The Access-Ability Summer Showcase 2024 highlighted several games you should keep an eye on this year for more than their gorgeous graphics and unique mechanics. Each one offers accessibility features that make them playable for anyone who can’t just pick up a game and run it without assistance.
Developers have improved their ability to include accessibility features in their games over recent years. The Access-Ability Summer Showcase 2024 featured many cases in which developers went the extra mile to truly make their games playable for as many people as possible. This is a hugely important subject because accessibility features aren’t trivial. They are the difference between some people being able to play a game or never being able to touch it.
All games shown during the Access-Ability Summer Showcase 2024
Below, I’ve included a list of every game shown during the Access-Ability Summer Showcase 2024. You can watch the showcase in full above to get a deeper understanding of what each game offers in terms of accessibility features. I’ve listed each one here so you can quickly check them out if you’re looking for games you know you’ll enjoy.
Elsie
Elsie is a hyper-colorful roguelike with more accessibility features than you can shake a stick at. You can tweak everything to do with the visuals, removing the background, lowering the bounce you experience from drops, and changing the highlighting around every type of NPC. There’s even an invincibility mode for players who want to enjoy the gameplay and story but can’t quite master the controls. Check it out on Steam here.
Fishbowl
Fishbowl is a little slice-of-life game about a remote video editor and explores relationships through a story that has no fail states. No matter how poorly you perform, your coworkers will always cheer you on, meaning you don’t need to worry about hitting difficulty spikes.
The fonts are all crystal clear for users like me who struggle with colors on backgrounds, and the minigames are easy to learn and thought-provoking. Of course, you can also customize pretty much everything about the experience to ensure you can play the game in a way that suits you. Give Fishbowl a look on Steam here.
Weko the Mask Gatherer
In Weko the Mask Gatherer, you embark on a quest to help villagers, solve ancient mysteries, and find the world’s most powerful mask. It’s a 3D platformer inspired by the greats and built with accessibility in mind. The color palette is actually being designed to work with all forms of colorblindness, and every enemy encounter can use audio cues so that players can engage with them without needing to be able to see what’s going on. Give it a look on Steam here.
Fiction Factory Games
Fiction Factory Games used the event to showcase how it’s been implementing accessibility features into its titles, including Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers, Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain, and its upcoming title, The Shadow Over Cyberspace. Each game uses a text-to-speech tool that allows almost anybody to play them regardless of ability, a feature that can be customized to suit a user’s needs on the fly.
Videoverse
Videoverse is built in an engine that already features several accessibility features, such as soft voicing, but the game has also been designed with all players in mind. Navigation is clear and easy, text won’t rush off the screen as you work through dialogue, and everything can be progressed at your own pace. The game also just looks fabulous, so check it out on Steam here.
Cellular City
Cellular City is a puzzle game in which you’ve got to design a city to complete each level. It’s been built from the ground up with accessibility in mind, so every puzzle piece will explain why it may or may not fit where you want it to using in-depth audio cues. Honestly, I could do with these in major puzzle titles because I often find myself confused about how mechanics are meant to work or mixing up pieces and their rules. You can pick the game up from the developer’s Itch.io page.
Upheaval
Upheaval is a text-based open world roguelike adventure in which you explore for 30 days and try to amass as many treasures or complete as many quests as possible. The game supports all text readers, can be switched to dark mode, and features a slew of other accessibility features that mean it can be played without someone even being able to see the screen at all. I love the idea of this game taking something that’s usually visually stunning and boiling it down into a text adventure so you really focus on what’s happening. See when it’ll be released on Steam here.
Periphery Synthetic
Periphery Synthetic is a chilled, non-violet Metroidvania that can be played entirely through audio cues. You explore a planet in an upgradable exosuit by following audio cues around the world as you explore, but there’s no pressure; everything is very minimal, and you can adjust what is on show to ensure it’s an experience that works for your needs. See the game’s Steam page here and wait for its release later this year.
Trash Goblin
Trash Goblin is a game I’ve been looking forward to ever since it was funded on Kickstarter. In it, you play as a goblin upcycling other people’s rubbish into trinkets you can sell for a profit. Thanks to player feedback, the game has a limited set of views to ensure it’s playable for all, automated tool functionality, and many other accessibility options to ensure as many people as possible can play it when it launches on Steam this year.
Slime Heroes
Slime Heroes is an adorable soulslike game that sees you take on the role of a slime as you battle your way through a dangerous world. Though I suspect it’s a little less harrowing than Shadow of the Erdtree will be. It has many accessibility options to make the game more manageable, from increasing or decreasing movement speed and parry timing to difficulty adjustments and cursor changes to make it incredibly clear where you’re pointing your slime. Take a look at the game’s Steam page here.
Magical Delicacy
Magical Delicacy sees you take on the role of a young witch as she moves into a new town to complete her training, making potions and delicious meals for the locals. It’s a 2D platformer with Metroidvania elements and even allows you to build your own kitchen. You can change so much of this game to make it easier for you to play, including highlighting protagonist Flora so she always stands out from the background, making it possible to see her through objects, and altering the contrast of the entire world until it’s a level you’re comfortable with. Check this game out on Steam here.
Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan
Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan is a 2.5D adventure puzzle-platformer with creature capture elements and a runtime that could see you spend up to 30 hours exploring its world. The game has colorblindness features designed by someone who is colorblind to help users have the best time possible while playing. Colors have symbols to help users see what they are and interact with them more easily.
Forced perspectives and rotating cameras make the game easier to play with a single joystick, and the game points you to your current objective each time you enter its traversal mode. This is yet another game with no fail states, something I think is really important for making games playable for more people. The title is available on Steam right now if you want to check it out.
Space Boat
Space Boat is a humorous narrative investigation game set on an intergalactic cruise ship. It looks wild and all sorts of fun to explore, and I can’t wait to engage with its characters while solving mysteries. The game’s developer is a triple amputee, so accessibility was at the forefront of his mind when putting the title together.
It has shaders for colorblindness, text-to-speech functionality, and many other features that make it playable in myriad ways so that no one should feel they can’t hop into it and chart to the carpet-based lifeforms they’ll find onboard. Space Boat has no release date right now, but you can wishlist it on Steam if it sounds like something you’d be interested in.
The Darkest Files
The Darkest Files is a historical investigation and courtroom game based on true crimes. It’s a first-person experience that sees you live the crimes it’s based on and see them through from the initial investigation all the way to sentencing. The developer wants it to be playable for anyone, which is why it has a suite of accessibility features that allow you to customize your experience.
For example, difficulty can be changed to create a mode that’s perfect for every individual player, and it features mouse-only gameplay so anyone can plug in their accessible controllers to use it. Keep an eye on the game through its Steam page here.
Dawnfolk
Dawnfolk is a miniature survival city builder about bringing light back into the world. It’s been designed as a gateway game to the survival city builder genre, and its accessibility features make it even more welcoming to newcomers to the genre.
There are no complex elements or massive text boxes to digest. You collect resources through small minigames on each tile, but even they can be turned off if they get in the way of enjoying it. You can change the size and font of all the in-game text, turn on audio descriptions, or even lay without any sound. Try the game’s demo on Steam right now.
You can find even more games with deep accessibility features on the Access-Ability Summer Showcase 2024 Steam Sale Page. It features games from this and last year’s showcases, so you can dive in and check out a collection of games designed to be played by as many people as possible.
