As a software engineer and an avid gamer of strategy games, caosparrot struggled to acknowledge the damage his work and hobbies had done to his hands. In 2017, the consistent pain from his repetitive stress injuries was bad enough that he could no longer type comfortably or enjoy the games he loved to play. While looking for solutions, he found a video of someone using speech recognition software to encode. He decided to try to use the same technology – not for coding, but for playing.
“I started the process of trying to play the old games that I was no longer able to play with sounds”, says chaosparrot. The project started in Python, which he used to create a complete voice control program that allows him to play hands-free. And it worked: he managed to reach just one level below the ranking in Starcraft he had reached before his injuries, and he also won Hollow Knight, a complicated game that is likely to frustrate players, even with traditional control, using only your voice.
Games have become more accessible slowly over time, but when resources are lacking or controls don’t work, the responsibility lies with players with disabilities to find their own ways to play. Many disabled players use a combination of adaptive hardware – such as mouth-operated controllers and specially designed joysticks – and various applications to enable features such as eye tracking, screen resizing or voice control. The use of Chaosparrot’s voice is just one of the many personalized and personalized solutions that players have resorted to.
“It’s like life when you have a disability. Anything I want, or need, and is not available, we have to do it ourselves, ”says Kyle Abbate, who runs onehandmostly, a YouTube channel focused on game accessibility. It can be a cup holder for his wheelchair, accessories for his keyboard and mouse, or the software settings he uses to play. “A lot of things for people with disabilities are trial and error and making your own technology accessible, and everything that works for you, and experimenting and trying to find what’s best.”
Chaosparrot’s program, Parrot.Py, was inspired by Talon Voice, a speech recognition software available for free to write, code and, theoretically, any other computing task. By teaching Parrot.Py-specific clicks, whistles and clucks and associating them with button inputs in a game, chaosparrot is able to vocalize commands – selecting units in Starcraft or attacking and running in Hollow Knight – in addition to using eye tracking for movement. He hopes to make it work in a variety of game genres and even tested it while playing Among us, although that involved explaining to friends why he was whistling into the microphone on the way to electricity.
There are other players who use older and pre-existing voice control programs, such as VoiceAttack and GAVPI, as viable alternatives to typical controllers. But, regardless of the program, there are still obstacles that arise with the voice as a method of control. Voice controls create a time delay between giving a command and the movement being executed in the game, which makes the game experience more difficult, especially in games that require quick reaction times.
There is also more mental work involved in configuring voice commands before diving into a game. Both VoiceAttack and GAVPI require more technical knowledge than just running a game alone, and Parrot.Py requires at least a basic familiarity with coding. The use of any of these programs involves extra steps on top of the existing barriers that come when playing as a person with a disability. “It will be difficult to fill this gap,” says caosparrot. As Abbate did for VoiceAttack, he plans to make videos explaining how to use his program.
In addition to the peculiarities of configuring voice controls, some games are just more difficult to play than others. A game like heavenly, which requires quick decision making and movement, presents a challenge, but is more playable thanks to an integrated assistance mode that allows adjustments of speed, endurance and invincibility. For games without an assistance mode, adjusting elements like health or attack damage with a program like Cheat Engine can make the game adapt to the player, finding them in the middle between what they are capable of and what the game requires. “I think that if you look at the future of accessibility, I think [an assist mode] it’s a great thing to add, at least for single player games, ”says chaosparrot.
Inclusive design requires time, careful consideration and a willingness to solicit feedback from people with various disabilities. Developers don’t always have adaptable game styles in mind and don’t necessarily have the best track record for considering how people with disabilities can interact with their games, from the push of buttons that trigger chronic pain outbreaks to flashing lights that can cause convulsions.
Improvements in the accessibility of games are often the result of people with disabilities defending themselves. Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller was developed with the guidance of advocacy groups such as AbleGamers to better meet the needs of players with disabilities. A letter from a disabled player was what led the Naughty Dog team to consider accessibility in their games. They prioritized accessibility over The Last of Us Part II as a result, the game was praised for its wide range of customizable options, such as refillable controls and audio tips for players with low vision.
These impulses for more accessible resources are also found on social media platforms, where people with disabilities come together to raise awareness about what is missing from the games and what solutions have been made. “The community of disabled people on social media has grown and become more and more active,” says Courtney Craven, founder of Can I Play That, an accessible website for game reviews.
Players continue to champion accessibility in games, reaching out to developers and showing and sharing the types of solutions they use. Chaosparrot’s Parrot.Py was designed to meet your needs, but he and other players know that accessibility will never be unique.
“I encourage developers to take a look at their game and its mechanics, and then think about ‘how can we make them accessible,'” says Abbate. “And then, when you’re making your next game, ‘how can we iterate again and make those changes, make it even better'”.