes
COMMUNICATION
Speech To Text
Keyboard to Speech
MOTOR
Remappable Controls
Input Shortcuts
Button Shortcuts
Assistance Toggle
Example of all the accessibility settings and how it looks with lowered focal point in the HUD
BAD ACCESSIBILITY
When it comes to the counterpart of the game I chose, King of Fighters XV, it only has a few similiraties to Mortal Kombat 1 when it comes to accessibility and those can be named on one hand:
Remappable Controls
Volume Control
Practice Mode
While the game does feature at least these three, they are nowhere near as good as it's counterpart. One thing that King of Fighters do feature though that it's counterpart doesn't is High Contrast Mode, but that can barely even fullfill it's function as all it does is make the background black.
King Of Fighters High Contrast Mode
As soon as I booted up and got hands-on testing on the game I immediately saw major accessibility flaws already from the title screen and going into the menu. What follows is what areas of accessibilities I chose to look into and my mock-up solutions on how it could alleviate some of those issues.
I wanted to create these mock-ups solutions while still staying true to King of Fighters already established identity, not breaking what is the games core identity.
VISUALS
The title screen with it's sign-in screen and menus already shows an enormous flaw for those with visual impairment. The font is incredibly small and squeezed together, making it almost impossible to read even for those without visual impairment.
Original pictures. Click for bigger view.
Simple, yet effective solution to increase readibility and visibility is to change the font size to a bolder and bigger font with more letter spacing in between.
Original pictures. Click for bigger view.
The games default color on the the menus windows borders and health bar is also a very strong, pastelle color. Easily causing eye strain and for prolonged sessions. Giving the player to freely adjust the color and the health bar, both with standard fill and gradient color makes it much more pleasing and safer for the eyes.
Mock-ups of implementation. Click for bigger view.
Original Health & Guard Bar
Mock-ups of implementation. Click for bigger view.
To further aid those with visual impairment, implementing a colorblind filter mode was also something that I thought should be an easy fix for the game, making the game more inclusive and easy to play.
The filter would be accessible from both the main menu and in-game pause menu. Changes would be seen immediately, finding the filter that suits the player needs.
Mocku-ups of implementation. Click for bigger view.
As could be seen previously with the "high-contrast mode", that is just a black background, I wanted to improve it so that it actually resembles high-contrast mode.
With a toggle to turn it on and off along with a slider to adjust the level of the de-saturation of the background.
Mocku-ups of implementation. Click on smaller ones for bigger view.
LEARNING
Learning a game is fundamental in order to enjoy it and ease new players into it. And 2D fighting games relies on that the player learns each characters movements and special attack in order to enjoy the game to the fullest.
In this case, King of Fighters relies on it's own iconography that is only familiar to veteran players, not thinking of newcomers or those with cognitive disabilities. And in order to know which button resembles each icon, the player has to quit the session and back out to the option screen to remap the controller buttons, causing unnecessary frustrations.
While the "EX" is green in the command list, it actually resembles the yellow bar in the downside corner of the screen. Why having the wrong color code is baffling to me.
Example of the games command list.
What I did here was to change the games in-franchise icons to resemble the face buttons on the controller, that would also change if the player had remapped their controller, while also explaining if the attack should be done in-air.
Changing the "EX" meters icon to actually resemble the same color as the bar it depletes from so it's instantly recognisable what it means.
Using the left over space on the right side to give a short explanation what "EX" means and how to pull it off, since the player also has to do a special input that is not specified anywhere in the command list.
This helps the player to instantly know how to pull off each move and what everything means, without qutting the session and backing out the menu.
MOTOR
The game is very strict with it's input commands in how to execute them, both with the movement input and the button input.
The game demands some extremely tight windows and short time-frame from the player for them to actually execute the moves, putting players with a motorical disability not only at a disadvantage, but at a nigh impossible level to actually play the game.
This is how to originally perform these moves with the controller stick and then end with a button input.
My solution is to utilize the right stick which is never in use. That way, players with motorical disabilities could just tilt the stick halfway up for its normal attack, tilt it fully up for it's stronger attack and fullest slightly diagonal for it's "EX" counterpart.
This would put people with a motorical disability at the same playing field as those without, and even make the game a lot more accessible and inclusive for everyone.
CONCLUSION
While I did want to create and dwelve more into audio options, I did not have enough time within the deadline since I had to pivot from one game to another.
But I would want to include some more detailed audio options since the SFX lowers or increases all SFX volume. I would want more detailed audio options such as projectiles, attack hits, blocks and footsteps so those parameters could easily be adjusted and more easy to distinguish for the auditory impaired people.
This project was a lot of fun and it was interesting working with accessibility within the 2D fighting genre since it's a basic type of gameplay but so much can be done for it to be more accessible for everyone, in so small, yet impactful ways.
Thank you for reading my accessibility analysis and what I would do to further make King of Fighters more inclusive and accessible from what I learned by analyzing Mortal Kombat.
My research and hands on with the game led to the results that Mortal Kombat does indeed include accessibility features for every type of disability. Some examples and what can be altered is as follows:
When it comes to the counterpart of the game I chose, King of Fighters XV, it only has a few similiraties to Mortal Kombat 1 when it comes to accessibility and those can be named on one hand:
Remappable Controls
Volume Control
Practice Mode
While the game does feature at least these three, they are nowhere near as good as it's counterpart. One thing that King of Fighters do feature though that it's counterpart doesn't is High Contrast Mode, but that can barely even fullfill it's function as all it does is make the background black.