Angel's Game Accessibility Ratings - A masterpost on how disability-accessible certain games are

[ControlCoreAngel (Angel)]

Angel’s Game Accessibility Ratings

Rating Roblox games on how disability-accessible they are, and helping developers learn to make games accessible.

Table of Contents
Introduction
How It Works
Thread Discussion Rules
Ratings List

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Introduction
click to skip to the important part

Hey DevForum! I’m Angel, and if you follow my posts, you know I talk a fair bit about disability, being disabled, and how it affects my experience on Roblox and as a developer.
My most famous post is even specifically about features that can make a game accessible!
I play a lot of games, and very often, I find myself complaining about an accessibility issue. Normally, if I’m invested in the game, I’ll find their suggestions channel on their Discord and suggest fixes to make the game more accessible.
However, I often get brushed aside…

Finding accessible games is pretty difficult for a lot of us disabled Roblox users, even if our disability is relatively minor. Sometimes the game itself has an issue, other times it’s the community, there’s just too many factors at play.
In the eyes of game devs, we often are considered too little a demographic to care about, so accessibility gets put on the side, nudged to the bottom of priority lists, if they’re in the mind of the devs at all.
So, sadly, we have to find out what games are accessible and which ones aren’t on our own.

But fear not, I’m here to try and at least curb that problem! In this thread I’m going to assess various Roblox games I visit and play for how accessible they are and give them a rating from 0 to 10, 0 being not accessible at all, and 10 being very accessible.

My hope is that developers see these ratings and take into mind the suggestions made, even if it’s not their own game!
This is a chance to learn from the mistakes and/or good features of games, and make games better experiences for the disabled Roblox community.

This is a resource for not only players, but developers too!

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How It Works

Games will be rated on a scale of 0 to 10. 0 is the worst, 10 is the best.

• 0-1: Completely inaccessible. This game is incredibly unfriendly to disabled players and should be avoided.
• 2-3: Mostly inaccessible. There’s some upsides, but the cons outweigh the pros.
• 4-6: Average. The pros and cons are pretty much equal.
• 7-8: Mostly accessible. There’s things that can be fixed here and there, but the game is very friendly.
• 9-10: Incredibly accessible. The game is stunningly accessible and very user-friendly.

In games where I have joined their community, I will also rate the safety of the community for disabled players.

Now, it should be mentioned much of my rating of the game will be from the lens of how accessible it is to me. Every disabled person is different!
For some context, the conditions I have that severely affect my ability to play games are my autism, PTSD, psychosis, carpal tunnel, chronic pain, chronic migraines, and all the symptoms that come with those.
I will address accessibility for other disabilities, but I may lack in information, so I won’t be perfect.

New game ratings will be posted here in the thread as they’re made, then this post will be edited so they’re linked below so others can see them!

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Thread Discussion Rules

Discussion is allowed and welcome on this thread, but there’s a few things I have to ask of.

• Disabled people have priority say, as accessibility is about us. Please respect that if you aren’t disabled, you don’t have a say in our issues and some other topics that involve us and our wellbeings. Please do not speak over us or speak “for” us, we can speak for ourselves. We aren’t helpless and we should not be silenced.

• Don’t be rude, please. This should go without saying, but I always, inevitably, get one person in my threads nagging me for dare saying disabled people should be treated with respect.

• Don’t start arguments, for the love of god. This isn’t a place to argue, this is a place to learn.

• Do ask questions! Remember that the best source of info on a disability is a person with that disability, however. Questions are encouraged!

• Don’t be upset if a game gets rated poorly, and don’t argue for a game’s rating. Unless there’s been an update to the particular things I mention, don’t ask me to change the game’s rating.

• I don’t play every game! You can suggest games, but some things I won’t play, or I just can’t. My PC is lower-end and my wi-fi is very below average, so keep this in mind. i won’t play certain games due to my health (very often my PTSD) or simply because I’m not interested in the game.
  That being said, if you’re disabled and play a particular game I don’t, feel free to rate it yourself! I’ll include it in the unofficial ratings list. Please don’t rate a game if you yourself aren’t disabled, though.

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Ratings List

• Critter Chaos - 1.5/10
• item asylum - 6.5/10
• PHIGHTING! - 9/10

Unofficial Ratings

• None yet. Be patient!

[ControlCoreAngel (Angel)]

Here are some cool things to support, with accessibility in mind!

• Making Accessible Games for the Disability-Aware Era - A Not-Fully-Comprehensive Guide by an Actual Disabled Developer, my primary accessibility thread about features to help make games accessible!

• Text-to-Speech + Captioning Engine Integration, also proposes the idea of adding AccessibilityService.

• #ActuallyAutistic on Twitter

• My charity of choice, Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network (AWNN/AWN)!

• Can I Play That? which promotes accessibility in video games as a whole

[ControlCoreAngel (Angel)]

Review time!

Critter Chaos - 1.5/10

Critter Chaos was just released yesterday, so it’s very barebones, but it’s a sibling to another game I never played myself. This review may change in the future.

Critter Chaos is a super cute combat/RP game heavily inspired by Pokemon!
It’s a bit chunky so I haven’t been able to play it lagless, but that aside.

VISUAL ACCESSIBILITY:

The run speed is waaay too fast. -1
Owowowowow. All the morphs run by default and are very, very fast. I’m not sure what the speed is at, but woooah. I gave myself a migraine playing this game, and on top of that got dizzy and nauseated due to the sheer speed of movement. The camera movements hurts. I don’t think it’d be any better in first person.
On top of all this, the run is really the only good way to get around in this game. The walk speed is incredibly slow, and on such a big map it’s not great. I feel like a snail. So the only feasible choice if you want to explore is to run! Ouch!
This is my main gripe with the game. I sent this to their Discord suggestions channel, but was pretty instantly shot down despite saying I’m motion sensitive. “All the critters move at different speeds”, and yet they all run way too fast. I played as a good chunk of the non-badge critters, and the run and walk speed were all pretty much the same. Apparently, this very quick run speed is vital in combat and its sister game was like this too, which they don’t treat as an issue… which certainly says something. I don’t think their sister game was very motion sensitive friendly either…

No flashing or terribly bright lights. +1
There’s a lot of bright things on the map, as well as a fair bit of particles (not that I can see many with my graphics setting), but nothing horrendously bright or flashing. This game might be friendly for those with visual epilepsy, if it weren’t for the aforementioned horrible run speed.

Balanced lighting. +1
I could see! Normally games are too bright or too dark for me, but the map was all lit to where I could see what I was doing.

Fast animations. -0.5
Critter moves have animations- not really a bad thing, but they’re a bit rapid and can be a pain on the eyes. They’re not too bad, though, so this is a half point.

MOTOR ACCESSIBILITY:

Toggle sprint. +1
Toggle buttons are huge for those with motor issues, and this game has toggle sprint! It’s harder to control and there’s a bit of a slide, as well as the run speed again being horrible on the eyes.
It’s a bit harder to control, though, imo. If it also had shift-to-sprint on top of toggle sprint, that’d be awesome.

No keybinds. -1
Keybinds can’t be changed. It’s still a young game, but I’m so sorry if you can’t use a mouse. This game can’t be played without one.

Rope hitboxes are too small and often require repeated slamming into them. -1
Sometimes cliffs have ropes you can walk up to and continue holding W to climb. However, the run speed makes it very difficult to continue running and perfectly align yourself with ropes in order to climb them, so it takes a few tries. Lots of button hitting repeatedly to get the right angle.

OTHER:

Wait, where am I? -1
No map, so this requires players to memorize. I’ve got amnesia and no sense of direction, so this isn’t helpful.
Also many of the features of the area don’t have distinguishing shadows or… anything, for that matter. Is what you’re going up a staircase or flat? Actually, is that even a staircase? Where are you? What?
It took me 3 minutes to get up a staircase because I couldn’t find it, then I couldn’t see individual steps.

What am I doing? -1
There’s no explanation for what’s going on, what you can do, what things mean, etc. I suppose if you played the sister game you have more context, but… who knows.
You’re thrown into the game with a big morph GUI that you may or may not know is a morph GUI, because it isn’t labelled as a morph GUI. The typings, notably the ones that aren’t based on any in Pokemon, aren’t elaborated on. Levelling is weird? When I joined the game I was level 15 and had never played before.
Also who knows what that button does!
Good luck!!! You get no guidance.

Total score: 1.5/10
It’s still a young game, so there’s tons of room for improvement. It could be a lot better. The game’s cute, so I’ll continue to check in probably, so this score will probably go up in the future!
For now, I’m falling asleep and really need to go to bed.

[WaviestBalloon]

You should do: Kaiju Paradise v3.1 - Roblox

[ControlCoreAngel (Angel)]

im BACK. with a new rating. yahoo

item asylum - 6.5/10

IT’S BEEN 3000 YEARS and item asylum has finally updated! This rating is about the latest version, the Summer 2022 update!

item asylum is a meme-based fighting randomizer stuffed with references and so many jokes only us old-timers will get (and by that I mean us “weird generation” kiddos, from 1999-2002, and a lot of other 90s/00s kids probably, but generally if you’re younger than me you don’t know what dial up internet is and/or have never held an original Gameboy in your hands and I pity and envy you simultaneously) and a lot of modern memes to offset what the younger crowd doesn’t understand.

I love IA, but there’s drawbacks to the chaos. That being said, this rating will be written with some terms you’ll really only get if you’ve played before, but I’ll try to explain.

VISUAL ACCESSIBILITY:

Eyestrain galore, ffa_ÿʌô¦Ñt -1
Where to begin?
ffa_ÿʌô¦Ñt is a free-for-all map based on missing textures and models from Garry’s Mod, one of the games IA heavily references. While I love its theme, this map is nightmarish to play on if you have photosensitivity. With every surface sporting a pink-and-black checkered missing-texture-style texture, walking through this map can be one hell of an eyestrain, and I often find myself having to server hop when it comes up. This is really the only accessibility issue with the maps themselves, mind you, but both ffa_baseplate and ffa_baseplate2021 share this issue, albeit to more minor degrees.

Full-screen flashing lights and jumpscares- zapper, sad moyai, + killer fish from san diego. -2.5
While originally I didn’t have much of an issue with items like sad moyai and killer fish, I feel the line was stepped over with the addition of zapper.
Zapper is a long-range weapon themed on the NES Zapper (I’m actually holding it in the image at the top). When fired by the player, it turns the screen black-and-white, creating a flash effect. This is true to the original Duck Hunt game, but this creates a flashing disco light effect that can VERY, VERY easily trigger an epileptic episode. I know why it was added and it’s certainly a cool effect, but it ABSOLUTELY makes an epilepsy and eyestrain warning on IA necessary. As you can guess, IA currently has no content warning for this at all in its game description.
Sad moyai and killer fish are lesser issues, but still result in jumpscare-style flashing textures that fill the whole screen. Jumpscares aren’t as big a problem as full out flashing lights, and I would understand not removing them, but this combined with the prior zapper and ffa_ÿʌô¦Ñt 100% means an eyestrain and epilepsy warning SHOULD BE ADDED to the game description.
-1.5 for the zapper alone, -1 for the rest.

Balanced lighting on most maps. +1
Maps that don’t have to be dark aren’t dark. Maps that are dark aren’t uncomfortably dark to the point I can’t see. Not perfect, but better than most.

Massive knockback weapons- wand, america, bomb on a stick, bomb, + ruler. -0.5
A half-point for its lesser severity, weapons with massive knockbacks (especially the ones with the most knockback, listed above) can cause eyestrain, especially on the eyestrain-y maps mentioned in my first point.

Players are a light source. +1
IA is one of those games that makes the player a light source! Players give off a faint glow only visible in dark locations, making it easier to see your immediate surroundings and see yourself- and your enemies!

Partial-screen jumpscares and flashing lights- apparition, bible, holy hand grenade, pow, snowball, + shine. -0.5
A half-point for lesser severity, some weapons cause jumpscare-style flashes or create bright or flashing lights that only take up a portion of the screen, as opposed to all of it. Bible and holy hand grenade are probably the worst of these, as the light they produce can bug out and remain in place despite their source being destroyed for a bit of time, creating a bright white light that partially blinds players or prevents them from seeing their character and nearby enemies if they’re too close.

MOTOR ACCESSIBILITY:

Hop/jump strats. -1
Considered an annoying part of IA meta, but also a part of most other Roblox fighting game metas, is hop strats- the art of literally bouncing around.
Jumping often means life-or-death in IA, making it easier to dodge small projectiles but hard to dodge melees with large hitboxes, and allowing you to escape your fate by playing jump-rope with a masumume or sealing your fate in the death plane when someone comes at you with a fish.
This can cause muscle strain in the hands and wrist. If you have a minor issue with your hands/wrists, then don’t play IA for too long. If it’s more major and you know games like IA will hurt you very quickly, avoid playing.

ACCEPTANCE:
(edit addition i forgot to mention earlier!)

Hinting at negative stereotypes, but no blatant mention of anything particularly bad. ±0
Oh, asylum games on Roblox. How hit-or-miss.
Except, wait, Angel, IA isn’t an asylum game. “Asylum” is just part of the name. You’re totally right, it is just in the name! I also do have to mention ffa_asylum, a free-for-all map that’s a white padded cell.
While the word “asylum” definitely makes some NDs cringe due to the negative stereotypes it often is included with, IA doesn’t touch on those stereotypes at all, and its map is simply that- a map. There’s nothing to really suggest they’re making jokes at the expense of NDs, and no “oh mentally ill people are so x” jokes or references at ALL. It’s kinda surprising!
For that reason, it’s no minus, but it’s also no plus. IA certainly doesn’t have to remove these references at all, they aren’t harmful, and I personally have no issue with them. It will become a problem if they do add ableist stereotypes and “jokes” like that, but hopefully that won’t happen. At worst, it currently might illicit some players to say some nasty things, but that’s just Roblox for you, isn’t it…

OTHER:

THE CHAOS. ±0
The chaos is on purpose and the game is actually quite easy to learn, so no point deduction. It makes up for what it is. The chaos becomes fun.
You’re thrown into matches without explanation, and the game doesn’t tell you how to use items. It takes a while to find out what everything does, if anything at all, and how best to use it. Honestly, it’s part of the charm.
IA is a game you have to learn, but you can quite easily get into the swing of it if you identify it’s a fighting game! Which, I don’t think that’s terribly difficult, after you spawn with weapons and maybe get killed a few times, as well as see the leaderboard.
Drawbacks include the initial confusion and unfamiliarity with the chaos- I believe this is what most newbies who first join IA leave the game because of. Maybe newbies don’t fight back, because they don’t know it’s a fighting game, and it results in them getting spam killed aggressively. Being autistic, I know this is especially true for us ND folk!
Neurodivergents like me aren’t partially great with scenarios we’re just randomly thrown into with no guidance. Some will fair well and others won’t, it’s different for all of us, but it’s a pretty consistent occurence. It’s one of the reasons why many of us have routines or patterns and NTs are advised against breaking those- because it throws us off and makes us feel vulnerable, which can result in anxiety, panic, and/or frustration. But IA is one of those games where, honestly, it’s alright and didn’t really bug me a whole lot.

Total score: 6.5/10
I love IA, don’t get me wrong, but especially with the addition of the zapper, it’s not a very disabled-friendly game. This score would be higher without the strobe effect of the zapper.
The control scheme causes muscle strain for sure, but eye strain is probably IA’s biggest issue, and is where it can improve the most.

[GamersInternational (RIPWiiU3DSOnline0904)]

I really appreciate that you’re spending this time helping the disabled communities with some guidance on how a certain experience is not suitable for disabled people (it’ll also help developers if they actually want to make a change). I think they are being pushed away from gaming, because there probably isn’t much games that wouldn’t set off something. Even though I’m probably only dyspraxic (haven’t been tested yet), thank you, on behalf of others, for making this post.

I also took a look at your other post, and you seem to have went into a ton of detail about making a suitable game. I only really knew about contrast ratios, but only because a friend let me know about them.

[westyboy609 (C17ADEL)]

I’d love it for you to rate my game, Its ok if you won’t though. I like that your doing this and keep it up!

[Road_Gamer2]

I love the absolute idea of rating games on their overall accessibility. This guide will provide a lot of good reference for developers to make accessible games for the community. keep up the good work!

[ControlCoreAngel (Angel)]

i’m still alive!

PHIGHTING! - 9/10

Ughh Phighting. I loooove Phighting.

PHIGHTING! is a 3rd person shooter fighting game inspired by games like Splatoon. Based on old Roblox, it puts on a modern twist on our nostalgia with redesigns of EVERYTHING. It’s got brilliant lore, as well.

VISUAL ACCESSIBILITY:

High contrast. +1
Great for people who have trouble distinguishing things visually. Your computer probably has high contrast options for this very reason! Phighting is very fast-paced and their neon colors-on-off blacks art style allows for this to be implemented well. Even a person like me, who is a little slow on reaction times and has difficulty seeing and recognizing objects, can keep up with the combat.

But sometimes a little too neon. -1
Bright colors are prevalent in the art style of this game, and for that I can’t fault it. I also love neons and use them a lot. However, this makes it an eyestrain and epilepsy risk. Some maps even exhaust me visually, like ROBLOX Bowling Alley, where the walls are bright orange. Before the team color update, it was difficult to see the red team against this shade.
On the complete inverse, Project Telamon is a little too dark! It makes up for this by being a rather open-air map with lots of room. High contrast saves the day on Telamon by your neon-colored enemies being stark against the night.

Custom team color options. +1
A brilliant update so many people have been having fun with! This update allows for colorblind users who have hard times differentiating red and blue from each other to change the default team colors to something different.
The team color update wasn’t only great for accessibility, it was also great for the average player! I’ve seen lots of players challenging themselves by making both teams the same color, so you’re unable to tell who is on your team and who isn’t. It also just breaks up the classic red and blue, and lets you see more colors on the Phighters.

MOTOR ACCESSIBILITY:

No need, no worries. ±0
Due to the controls of the game, it basically doesn’t need toggles at all. Attacks that aren’t your main are on cooldowns, and there is no sprint as you’re always running.
Similarly, jump strats I mentioned in my IA rating don’t exist here, as they’re very ineffective. Basically every attack has a wide range that will hit you, even if you’re jumping.

ACCEPTANCE:

I HEARD YOU LIKE DISABLED REP +2
Phighting has an extremely colorful cast of characters, and a GOOD LOT are disabled and portrayed great! This game is also awesome LGBT+ rep.
Gonna get into a bit of lore here, so hold on!
Zuka, an NPC who takes you to matches and sits at the lobby, is missing an arm. This doesn’t stop him from daily tasks, like driving a car and opening up his booth at the battle lobby. You see him kind of struggle to open his booth with his one arm, but he’s clearly practiced. His injury prevents him from Phighting, which is why he’s retired, but he still clearly loves the sport.
Hyperlaser, one of the playable characters, is also disabled, and heavily so, though this isn’t evident by the game alone. He’s almost completely missing his horns due to a severe injury, and Phighters need their horns to live- they’re vital organs. This and his age make Hyper wary of Phighting and whether or not he’ll continue this line of work. However, even as disabled as he is, he continues to Phight!
Every character missing an eye. There’s a good lot of them! There’s some lore implications for this and the “Cult of the Eye”, but we don’t know much about that right now. Most characters missing an eye lost it by injury.
Subspace is literally partially rotting, and covering his mouth and jaw with a gas mask to hide the injury away.
Lightblox is extremely shy and nervous. “Okay Angel, but this isn’t a disability.” It certainly implies one though. I was a “shy and nervous” kid. Turns out I was actually autistic and clinically anxious. Lightblox reads a LOT like that, and her only really talking to two people (Traffic and Ghosdeeri) is a perfect sign of this.
A few characters, like Scythe/Rifle, have scars. This isn’t a disability on its own, however it’s highly stigmatized to have them (based on beauty standards) and you’ll see a lot of disabled people with scars.

OTHER:

High amount of neurodivergency and disability in the community. +1
I adore the Phighting community! A lot of its members are neurodiverse and/or disabled. I don’t know what else to say here other than it’s pretty nice and accepting!