Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00Rated M for Mature
00:07Atomfall is a survival action game where you explore the fictional quarantine zone,
00:11scavenge your resources, and fight or talk your way through encounters.
00:15It sets Bee Rebellion's most accessible game to date and today we're going to have a deeper look
00:19into its accessibility. We built the game with accessibility in mind as we wanted to make sure
00:26that we could enable as many people as possible to access the core game experiences. We use a mix
00:31of both optional settings and accessibility by design to help more players play and enjoy the game.
00:42I'm Hannah O'Hare and I'm a technical UI designer at Rebellion working on Atomfall.
00:46I've been heavily involved in creating the game's accessible UI features.
00:49We've done a lot of work by design to avoid things like using colour alone,
00:53and to have good text formatting with a clear font widely used across the game.
00:57One of the things that we're most proud of is our UI backplates and text scaling.
01:01The text scales up to 104 pixels at 4k, the largest text scaling ever in a Rebellion game.
01:07I also worked on our backplates which allow the user to create high contrast text throughout
01:11the game by putting solid backgrounds behind all text. Players also have control over the opacity of
01:16these. Because a lot of Atomfall relies on managing your inventory and reading notes you find in the
01:22world. We hope that these improvements will help players engage with these aspects.
01:27Our colour picker has been expanded to include a wider array of choices,
01:30and you can set colours for helpful notifications, warnings and crosshair.
01:39Hi, I'm Carrie Waterton, an accessibility designer here at Rebellion. We've been working on accessibility
01:44across the board on Atomfall, including helping with game and feature design. The exploration and
01:49detective elements play a big role in Atomfall as you find leads. With this in mind, we've introduced
01:54several features which will help players navigate the world and engage with those gameplay mechanics.
02:00Firstly, there's the hints option. This gives you a short summary of the key information to save
02:04players having to read long paragraphs or work out clues. This reduces reading and cognitive load while
02:10supporting players and progressing through the story. Alongside this, there was a huge focus on making
02:16sure that our controls were as accessible as possible. SpecialEffect provided vital feedback to help us
02:21design controls that would be widely accessible by default. Additionally, Atomfall features controller
02:26remapping for both keyboard and controller should players want to create their own configurations.
02:33We have options for toggling holds and automating movement to allow as many people as possible to
02:38play comfortably with reduced button presses.
02:40As we've designed features of the game, we thought about how we could provide multi-sensory feedback
02:47through both visuals and audio by default, such as pairing unique sounds and animations to telegraph attacks.
03:03I'm Lottie Wade and I'm an audio designer on Atomfall. We've been working on the audio-driven
03:08accessibility features. We've received positive feedback from blind gamers on unique pickup sounds
03:14in Sniper Elite 5, so we wanted to build on that for Atomfall. We use unique audio cues where appropriate
03:20to try and give the player as much information through audio as we can. On top of this, we have a new
03:25feature of audible cues for prompts. We have different cues for a basic interaction, like opening a door or
03:31picking up an item, and for complex interactions, where you can either pick up or use an item.
03:36Earlier this year, we had an expo for Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and as part of that,
03:41we were able to get some lived experience feedback, and we also got our developers to test the audio
03:46aiming system blindfolded, as well as some testing from blind and low vision players. We collated the feedback
03:52and have made a host of improvements to the audio aim as a result. We're excited to get more feedback
03:57when players get their hands on the game. It's incredibly rewarding to see someone without sight be able to
04:03engage in combat independently, without assistance from a sighted player. It was important for us that
04:09we gave as much agency as possible and access to core parts of the experience.
04:14The audio aiming system has three levels. It has passive NPC audio, which plays on all characters
04:19to help with melee combat. We also have snap aiming and cues for snapping on and off to let you know when
04:25you're on target. And lastly, we have ADS cues, which are sounds that let the player know how close they
04:30are to an enemy when aiming. Each of these can be enabled and disabled independently, so you can customise
04:36it to what you need.
04:54Hello, I am the Wobbly Gamer, a visually impaired accessibility consultant and content creator.
05:00Earlier this year, the team at Rebellion brought me in to consult on Atomfall. It was great to see
05:05how much the team had achieved. One key piece of feedback I gave was that I couldn't see enemies
05:10when they were far away. This meant I wasn't able to decide whether I wanted to start an encounter with
05:15enemies or not. As a result, I often felt ambushed. The audio aiming system worked well, but I felt the
05:22long distance readability needed improvement. Since the consultancy, the team has worked on providing
05:28the solution. They have created an NPC highlights feature, which allows you to apply a bright coloured shader
05:33to all NPCs in the world. This feature will give the additional readability that I
05:39and other low vision players need at longer distances.
05:45Thank you for your interest in Atomfall. You can find more information on the accessibility
05:49features available on our website at Atomfall.com.
06:00Atomfall.