Accessibility Related Suggestions Megathread

[Mentaux]

I play alot with my partially sighted father, He some times struggles to read fonts when they are hovering over other objects, such as player names for example, High contrast options aswell as scaleable player names would be a massive help to him and others who struggle with similar issues, even a squared off background under player names would be a big help.

[Tobias-GER]

The camera shake effect in Accelerate gives me headache An option for reduce or disable would be really nice.

[squishyjf]

Don’t add too many flashing or strobing lights in the game for epileptics. too much of this can make it unplayable or very ill

[wheezwer]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by camera shake effect? When in Accelerate does this occur?

[Ass]

I’d like to have the possibility (in the accessibility settings) to enable/disable the flash that happens when you catch a fish, it really hurts my eyes when fishing for a long time and i thought it would be a nice touch since the opaque mode is a thing might as well continue !

[CarbonCopyCat]

Was told by someone to put this in the accessibility thread, due to potential problems for people with limited usage of their hands.

Gingerbread Smash: give the candy cane autoswing

Instead of having to click manually for each swing, you should just be able to hold down left click to swing automatically.

[cogvos]

I have a pet hate for flashing lights. I am not affected - as in seizures - I just find them damn annoying and distracting. However people are so an option to simply turn them to steady illumination at all points in the game where they occur would be very helpful.

An additional option to just replace the flashing lights in the nightclub with steady illumination, leaving those in the arcade etc, or better still a set of tick boxes allowing players to choose what remains, would also be very useful.

While there are warnings at the entrance to the nightclub, there are none on the main screen or any option to turn lights steady - other than turning off gun flashes. A button in game at the nightclub entrance as well as a clear warning on the main screen, again with an option to turn flashing items off would be great.

This site - https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/photosensitive-epilepsy has information on photosensitivity.

Regarding colour blindness etc, perhaps you folks could look at The last of us part 2?

[zronoh]

Give an option to adjust rumble intensity for controllers. I need the haptic feedback to play accelerate and recently changed from using a Switch Pro Controller to a DualSense controller and when I drift it makes my hands hurt because of how much the controller is able to vibrate.

[SBK]

Regarding my personal limitations and thus some insight into my perspective: I have a severe RSI disability in my right hand (most impacted are the non-thumb fingers and wrist, but it encompasses the whole arm… particularly when the digits themselves are overly-taxed) and have limited capabilities in my left.

My peripherals (all of which are used in overlapping/redundant combinations) are:

1. Custom 8+ (depending on needs) button foot pedal setup that utilizes Xpadder’s system hooks and key press emulation. No macros or repeaters are used, just standard key presses. It’s a self-made rig that uses a simple “JUNAI multicade keyboard encoder” controller board and a bunch of resilient arcade buttons… all put onto a thin and slightly angled piece of wood. In other (typically retro) games I have had to use AutoHotKey’s abilities to rebind keys in a useable way (I never automate/macro/etc. anything with it because why even bother at that point), but thankfully I have not had to use it in Tower Unite
2. Console controller. I swap between a variety of PS3, Xbox 360, and PC-specific controllers, though all are seen system-wise as 360 controllers for simplicity’s sake. I tend to favor the PS3 controller and use the Shibari/Fireshock/ViGEmBus method for emulation. No game put to the test has ever had an issue with this method
3. Keyboard. An insane ergonomic monstrosity, but for system’s-sake it is just a regular keyboard
4. Mouse. Mice, technically, but usually just a normal one. Sometimes a trackball if I can get my feet into the mood to not cramp and want an exercise in misery, but I try to avoid that most days

At the moment most of my foot pedal setup is dedicated to mouse clicks, spacebar, scrollwheel direction, or modifier keys (like shift, ctrl, etc)… basically: anything that needs to be held down or frequently pressed, especially if typically designated to the right arm. I constantly change these depending on my needs, however.

The primary problem I’ve found is that the console controller (which is hugely preferable to the mouse when possible, though anything using the controller triggers I move to the foot pedal setup) is not implemented well enough (or at all) in a ton of situations. The most obvious symptom of this is that the game is in no way possible to control solely from a controller. I’m not going to list every one of the issues because that kind of effort requires a spreadsheet and a paycheck, but here’s a quickie off-the-dome list related to Zombie Massacre, which just happens to be a mode I’ve dealt a lot with recently and been severely limited by:

• (controller-specific) The thumbstick aiming mechanics don’t work 9/10 times, and typically aim anywhere other than your intended direction. I’m talking full-on opposite directions, NO aiming whatsoever, etc etc.
• (controller-specific) If the stars align and your thumbstick corresponds correctly then you’ll find you won’t get precise angles. If a standard thumbstick (and the mouse angle in the mode) is 360 degrees of control, this is something like 16-32. These numbers are relative generalizations, obviously
• (controller-specific) The shoot trigger also picks up weapons when held down despite the KB+M setup not doing this
• There are tons of weapons you can’t just hold down a button to repeatedly use, forcing rapid and frequent repeat presses… exacerbating RSI/etc. issues with no reason balance-wise (since all these weapons have firing speed limitations built-in)
• There is no Accelerate-equivalent option to have a ‘toggle fire’ (ala ‘toggle accelerate’), despite the vast majority of your time in the mode being that of firing your weapon non-stop unless you’re just grinding skill-specific achievements solo
• Certain skills are on a timer and limit your ability to shoot while it is active. Some players have the luxury of just ‘testing’ when it expires by clicking rapidly, but I do not. There is a lack of consistent and obvious indication of these timers to prevent pointless presses, and there’s no reason that the shoot button can’t just continue to be held down during the skill’s usage (i.e. doing nothing in the background) and then resumed as an active action upon expiration of the timer
• etc.

Another big example that lacks controller support would be fishing. You can’t do the actual minigame aspect of it at all without a mouse, despite it being ripe for simple controller support. There are also some odd AFK timer issues with this activity, since the mouse alone doesn’t seem to reset it… and thus you’ll get flagged AFK if you play as not only intended, but required. You have to mash directional keys/etc. every minute or so to stay ‘active’, as it were.

I would get into how frustrating it is to try to decorate one’s condo but… yeah, I’d need a few weeks to fully articulate the problems.

There are a ton of other things I’d bring up, but the corrections and formatting I’ve had to make to this voice-to-text write-up is just too much for my hands/arms/feet at this point. I’m more than happy to answer specific questions if needed.

[HunnyBon]

Hey, just made an account to reply to this.
I’m one of the very few who has a rare illness (See: Hermansky Pudlak syndrome) and basically, I’m legally blind, yet have just enough to be able to see, I’d say, relatively okay? I’m not too certain on exactly what I can suggest besides things that improve having visual objects stand out.
I’d like to think I’m capable of playing games like Virus or the balloon/target shooting minigames pretty well, seeing something that stands out running at me or something slow moving and bright is actually great, but when it comes to games like Zombie Massacre, it’s hard to focus on the most obvious threats sometimes, because it’s hard to see it amidst the rest of the colors.
What I’d suggest is to have “Objects of interest” be able to be toggled on and off to increase things standing out for certain people, not just me, EG:

• People in the lobby get a slight saturation boost and maybe an outline?
• Zombies in Zombie Massacre would too?
• Minigames like snowball fights, or minigames where there’s an opposing enemy/team can show more vibrant outlines to show “DANGER!”

I’m hoping this is a good suggestion, I’ve been burdened with this crap all my life and I want to at least help others if I ever wanna help myself with it.

[Spinda_Saturn]

Alot of the dyslexic fonts whilst still good are often still unaffective for most people with dyslexia, having any font change options is really good, but size and contrast also matter alot. For things like typing derby having the UI scale up more can help, but also changing the colour behind the text to more warm colours can help, I tend to read faster with white on black (dark mode) for example. But sticking to stock more familiar fonts will always be preferred than having to dicpher anything stylised into what letters or could be.

[JackHotep-Mr.Rakey]

People who have severe social anxiety (on their own or as a result of other afflictions) could benefit from being able to run private plaza servers.

An example of this is my brother, who, because of other afflictions, refuses to be in any server that is open to even the possibility of other players. This stops him from being able to play any of the plaza games.

I understand this would be difficult to implement with a risk of some sort of malicious use from some players, but there could be a way to do it, I don’t know. Just a suggestion.

Edit just for clarification: I don’t know if this counts as accessibility but because it says “issues that might impede gameplay for players with certain conditions” I thought I’d try.

[Leviathan]

I think a better solution for this (and something I’d like to see anyway) is the option to make only your friends visible aside from minigames.

[Rarsonic]

I wonder how would this work with slotted activities.

[Madmijk]

@Doovy

Issue 1:

1.) While bowling, the red line to show where you’re aiming after swinging your mouse. He didn’t even know that was there, because, well…he can’t see it. He has mentioned that he will most likely not be bowling anymore until something is done about it, because it’s game breaking for him, which is not fun.

2.) My suggestion would be an option in the settings to be able to choose what color you’d like that line to be. That way people can choose a specific color that makes it easiest for them to see it, or for those of us who aren’t colorblind, we can make it a preferable color.

Adding a color preference setting for various game elements would be a bit cumbersome to implement unfortunately. I do think however that the arrow could use an opaque material blend mode, instead of the current additive blend mode. I tried some opaque colour combinations out:

A uses the same colours as before (note that due to a bug it was pure red for some time);
B uses the complementary hue of the wood floor, which could be more robust to lighting changes in the lanes. With the current lighting it doesn’t look that contrasty though;
C looks absolutely ghastly in my opinion, but it does seem to offer quite the colour contrast.

I will be implementing version A for now, but do let me know if your friend prefers one of the others. I can’t quite seem to simulate a type of colour blindness on the image that makes the arrow go invisible, so this is a little tricky for me to figure out.

[Melonplex]

Hyperacusis

As of posting this, there’s a Twitter thread trending that talks about accessibility, and it mentions voice chat volumes on a per-player basis. The person in the thread has a thing where loud sounds are painful to them, so having an option to turn down loud players would be a good thing. They mentioned that the people had told them they could just turn down the game volume, but that’d make people with not-stupid-loud microphones inaudible.

I think this would be nice for Tower because some people just can’t take a hint that their microphones are 10x louder than other peoples and just expect you to turn down voice chat instead of muting them.

They mention in the thread that it’s not the easiest thing to implement, but idunno, seems like it’d be worth at least dropping as a suggestion here.

Link to the Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/AutSciPerson/status/1359353595314008065

[Tat]

I struggle with Balloon Shoot at night time. I can see most balloons, but the blue and purple balloons against the night sky are really difficult to see. Could we have an outline on the balloons, or a slight glow?

[Rekoza]

I think the final hole in the remastered Sweet Tooth cause cause cause problems for people with epilepsy. I’m no expert on it but the repeated flashing of two colours rapidly on the screen feels like it could be a potential issue?

[yknowlikenia]

I can see that being an issue, but luckily it’s being addressed in the near future

@bot

“Reduced contrast of Sweet Tooth’s boost tracks to be less visually intense” has been checked off on the “Changes” checklist.

[Tobias-GER]

It occurs when i use boost objects like melons or boost panels or the Race begins.