42 min
S1E10: Accidental Accessibility of #ACNH w/ SuperBlindMan Brandon Cole Tiny Island Diary
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- Sällskapsspel
I was inspired to think more about how accessible Animal Crossing: New Horizons is -- and isn't -- after a blind friend downloaded Pocket Camp and found it virtually unplayable. ACNH is not Pocket Camp, and I couldn't begin to estimate how much better ACNH is for low-vision and blind gamers. I wanted to hear about playing ACNH from someone who is blind.
Enter Brandon Cole, a multi-hyphenate content creator (Twitch streamer, YouTuber, and podcaster), and accessibility consultant to gaming companies. Brandon says ACNH falls into a category of "accidentally accessible," due to its rich library of audio cues that give low-vision and blind players a sense of directionality and proximity. Some audio cues I recognized as a sighted player, like the whoosh of an incoming balloon and the sound of footfall on different floors and pavements. And some I didn't recognize, such as different size fish making differently-pitched sounds when they bite the lure! Ultimately, those attributes make more of the game playable for Brandon than most mainstream titles.
And yet... my take-away from this episode is how much better ACNH would be if Nintendo and all gaming companies considered the needs of all their players, not just those like me. Maybe it would help for Nintendo to hear from those of us with full vision and hearing and mobility, to encourage them to make their games fully and intentionally accessible to and playable by all.
You can find Brandon's content on Twitch, YouTube, Anchor, and Twitter.
I was inspired to think more about how accessible Animal Crossing: New Horizons is -- and isn't -- after a blind friend downloaded Pocket Camp and found it virtually unplayable. ACNH is not Pocket Camp, and I couldn't begin to estimate how much better ACNH is for low-vision and blind gamers. I wanted to hear about playing ACNH from someone who is blind.
Enter Brandon Cole, a multi-hyphenate content creator (Twitch streamer, YouTuber, and podcaster), and accessibility consultant to gaming companies. Brandon says ACNH falls into a category of "accidentally accessible," due to its rich library of audio cues that give low-vision and blind players a sense of directionality and proximity. Some audio cues I recognized as a sighted player, like the whoosh of an incoming balloon and the sound of footfall on different floors and pavements. And some I didn't recognize, such as different size fish making differently-pitched sounds when they bite the lure! Ultimately, those attributes make more of the game playable for Brandon than most mainstream titles.
And yet... my take-away from this episode is how much better ACNH would be if Nintendo and all gaming companies considered the needs of all their players, not just those like me. Maybe it would help for Nintendo to hear from those of us with full vision and hearing and mobility, to encourage them to make their games fully and intentionally accessible to and playable by all.
You can find Brandon's content on Twitch, YouTube, Anchor, and Twitter.
42 min