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Let developers add text-to-speech features to games that are relatively more dyslexic friendly.

Over the past few years, the gaming industry has made great strides in accessibility design, from indie games to triple-A blockbusters, beginning to provide greater accessibility for players with a variety of physical disabilities. On the other hand, many people suffer from Dyslexia, a problem that has been relatively neglected.

Dyslexia refers to the symptoms of reading and writing difficulties in a person without mental impairment. The severity of symptoms varies from person to person. Research suggests that this phenomenon is due to dysfunction of the central nervous system.

About 10 per cent of the UK population is dyslexic, bringing the total to 6.3 million, according to the latest local figures. The European Association for Dyslexia estimates that 5 to 12 percent of the world's population is affected by dyslexia.

Lowtek Games is an independent game and game tool creation team founded by Alastair Low, who is also a dyslexic, and he has always wanted to make more peers aware of the impact of dyslexia on players. A few weeks ago, Lowe won an award from the Scottish Gaming Association for his Dislectek plugin for the Unity engine, which allows developers to add relatively more dyslex-friendly text-to-speech features to games. Dislectek was also nominated for an award at TIGA's annual awards ceremony, the UK gaming trade body.

Loh's Work Environment Empathy "This is a versatile lightweight plugin that converts in-game text to speech as long as you use the default Unity Text or TextMeshPro. "Dislectek can grab text from anywhere on the screen, like when the game is paused you can click anywhere and it reads out," Lo said. If you're used to screen readers, you can use familiar voices, change the speed of speech, and many other settings. "

Lo worked for Bloons developer Ninja Kiwi for seven years as an artist and animator before starting his own company shortly after the outbreak. "I wanted to start a business when I was in college, but I gradually adapted to working. I felt a little bored at home, so I thought, why don't I quit now? I don't have to go to restaurants or go out anymore. I can save some money. "Luo said with a smile.

By that time, Law had already begun planning Dislectlek and was successfully launching Flea! on Kickstarter for NES. Complete crowdfunding. He also released an experimental game, A Familiar Fairytale: Dyslexic Text Based Adventure, designed to show people the frustrations that dyslexics encounter when playing games.

"My main goal is not to show 'this is what we people experience,' but to give players an idea of how people with dyslexia feel. "I've taken it to various exhibitions and seen some parents reading words in games, and they're really slow," Lowe explains. But the children's eyes light up and they say,'That's how I read it! Some parents burst into tears because they finally understand how their children feel. "

The game isn't entertaining, it's just trying to show how difficult and frustrating it is to cope with dyslexia."Anyone who has actually played that game will understand the difficulty of dyslexia. But it's not a commercial game, it's more of an experience, it lacks selling points…and worse, it frustrates players, and in a bad way. "

Lowe referred to an article by Kotaku editor John Walker in which he wrote that he felt particularly frustrated after playing several chapters of Familiar Fairy Tales: Text Adventures Based on Dyslexia and was ready to give up. "That's the problem, whether you're dyslexic or not, you probably give up, right? I don't know how many people have seen the game end. "

According to Lowe, because of his dyslexia, he is more interested in making retro-style games-most older games from the Red and White era, for example, are simpler and don't have or require much text. Lowe launched Tapeworm Disco Puzzle, a 2D grid-based puzzle game, on the NES and later ported it to Dreamcast and contemporary console platforms.

Lowe has also developed and ported games for retro handheld Playdate. Recently he is working on a puzzle game called Playhead, which uses an online media player as a base for players to fast-forward or rewind. Lowe also revealed that he might consider making another educational game,"perhaps more elaborate than Familiar Fairy Tales: Text Adventures Based on Dyslexia."

"I'm trying to make it commercially viable, but I don't know how to do it yet…Anyway, I want to create more games that are dyslexic friendly, people who like great gameplay or puzzles, but who suffer from reading." I sincerely hope that the accessibility tools I am developing will become universal, but it will be equally difficult. There are a few developers who have started using Dislectek, but no big games support it yet. "

Playhead: A puzzle platform game based on a media player Nowadays, some games allow players to select special fonts, making it easier for people with dyslexia to read text. However, Law pointed out in a speech at a gaming industry event earlier this year that this assistive feature has significant limitations.

"I want my peers to know that this is not going to work. Even during the development of Familiar Fairy Tales: Text Adventures Based on Dyslexia, I wanted to show the problems we faced. The game allows for special fonts, but as I said in my talk, it doesn't work. Other studies have shown that special fonts have little impact, and for some players, their gaming experience can actually be worse. "

Law admits that special fonts are made in good faith by "people who want to do good," and that developers are appreciated for opening up their source code. "They tried, and what they said made sense, but actually... I don't know how effective it was, and maybe there was a bias in this treatment. Some people have Helen syndrome, or are sensitive to certain visual elements, and those fonts really don't help. Of course, there are those who insist that it works well, but as far as I know, most people with dyslexia don't seem to like it. "

In the final analysis, the reason people with dyslexia have problems playing games is because they have difficulty reading any type of text, according to Law. The problem is multifaceted and affects a wider range of people than most people think.

"A lot of games contain a lot of dialogue, and it's too bad if the player can't read it. I can read, but very slowly, so it's hard to fully understand the meaning of words and understand what's going on in the game. This makes it difficult for me to play smoothly. "

"Even if there are a lot of little text boxes in the game, each with only one sentence, I will soon feel very tired. If there are several sentences in the dialog box, I am afraid I will have to give up. Many players with dyslexia had similar feelings, especially when they encountered plot-oriented games. They would skip ten lines at a time…In addition, in games like Dark Souls, item descriptions were very important because those words would tell you the special effects of the items and would not be displayed directly. You could only look up information from encyclopedias and other places…Mission objectives were also very annoying. "

《Flea!》With £ 9000 in crowdfunding in 2020 and the eventual success of launching physical cards, Lo says text-to-speech is still the best solution to make the game more accessible to players with dyslexia. In his view, developers should make this feature cover all content within the game, including the UI. "Some games offer voice, but menus, large blocks of text, etc., still don't have voice, which makes it difficult for people like us to play. In fact, we don't need high-quality speech, just render it to sound close to the robot, and we can help players who have difficulty reading text. "

Law admits that adding text-to-speech functionality to games is difficult, but games such as Last Survivor: Part II and Assassin's Creed: Heroic Temple have done a great job in this area in recent years. "The Last of the Survivors: Episode II is really great. That game came out shortly after I launched Dislectek, and it made me realize for the first time that I was doing the right thing! "

The Last of Survivors: Episode II features adjustable caption size, orientation, and color, as well as various visual aids and enhanced listening. Like gamers, game developers are affected by dyslexia. So are companies like Epic and Unity looking for ways to make their tools more accessible to people with dyslexia? "It's hard because making games is one of the most complex jobs from a software development perspective, and it's really hard to simplify. But Lo added that the Unreal engine menu has text-to-speech options, and some engines can also be programmed visually.

"In some places, different parts of the software use similar terms, such as 'animator',' animator 'or other terms that look similar but are different... I think that confuses everyone, not just dyslexics. "

Lowe also said he wants engine developers to provide more user-friendly, easy-to-understand beginner guides and tutorials for people with dyslexia, just as there are tons of documents and tutorials available online in video format. "It would be great if developers could also make video tutorials or documentaries that hit the point. You can insert video links into documents, or add text-to-speech options-of course, if the text is too long, it will make it difficult for us to understand. "

Lo again stressed that using special fonts is not optimal to help dyslexic players experience the game better. "It's often suggested that developers use font switching, which annoys me a lot and is why I'm trying to broker some changes in the gaming industry. I'd be happy if someone agreed with me. "

"In a sense, we're just getting started. I think Unity or other companies will introduce some new features in the future that will help us solve more problems related to accessibility design. At the same time, the same interface within different games will become more standardized, possibly reducing obstacles. For now, I hope the platform will make it easier for developers to implement text-to-speech functionality in games. "

This article compiled from: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/lowtek-on-tackling-dyslexia-in-games Original title: Lowtek on tackling dyslexia in games Original author: Marie Dealessandri

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