THE 2006 DONATIONCODER.COM ACCESSIBILITY GAME PROGRAMMING CONTEST RESULTS
Congratulations!
First off, our sincere congratulations to all the winners! Accessibility presents a huge challenge to a game designer, and we had quite an amazing diversity of genres from the finalists, and innovation in so many different areas -- from storyline/writing to game play variety. There is a lot of room for improvement here, and the authors may have discovered that making an accessible game is harder than it sounds, especially for programmers who have never considered the issue of accessibility. But the spirit and creativity behind each of the games was wonderful and the IGDA Game Accessibility SIG will be happy to work with any of the authors who are interested in taking their games to the next level and making them even more accessible. - Michelle Hinn, Chair of the IGDA's Game Accessibility SIG.
About The Prizes
First of all we have to say a huge thank you to the sponsors of this unusual contest. There are many excellent game development websites, and we appreciate that the sponsors of this contest were willing to support the non-traditional focus of this contest and bring a little light to the issue of accessible gaming. Keeping with the spirit of this contest we asked each of the entrants to rate their preferred prizes and we tried extremely hard to find a way to get everyone who entered something they would be happy with - we hope that we've succeeded in that. We've highlighted one game as the top contest winner, and then presented the rest of the collection in no particular order.
Download and Try For Yourself!
On behalf of the authors we invite you to download and play these games. If you enjoy them, please consider making a small donation to the authors to support their continued development! Your donations make a difference.
Bulbaceous BallsHere's a tetris style one-switch game that is designed to run on Java phones. It demonstrates another kind of control scheme we see in one-switch games, a directional indicator that moves autonomously and is activated by the user when it points in the right direction. Play it online: Here. |
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RescueRescue is a one-switch 2d space shooting game - the goal is to rescue all the humans on the ground. Rescue is not easy. It follows the same control scheme used by Go Rabbit - your button causes the ship to rotate 90 degrees on command. It's interesting to notice how easy or hard it is to adapt to limited control options, and what kinds of different strategies of play are required. Rescue home page: http://project.cakeneko.com/rescue/ Download: http://www.4shared.c...cf3/RescueFinal.html |
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Go Rabbit, GoGo Rabbit, Go is a simple and slow moving Flash switch game specifically designed to be playable by people with handicaps who may have difficulty playing the typical frenetic and demanding game. It's friendly and suitable for a wide range of players. The idea is based on the idea of the 'broken tractor maze' in which you must traverse a maze, but can only turn left (or only right). The character moves at a constant rate and must grab all the carrots on the screen. A flying tortoise chases the character, at 1/3rd the character's speed, helping to motivate the activity. When a carrot is landed upon, it is replaced with a clod of dirt, through which the character cannot pass again, so the rabbit essentially creates a maze for itself as the level progresses. Play Flash game online: Here
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Black Cat in a Black RoomBlack Cat in a Black Room is a delightfully simple and charming audio-only Flash game, ironically written by the genius who developed the Haaf's Game Engine for Windows. In the game, you're standing in the middle of a black room. A black cat is rambling somewhere around. You walk around in search of the cat by calling it and listening for it's 3d spatially located meows. This was the only game in the contest that actually takes advantage of 3d sound localization, and the result is quite charming and will make you smile for sure. It does make you yearn for a more complicated game though, where you could really test your localization skills. Download: Here.
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BlankblockBlankblock is a version of the classic "peg-jumping" game, with a range of difficulty levels from easy to mind melting. It's the only entry in our contest designed by a team that actually works in the accessibility-game field in real life. Yakir Arbib led this work, and is a member of the audiogame company called "Lighttech Interactive", that makes free games which are accessible to people with visual disabilities. In Blankblock you start the game you get a randomly generated board with block(peg) slots, and an empty slot. Your goal is to clear the whole board from blocks by jumping blocks(pegs) over one another into blank slots. We had a hard time hearing some of the instructions over the sound effects - hopefully the prize sound effects cds will offer some more subtle choices for the next game. Download: Lighttech Interactive Website.
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TAMPOKMETAMPOKME is an acronym for "The Audio Multi-Players One Key Mosquitoes Eater." Written by Thomas Gaudy, a French PhD student working on audiogaming with the CEDRIC laboratory from the CNAM, the INSERM INOVA laboratory from the UPMC and the CECIAA Company. Tampokme is a fantastic idea which is in pretty rough form, and can get downright chaotic when you sit down with a couple of players to try it out. But it's overflowing with playfulness. It can be played in both French and English, and although the English audio translation is quite good, when you combine it with the chaotic nature of the game it can be a real challenge. Basically this game is in the "quick-reaction" genre. Players hear various sound cues and must react quickly to each one with the proper response. The competition and cooperation element in the game is very clever, as is the use of key press patterns. A wondefull idea, but one which could benefit from some work making it cleaner and easier to follow. Download: Tampokme.zip Not only is this an audio-only game, it's also a one switch (per player) switch game!
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