I absolutely ✨ adore ✨ "an unplayable game?!" In just a few minutes it brilliantly gets the across the frustration of trying to play a game with one too many barriers for you, and how adding accessibility does *not* necessarily mean taking away challenge badgameszip.itch.io/an-unplayabl...

Europa Universalis 5 has a brilliant feature that I've not yet seen them talk about as cognitive #accessibility, though it definitely is. ⚙️ Automation. EU5 is desperately deep and complex, but lets you granularly automate most aspects of the game. This lets you bring in complexity on *your* terms 🧵

Absolutely wild to me that in the UK, the general discussion around masks was (and still is?) "What are the rules? Am I being forced to?" instead of "How can ensure others stay safe?" It's phenomenal how much damage one sick person in public can do - stay at home when ill folks!

3/3 This cold medicine ad & others like it are especially sinister as a razorblade throat is a key symptom of current Covid variants for which many now have no updated booster. You don't endanger others. You sit this one out. At home.

Preparing to play Europa Universalis 5 by watching a 7 hour tutorial video, then opening the game, cycling through the map modes, hitting "automate" on all areas, then giving up and complaining that I don't understand any of it

Many Cats are amazing and it's so great to see them getting well deserved recognition. If you want to make sure your game can be played by as many people as possible, hit them up!

teeny tiny kitten concrete paws

The New York Times opinion page isn't holding anything back now smh.

Everything about making video games is harder than you think.

Bon-bon

Share your thoughts on Sea of Thieves! Pirates who have sailed recently and receive emails from us should have seen a fresh survey drift into their inbox last week. Your feedback helps us fine-tune future approaches, so the more responses the better - be sure to have your say!

I just wish there was a videogame where I could go in guns blazing, OR take the stealthy approach...

When using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, don't just make text bigger and bolder to make it a heading. That will work for sighted users, but screen reader users will miss that and just hear it as normal paragraph text. Use actual heading styles, like level 1 through 6.

i'll go even further and say that i don't care how much money you have, signing up should be enough. you make n+1 times poverty instead of n? cool, take it anyway. you're jeff bezos? hey man, no judgment (on this anyway), you get snap funds. means testing is a plague and everyone should have food.

On Saints Row we had a debug npc named Skinballs (lol) that was literally just four spheres wrapped in different shades of skin texture so we could test lighting for different skin tones during development. But teams need to plan for that kind of testing with intentionality, and not enough do.

You left. Now they're dead. Immersive sim narrative first person cleaner AMBROSIA SKY is coming out NEXT WEEK! "beautiful, intimate, and deeply affecting" - @ign.com "equal parts System Shock and Powerwash Simulator" - @pcgamer.com Steam & Epic, November 10, 9am EST. Links below!

oh hell yeah

Seeing someone's process, inspiration & journey is a real treat. Perfect illustration of how people working in accessibility are always learning from each other and celebrating each other's successes!  www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2BX... www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4C... www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ub...

Someone invented the timezone UTC+12:45 in Aotearoa New Zealand's Chatham Islands specifically to ruin my day as a software developer

Last week, @xanderashwell.bsky.social and I had the great privilege of sharing @seaofthieves.com's accessibility journey with all the fine folks at the European Accessibility Summit in Brussels, run by @microsoft.com and @myedf.bsky.social! We learned so much from real experts there - 1/3

✨️Get ready for @sonicconuk.com ! Heres what ill be offering = PLUS = some suprise figures and goodies too, one ill never make again!! See you there at table D1! ✨️🐰

My stage name is DJ Accessibilibeats

In fact, we can often learn from disabled folks by understanding how they are engaging with a product. It’s one of the best ways to improve the design and make it more better for everyone. Maybe I am biased; I’m just surprised folks aren’t mentioning accessibility when this meme comes up. /rant 😆😄♥️

Why yes, the ability to remap every single ability is in fact accessibility, and I will take no fucking arguments on this.

Happy World Standards Day! Which, hilariously, is not actually observed on the same day by all standards organizations

Here is a handsome Egyptian goose

I do a monthly round-up of accessibility news at work, and going straight to Can I Play That? as one of my sources is invaluable every time. A brilliant team doing brilliant work, go give them a follow, and if you can, support with a donation!

I won friends!! 😭❤️ I was acknowledged as one of the games industry leading women with the Aurora Award at Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki! It’s hard to put in words how much it means to me being amongst these honorees.

Happy seal

One thing I've changed recently - instead of using "visual", "audio" etc, I now prefer Microsoft's Touch / See / Hear / Speak. It makes it clear that you're talking about the user. e.g. does "audio accessibility" refer to those who have sight or hearing needs?

Currently writing an accessibility presentation and tried categorising a bunch of features into "needs" verticals. Quickly realised none of them fit nicely into a single category, the whole structure has collapsed, and I've rewritten the slide simply as "Everything Is Accessibility"

Mahmoud Darwish trans. by Mohammed Shaheen

Here's a quick thread about the accessibility features and options that will be in the final version of Word Play!

Kestrel about to dive

Writing a résumé but instead of listing skills, listing every bird you've ever seen

A cool thing about the natural world is that if you kinda let your mind unfocus enough to not have all the shit we learned growing up at the forefront of your brain, batshit stuff happens constantly that can make you kinda see how we ended up with so many superstitions trying to make sense of it all

I've not birdposted in a while, but I have a super cool update. After searching for this gorgeous Ruff for 3 hours yesterday and finally finding her, I can officially declare: I have now seen ✨ 150 species of bird ✨ worldwide in 2025!!! 🐦

Just sent an email accidentally saying "provides some much needed laity" instead of "much needed levity" and I'm expecting the clergy to come busting through the door any minute now

Speaker announcement, and it's a big one 📢 An all-star group of speakers from the ESA, EA, @riotgames.com, @xbox.com, Google & Nintendo on what's next for the Accessible Games Initiative! Sept 29th - 30th, registration & line-up at gaconf.com #gamedevelopment #indiedev

this just redirects to my whatsapp apparently

This is some of the hardest shit I've seen in my life

I'm all for choosing boring reliable tech. Postgres is boring (though with flashy providers) React is fairly boring (with some cool modern elements) Is Kubernetes boring yet? It was way too hyped up for ages, would love to see stabilised best practice and long term postmortems

So anyway here's some wonderful news about my local birdwatching site. Bitterns! Avocets!! Lapwings!!! It's been a good year for birds yo www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Education is important, but our Ancient English Woodland is importanter

Bumped into a neighbour this morning, who was complaining how he didn't understand his friend who "spends all day inside playing those damn computer games". I listened for a little while, and he asks "So what are you up to today?" "... Just off to go make some video games for your friend 😅"

REALLY?

"When someone [opted in] is actively signing it elevates them to active speaker status, with a border around their video tile, like for someone speaking through audio. This ensures that the D/HH signer can be seen by everyone while they are actively participating in the meeting." This is amazing!