I started posting weekly videos and articles under the title Access-Ability almost five years ago now, in January of 2020, and in that time the series has almost exclusively focused on accessibility in video games. At times the series has dabbled in other related topics, such as LGBT and Disability representation, but has kept its focus pretty squarely on video games specifically.
The thing is, I do have other gaming related interests, and sometimes those also overlap with accessibility… and kind of video games.
Me and my wife are huge board game fans, with a pretty big collection of games spanning across different genres and mechanics. Physical board games have always been a big part of our lives, but our interest in them increased dramatically around the same time that this series began, during the early months of lockdowns for Covid-19. Going outside was going to be off the table for a while, and our board game collection rapidly expanded.
Over the years, I’ve had people ask me about whether there’s space for Access-Ability as a show to cover board game accessibility alongside video game accessibility. I honestly don’t know the answer to that question right now. I don’t know if I have the time or energy to commit to covering the topic with any kind of regularity, or if it would be best to create some kind of sub-brand for the show for those kinds of infrequent uploads.
That said, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to test the waters on talking about board game accessibility on this show, and this past week I saw an opportunity to do so that’s closely enough related to video games that I think we can get away with it.
Rebellion is a video game development studio that we’ve talked about previously on this channel. The studio behind titles such as Atomfall and the Sniper Elite series, Rebellion has historically been pretty good at including a decent number of accessibility options in their games, as well as communicating accessibility information in advance of game releases via their website’s accessibility section.
Rebellion also has a board game publishing label, Rebellion Unplugged. Recently, they updated their website with a suite of accessibility information for Joyride, a post apocalyptic car racing board game for 2-4 players that’s available now.
Before I jump straight into talking about the accessibility information that Rebellion has released for Joyride, I want to talk a little bit more broadly about board game accessibility, and some of the common categories of accessibility barriers that are found in the medium.
Many board games require degrees of reading comprehension (either to read an instruction manual or individual components that may hold hidden information), memory (of past moves or face down components), dexterity and mobility (picking up small components and moving them accurately or precisely around a board, or dexterity specific focused games), speed (games with timer pressures), social cues (common in hidden role games), communication (some games have rules around how you can or cannot communicate during play), maths (ability to mentally calculate numbers and scores etc), strategy (if you need to plan large numbers of steps ahead in advance), as well as requiring specific amounts of space to play, featuring components of sizes that may be easier or more difficult to hold, and components of varying degrees of visibility (unpainted minis may look similar, text size on components, colourblind accessibility, high contrast support etc).
This is far from an exhaustive list, but it does give a good overview of some of the common issues that come up when assessing board game accessibility.
With the above examples in mind, I really love Rebellion Unplugged’s approach to sharing accessibility information for Joyride, and was particularly inspired to talk about this topic because of how impressed I was by the example that they set.
Their support page opens with an overview, rating various accessibility categories on a scale of 1-3, with emojis used alongside text to communicate topic categories. I appreciate particularly that, given this is a self reported ranking scale, Rebellion has not shied away from admitting there are some areas that they couldn’t work around in terms of accessibility.
You can then scroll down the page to see a more detailed breakdown, with images and explanatory text, explaining in more depth the accessibility accommodations and barriers present for each category.
While I won’t go into detail on every single accessibility feature discussed in Rebellion’s breakdown for Joyride, I do want to highlight a few features that stood out to me as particularly nice to see, and a couple of issues that I noted while giving it a read through.
Cards in Joyride highlight important keywords, either in bold or a different text colour, which helps for at a glance reading comprehension.
While I do like the idea of telling players in advance the maximum numbers involved on dice as a way to gauge mathematical complexity, the readthrough does say the maximum value on die faces is three, while showing a die with a 4 on one face in an accompanying image.
Knowing up front that a game doesn’t involve hidden information, and features reminder cards, is really useful both for teaching new players and supporting players with cognitive disabilities.
I appreciate that the mobility section is specific about things like the need to roll dice and flip punchboard components, giving concrete examples of the kinds of movements a player needs to be comfortable with.
Components in Joyride contain high contrast alternative sides which increase visual contrast, reduce clutter, and use a more legible alternative font, without fully removing the visual theming and tone from those cards.
Special board spaces are highlighted with iconography and altered border thickness identifiable separate from colours, and game pieces are identifiable via symbols rather than just player colour.
Lastly, I really appreciate that Rebellion included images showcasing the size of Joyride components in reference to the size of a standard playing card, a component that many board game players will already have access to in their homes.
Other than the small error regarding maximum numbers seen on die faces, I really love Rebellion’s approach to categorising and breaking down board game accessibility, and the ways their self assessment does include acknowledgment of issues, such as that text is too small in places for example.
As I said at the start of this piece, I like the idea of doing some board game accessibility coverage in the future, be that as part of this series or as a spin off series. Myself and my wife Jane have quite the large board game collection, and it would be nice to be able to turn this hobby we share into a new area of coverage where I could provide useful information to disabled gamers outside of digital video games. Rebellion Unplugged’s accessibility page for Joyride resparked that desire in me, in no small part because I really like the framework that they’ve used. If I do in future start doing my own board game accessibility reviews, on this channel or elsewhere, I’ll likely take a degree of inspiration from the way that they’ve handled the page that we talked about today.
So yeah, it’s cool to see a game developer that I’ve praised for accessibility transparency and thoughtfulness applying those same principles to board game accessibility. It’s certainly reignited an interest in the topic for me, and might just be the push that I need to start making this something that makes its way into rotation as coverage that I do more in the future.