Stripping Away The Barriers #1

Posted by oddbob on July 13, 2006 · Lovingly Filed Under Personal 
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As some of you may be aware, over at Retro Remakes we’re currently running our obligatory (see: people hold a gun to our head and shout a lot if we don’t) competition, this year rather than go for the straight approach of attempting to raise as many remakes as possible we’re picking up from where the One Switch competition left off and widening the net in an attempt to raise awareness about accessibility issues in gaming.

Now, the easiest way I could see to approach this was for us to lead by example and to attempt to raise as many accessible games as possible. We asked Barrie Ellis of One Switch to hop on board the good ship remakes to help us construct the rules, draft up a wishlist of what he’d like to see featurewise and to help steer the entries along the stormy seas of development. (Jesus, did I really just get away with all those sailing references without a single “Yarrr!” - I must be slipping).

I’m very happy to report that over halfway through the competition and things seem to be going swimmingly (sorry!), I’m incredibly proud that all the regulars and it would seem, those who have landed for the competition are taking the spirit of the competition as it was meant and looks like we’re on course for a bumper bonanza of remakes and hopefully more accessible games out there in the world come the close of the competition. Which, to coin a Fast Show phrase, is nice.

At the time of the One Switch competition I said that it would be fantastic if we raised 5 more One Switch games and let them loose into the wild, as thats 5 more than existed before hand - in the end the final tally came to over 70 and honestly, I could have cried with joy. I find competition time incredibly stressful but sitting there and counting up the entries near brought a tear to my eye proving that despite all the hassles and questions about postage to Brazil - every single ounce of effort expended by myself, Tokes, Barrie and everyone who entered was worthwhile. And I really am hoping that we can do the same again this year.

Brazil

However, enough of my hopes and dreams, on with the nitty gritty of what I wanted to cover and with utmost apologies to RR regular and Handheld Remakes admin Hitm4n for pulling one of his quotes out of context for the purpose of this post…

As both a game maker and a game player, there’s certain things that you take for granted as the basic elements of what constitutes a game, in essence every game has a number of “features” that when all molded together produce the final game and define how it plays. What sparked off this post was the following quote from the RR board (here taken entirely out of context)

Anyway, the point is, some game styles just don’t lend themselves to skill modes. We are trying to add what we can without breaking the feel of the game or the workings of it.

Which is, of course, an understandable viewpoint and way of looking at things. However, when considering what the competition is trying to achieve - its not strictly true. I’d say a good 99.9% of games created, be they freeware, shareware, commercial or whatever are aimed at a very specific market regardless of the game genre. The full and able bodied gamer. You only have to look at the increasing amount of buttons, functions and complexities to realise that there’s scant regard for those with differing abilities and skills. So, how, as someone who makes games, can we break the cycle?

One way, I believe, is to take a step back from the traditional gaming constructs and approach it from a less rigid angle. One of the items on Barries wishlist is that of the addition of difficulty levels (hence the above quote that certain game styles will not accomodate the addition of differing skill levels).

Now - if we’re going to stick to the rigid definitions that gaming has laid down for itself, then this might possibly be the case. But we really don’t need to do that and this requires a certain level of detachment from the creation process as we know it.

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