[EatThePath]

Accessibility in games is a topic that people have examined and talked about a lot between 1999 and now, so I would be surprised if there weren't ways we could improve it for FSO, and I hope everyone can agree that lowering any barrier for entry to the community that we can is a good thing. So, what can be done?

I'm no expert on the topic. I can think of or have been suggested a few already, like higher contrast HUD or bigger fonts, but I'm sure I've got plenty of blindspots. So, do you know of an issue that keeps you from enjoying Freespace as much as you could, or something that's kept someone you know from being able to play it? Or have you noticed some common misstep the game makes that can be addressed?

You don't have to have a solution to the problem, just knowing where to start thinking is enough to help. But if you do know a good solution, especially one that  has been proven out in other games, feel free to suggest it. If we can get a good list, maybe it can be taken to SCP land.

EDIT TO BE CLEAR: My goal with this thread is not to brainstorm ideas for how to get FSO in front of more people, or make the on boarding/new player experience better. It is instead to talk about things that make the game harder to play in avoidable ways for for those who have disabilities, colorblindness, photosensitivity, a particular propensity to motion sickness, or anything of that sort. If you have ideas about the other, first kind of accessibility or general outreach, I'd appreciate it if those could live in a different thread.

[jr2]

Besides getting GOG and Steam to give a shout-out?  Or, hmm, make Knossos a free "DLC"? (Dunno the legal repercussions of that though, ick).

Is Knossos up on, say Moddb?  It should be.  It's a mod manager for FSO basically.

[EatThePath]

Sorry I was unclear, I'm not talking about outreach to spread the word or improvements to the 'new user experience', I specifically want to talk about things that make the game harder to play in avoidable ways for for those who have disabilities, colorblindness, photosensitivity, a particular propensity to motion sickness, or anything of that sort.

[Grizzly]

A flag to remove screen shake was added recently which is the best possible news.

I have noticed that a lot of Knossos mods tend to apply darker lighting settings, to the point that the emissive light option is now by default turned off in FSO. This does look prettier, but it steps away from FS's default design which was designed to look visible on a 640*480 resolution on a CRT. Frustratingly, Knossos per-mod flags override the global ones atm, which means that a user looking to make things more visible has to manually adjust them for each mod.

The FS2 UI defaults to a red/green colour contrast for friendly/enemy targets. Users should be able to adjust this for themselves with alternative presets for common colourblindness added. These UI elements should be as colour-adjustable as the rest of the UI is. Similarily, all the options that currently aren't colourable in the FS2 UI should be.

An option to add targeting brackets around every ship in the game (although less prominent then the "main" targeting bracket) would greatly help with any visibility issues - a bit like how the Vanilla "press an F key to target a group" works. Alternatively, a Glow Outline effect would significantly aid visibility.

The somewhat-recently added "screen flash" effect that happens when destroying bombs really should be toggable. It's not in FS2 retail. Similarily, an option to deal with the sun glare ought to be a thing. Whoever enjoys screen flashes should just play Post Void, which is an excellent doom-like game that is also a metaphor for migraines.

[Nightmare]

Besides getting GOG and Steam to give a shout-out?  Or, hmm, make Knossos a free "DLC"? (Dunno the legal repercussions of that though, ick).

I suggested that before at one point; the response was "do not wake sleeping lawyers", what sounds pretty reasonable to me. knows HLP exists obviously, but there's no way to tell what some Interplay dude might say to that.

[EatThePath]

That's the stuff, Joshua. Screen flash is I think an MVP addition via scripting, so it's hard to tackle from an engine settings side, but there might be other routes that can be taken to help.

[Grizzly]

An option to override a mod's UI with the FS2 default would be splendid. Both BP and Inferno use a mod that uses a really small font for messages, for instance. This would be a workaround for mods who did not take accessibility into consideration at the time of their creation.

Although that could arguably be helped with proper UI scaling as well.

[Nightmare]

That's the stuff, Joshua. Screen flash is I think an MVP addition via scripting, so it's hard to tackle from an engine settings side, but there might be other routes that can be taken to help.

Knossos is a great thing but it has some problems when it comes to add-in/or remove content; it seems to generate a lot of confusion, and those needing it would not know where to look for it.

[Grizzly]

I also think that in general mod authors should be made aware that 10pt fonts are nice if you're a nerd hunched behind a computer screen all the time, but when you're sitting far away from your monitor they tend to suck a bit

[Grizzly]

Oh, and
Opaque backgrounds for UI elements, esp. the dialogue box.

[Colonol Dekker]

Put the standalone games on steam.   Create a fan base.

Trawl it.


Profit.

[Grizzly]

How can this thread title be made more accessible?

[Grizzly]

Also a lot of screen flashes should be turned off.

I did mention Post Void in jest, but it's a really fun game and even though screen flashes are a part of its artistic experience, they can still be turned off! If post void can do it so can you.

[Mito [PL]]

Relevant topic: https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=96953.0

[EatThePath]

thanks, I attempted to search for old threads on the topic but evidently I didn't work hard enough at it. Finding ways to make the tweaks there into more easily enabled options instead of essentially manual patching of mods would probably be ideal as a long term goal for this kind of thing.

[Mito [PL]]

Frustratingly, Knossos per-mod flags override the global ones atm, which means that a user looking to make things more visible has to manually adjust them for each mod.

Hmm, I recall that there is an "apply to all" option that I used a lot to carry over my settings and custom command line flags between mods and builds. Does it somehow not work anymore?

[Mito [PL]]

Frustratingly, Knossos per-mod flags override the global ones atm, which means that a user looking to make things more visible has to manually adjust them for each mod.

Hmm, I recall that there is an "apply to all" option that I used a lot to carry over my settings and custom command line flags between mods and builds. Does it somehow not work anymore?

EDIT: Also, that's a +1 for the capability of turning off flashes from me too.

[Nightmare]

Sun glare could be turned off by making a tbm that adds $NoGlare: to every MVP entry but I'd guess a engine-solution would be prefareable as not all mods only use MVP suns.

[Firesteel]

Do we have subtitles for cutscenes? In game/briefing is fine because it's text based but was there ever subtitle functionality in the engine?

[Grizzly]

Frustratingly, Knossos per-mod flags override the global ones atm, which means that a user looking to make things more visible has to manually adjust them for each mod.

Hmm, I recall that there is an "apply to all" option that I used a lot to carry over my settings and custom command line flags between mods and builds. Does it somehow not work anymore?

That's just for EXEs