then there's the flip side of this where people feel guilty about using them and I'm like, if I didn't want you to use them they wouldn't be in the game
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in reply to @CyanSorcery's post:
I wonder if a certain type of people have an automatic response to the word "accessibility", and if they would respond differently if the exact same functionality was implemented as a "cheat code"?
heh, I wouldn't want to put it that way though because I wouldn't want people who need it to feel like they're cheating
Oh most definitely, anyone who has an issue with accessibility in games can die mad, and no one should feel the lesser for wanting more chill, accessible enjoyment, but now I'm imagining an alternate universe where the original Doom and its 'IDKFA' and 'IDDQD' cheat codes were instead presented in an options menu as a (and this is a stretch) "Story Mode". Perception is a weird thing, y'know?
picking Celeste as an example because it comes to mind, I think it's interesting to think about the perception of:
- You get infinite jumps if you turn it on in assist mode (what Celeste actually does)
- You get infinite jumps if you input a cheat code
- You get infinite jumps unless you turn that off in a "difficulty enhancement" section
- You get infinite jumps and you're just told "btw we balanced the game around one jump, you should probably restart if you use the second's
- There is a button on the controller that gives you infinite jumps when you push it
i'm fully aware of all this but i do the opposite, i can sometimes get turned off of a game if there's super hard bonus content/achievements, since that makes it feel like they "want" me to do those, even if the rest of the game is a reasonable difficulty that i'd like. Psychology is a mess!
accessibility options are absolutely something you should add though, it's great! My one tip is that absolutely nothing should indicate that you're using (or have used) them, so there's no guilt/reminders. Some games have a timer for "how long you've used accessibility tools" deep in a menu somewhere and that's already enough to make certain people never turn it on.
I do have little icons by Lance's health for certain accessibility/cheat options just for transparency on what's going on, to prevent people from posting videos that they couldn't possibly do without them (and to also remind me when I have noclip on while debugging and trying to figure out why a wall isn't working)