I'm excited to announce the release of Sparking Zero Access — a screen reader accessibility mod for Dragon Ball
Sparking! ZERO on PC.

This mod makes the game playable with NVDA, JAWS, and other screen readers. It covers menus, character select,
battles, online play, and more.

What it does:
- Full menu and character select navigation spoken aloud
- In-battle announcements: HP, KI, Sparking gauge, timer, skill points
- Opponent tracking: enemy HP, KI, Sparking changes
- Online play: lobby, room management, works as both P1 and P2
- Post-battle results: player level, rank up, rewards
- Episode Battle story mode: map navigation, cutscene text
- Shop accessibility for buying new characters and other items.

How to install:
0. You need to have the game installed before you can install this mod.
1. Download AccessForge from https://github.com/AccessForge/AccessForge/releases
2. Run it, find Sparking Zero Access, click Install
3. That's it — launch the game and play

The mod is open source: https://github.com/AccessForge/SparkingZeroAccess

Built with AccessForge, a 1-click accessibility mod platform for blind gamers.

#Accessibility #A11y #BlindGaming #Blind #LowVision #GameAccessibility #AccessibleGaming #AssistiveTechnology
#NVDA #JAWS #DragonBall #DragonBallSparkingZero #SparkingZero #DragonBallSuper #DBZ
#Gaming #PCGaming #Modding #FightingGames

The Royal National Institute of Blind People is looking for thoughts on accessibility tags. If you are interested in sharing your experiences, please fill out the below survey:

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=fDNFXZLR_EOqWAVVfJFxvPwtCMRH1OBIhk3KUfpivQtURUE1UThYSFRBR0FYUDdBOVZVOVM4RUk5UC4u

#GameAccessibility

Because, despite numerous inquiries, I couldn't get permission to use photos of the Hands Free Controller and other devices for our Open Educational Resources, I just created several digital illustrations last week.

We'll publish the OER next month, finally, so you will be able to freely access, modify, and use these pictures for any purpose.

#RetroGaming #GameAccessibility #OER #DigitalArt

Here's an excellent write-up summing up the state of #GameAccessibility in the last 5 years by Grant Stoner. To say it was a rollercoaster of emotions is an understatement. We had incredible innovation and progress in games like The Last of Us or Forza, but for all of those we also had many disappointments that either came tantalizingly close but weren't accessible to some groups of people like totally blind gamers, or just straight up didn't really offer any accessibility features but still got a lot of praise and awards. We also lost some very good people. The industry is also undergoing some difficult times with way too many layoffs. And yet, I'm optimistic we’ll still see some wonderful things in the future. If this year is anything to go by, even if there won't be as many accessible Tripple-A releases, we're also seeing a rise in accessibility mods becoming more frequent. Ultimately what sums up these last 5 years, and probably the future as well is the last paragraph Grant wrote: "

> How do you explain the past five years of accessibility? Both Xbox and PlayStation are fixtures within the disabled community. They uplift us, highlight our work, and give us opportunities to be better advocates. And in equal measure they frustrate us, casting us aside in perplexing moments of grief and frustration. If anything, these five years are a testament to disabled perseverance in an industry that still struggles to fully welcome us."

https://www.polygon.com/ps5-xbox-series-x-accessibility-disability-community/

A quick OER update:

Today I finished one of the most daunting tasks so far: Summarising legislation relevant for games and game accessibility.

Our team is now looking for external feedback – specifically from lawyers and accessibility experts – to make sure I got everything right. If you'd like to help, feel free to reach out to me!

#GameAccessibility #OpenEducationalResources #EuropeanAccessibilityAct #CVAA

Today, we wrapped up our four-day seminar on inclusive gaming at TH Köln!

This time, we focused on accessibility and inclusion in media education and were excited to meet students who did not have much prior gaming experience, but were highly engaged and eager to learn more about it.

This was yet another great opportunity to test the Open Educational Resources currently developed as part of our project InclusiveGameLab, and we received very encouraging feedback.

#OER #GameAccessibility #Inclusion #MediaEducation #Medienpädagogik

Personal review of unit 4 of the #gameAccessibility course from #Unity, pt.1 Link: https://learn.unity.com/course/practical-game-accessibility/unit/design-and-development

TLDR: I finally checked out the example project in Unity and got to try the accessibility plugin. Neat stuff, but of course you need to put in more work to make your game fully accessible

This is how it went:
👇

Personal review of project 3 of the #gameAccessibility course from #Unity, pt.1 Link: https://learn.unity.com/course/practical-game-accessibility/unit/project-pre-production

TLDR: In this part of the course I start with developing my own project, based on the knowledge of the prior chapters. I pick my idea and ask you for feedback on it (at the end!).

More details in the next posts 👇

#gamedev
#a11y

Personal review of project 2 of the #gameAccessibility course from #Unity, pt.3 Link: https://learn.unity.com/project/inclusive-design-and-accessibility

Follow up on last month's post, in which I talked about part 2.

TLDR: I investigated "BROK the investiGator" by @COWCAT . It's a punch and click game which is accessible to #blind players and has lots of #a11y options.

Read more in the next posts 👇

Have you ever researched an accessibility topic in depth? How did it go? Let me know, I am curious!

#gamedev