Accessibility: Seeding a growing experience, Part 1

Accessibility is some elusive trait that gets touted these days as one of the major goals of gaming. 'Games must be accessible enough to appeal to a large generation.' I believe that Accessibility, in and of itself, isn't necessarily the most important goal in game design. It depends upon your consumer base and the target you are trying to satisfy.

What I believe the term truly means in the context is used is, how do we design games that a casual audience can grow into?

The goal here is to mainly: Let the player feel free to play how he wants to play, guide the player gently down the avenues without restricting his freedom and rewarding the player's impulse to delve deeper into the game. In this manner, casual audiences can approach the game without needing to look at strategy guides or knowing the deep internals of the game, knowing that the game will attempt to conform itself around *his* needs, rather than demanding that the player conform itself to the game's needs.

1. Avoid dead ends in player progression (Real or Perceived)
(Let the player play however he wants to play!)

The major criminal in this case: Every RPG ever made that demands the player to choose what to level up. When players are first presented with a series of skills to choose from, there is always the moment of paralysis that grips them when they realize that their decision is final.

The exact instance you want to avoid is the player trying to rationalize his own 'mistake' with himself.

Damn. Why did I choose that skill? I've done this all wrong.

But there is another, more insidious version of the dead end trial: Where the incentive or necessity to follow a dead end outweighs the natural curiosity and desire for exploration. This makes itself evident in the form of rewards for repeating a certain action or playing in a certain style. Let's take the simplest example, the natural example where the usage of a skill improves it to its next level. It's a very natural system of game design, intuitively understood and mirrors reality well.

However, it's a dead-end path for players to choose. In real life, we can't switch our specialties in the middle of the road. We are trapped by the decisions of the past. We keep similar skill-sets and add to them as we develop. If the game forces the player to focus on a path, it will create the same similar trap for him where he is advancing down a path he doesn't wish to go down (a dead end, a worthless skill) and yet there is no recourse for him to go back (as advancing another skill would take forever at this stage, and be almost completely useless.)

Our player has now gone through half the game with a sword specialization such that our player is crazy good with a sword. However, now he is stuck on a dead end path. If he chooses not to use a sword and use an axe instead, the axe will be effectively useless (if he's so much better with a sword) or unfun (because he can do so much more with the sword) unless he uses the axe for a similar period of time with the sword.

This would be reasonable, except the player has now advanced to a stage where the game expects the player to have some crazy awesome skills with a weapon. Switching to another weapon just isn't feasible at this point and the player is trapped with his early choice, even though nowhere along the path has he ever said to himself 'I'm just going to use a sword.'

2. Guide players gently but let them be free to do their own thing.
(Do not restrict the player arbitrarily.)

The major criminal in this case is: Boss fights.

Who here has fought that one boss. You know which one I'm talking about. The 'I am invulnerable everywhere except this giant glowing spot on my torso.' Yes. That one. And he has the audacity to cover it up 95% of the battle. The message is, don't even bother hitting me unless you hit right there.

Run around, dodging his blows for minutes on end to hit him once on the glowing weak point and then repeat 20 times.

The obvious flaw here is that whatever tactic the player decides is the best way to engage the boss is suddenly null and void. If a player decides the boss is totally open after an attack and his instincts tell him to attack, he shouldn't be stopped simply because the boss is designed to be invulnerable.

Imagine the scenario here: Giant Robot dude swings at me mercilessly, and I go to hit him, only to find out that although Giant Robot dude has major holes in his defense, he's simply invulnerable to my attacks until he decides to do some completely arbitrary action that exposes his weak point.

The player has identified a game-play path he wants to explore. He should not be directly cut off for arbitrary reasons. In this case, simply making the boss take reduced but significant damage from player attacks would be terrific, as the player can identify openings in the boss to attack and he is also alerted to the weak point that he may strike of his own choosing.

3. Seed subtle interactions to encourage player exploration and experimentation without bludgeoning them over the head with it.
(Reward the player's sense of exploration.)

The thrill of discovering that something works is an incredibly rewarding one in game-play experience that opens up a great deal of depth into the game. As designers, one key tenet of design is to seed your game with intentional but hidden interactions, knowing that the player's independent discovery of these synergies will be greatly rewarding.

A lot of games will take the 'in your face approach' to let the player know of cool features in the game. In a recent example, in BioShock, the player is explicitly told through the radio that shooting a lightning bolt while enemies are standing in water is more effective.

Yet this didn't need to be explicitly told to the player. Seeing as how the entire city of Rapture is underwater, there is probably going to be a part early on in the game where the player accidentally shocks an enemy while he's standing in some form of water. There is no need to bludgeon players with the information. This is accessibility that caters several steps too far and allows no room for players to delve and explore the space for himself.

In another example in the same game, the player acquires a Pyrokinetic power and then is instantly instructed to burn an oil slick to destroy a group of enemies. He is explicitly told via a message from a person to burn an oil slick and watch the interactions between fire and flammable objects.

This goes a couple of steps too far in the information department. Players are simply not that stupid. If the interaction is not strictly necessary for advancing in the game, then they do not need to be bludgeoned over the head with information about interactions that they could have discovered on their own. (A much richer experience)

A much subtler method can be found in the platforming Metroid series, where, upon acquiring a new powerup, the player is immediately thrust into a series of situations where he must use the powerup. After Samus acquires super-missiles, she is instantly locked into a room with a large green door that is seemingly invulnerable to all her other weapons. In this manner, the player makes the association on his own, without having his/her intelligence insulted.

It goes to show in the excellent design of this game, that the room immediately after the green door room, is filled with all sorts of nasty armored monsters the player has encountered before, but become very easy once they have been swatted away with a burst of super missiles, thus letting the player draw his own conclusions about how best to use the missiles.