Stripping Away The Barriers #3

Posted by oddbob on July 13, 2006 · Lovingly Filed Under Personal 
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By a simple process of elimination, we can create a number of play modes giving us options for “very easy” skill level settings. So, lets go back to our list of game elements and see what we can do away with:

You control a player that can move in 4 directions - up,down,left and right.

Right, well - that can go really - its not essential to a very easy skill level. You can tear strips off that bit by bit for varying modes. You could have one mode whereby you just move left to right, down to up, up to down, right to left - collecting objects, jumping obstacles. There’s no reason why you couldn’t run to the extreme and tailor it to a one switch interface.

The player can jump to negotiate hazards.

Yes, you guessed it - that can go. Just by stripping out that extra button you’re adding a layer of accessibility that wasn’t there before. Its one less button to worry about. Its one less hazard to negotiate. Its one less thing that could potentially cause frustration. It can be dispensed with.

The player must collect items in order to progress to the next stage.

Is there really any need to retain this in a very easy skill level? Of course there isn’t really. Theres absolutely no reason why you can’t fling this out of the window and simply make the task “get to the exit”.

The player must trigger switches in order to open doors.

Again, by removing the need to trigger something, you’re taking away another level of potential frustration for someone. Which is a good thing.

The player must avoid enemies.

Its a simple task indeed to create a level without any enemies. There’s nothing stopping you from making the entire basis of the easier skill level just collecting objects or negotiating your way through the maze - the enemies don’t need to be there.

The player must negotiate a maze of sorts to get around the screen.

You can just as easily strip the entire maze from the screen and reduce the game down to just collecting items if need be. There’s nothing to say that the easy skill level requires the maze to be there, after all.

The player has a set amount of lives in order to do this.

You could always take away the need for lives entirely, and no - I don’t necessarily mean add a health bar, I mean add an infinite lives mode - something where the player can roam and explore the game in its entirety without being punished too harshly.

Think Differently

So, from breaking the game elements down and then listing what can potentially be removed from the game for an easier skill level, you’ll find that for the majority of games - there’s nothing which can’t be removed or adjusted.

“But, but, then its not the same game” I hear you cry. And that brings me round to the point I’m trying to get across.

In order to begin to open up more games to being accessible, to a certain degree - you have to discard your idea of what constitutes a game. All of the changes and amendments I’ve listed in suggestion to the game above can be implemented with little change on the engine side of things, I’m not for a second suggesting that all of them have their place in every single game but bear in mind, please - that every one of these features you strip away in your game can and will make a difference as to wether somebody can play it.

Yes, as games players and designers - we expect things to be a certain way, after all we have over 30 years of gaming heritage thats made things this way. Tried, tested, sealed and delivered. We approach things a certain way during the games creation process because to a degree - we have preconceptions of how a game should play.

Move away from the idea that “these changes fundamentally break the game” as your normal skill level is not affected by these changes. Your vision of your game remains intact - but with a little effort and time spent on creating different modes you’re widening your market and the potential audience for the game.

Its so easy to do once you begin to break things down, and the more people that open up their games to more people - the more chance we have of stripping away the barriers and letting more people enjoy games…

…and thats what we all want, really, isn’t it?

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