One of the most important and ongoing developments in video gaming today relates to creating accessible gaming for all. Developer Numinous Games is doing its part by announcing the Playability Initiative, which will collaborate with the accessible gaming community towards increasing accessible for as many people as possible.

The announcement was made July 15 at the annual Games for Change Festival, which this year was a free to attend virtual presentation that explores how video games and immersive media foster resilience, connectedness, and well-being.

Via: twitter (@numinous_games)

The Playability Initiative will see a collaboration between the spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and disability community to create a new video game with Numinous Games, titled Painted Waters. This will be a free, one-button multiplayer adventure game for a younger audience that nurtures togetherness, activates empathy, and celebrates creativity through play.

Numinous Games will now partner with The AbleGamers Charity to create a custom game mode within Painted Waters. The goal will be to help assess a player’s abilities, and the diagnostic game mode will in turn be able to offer suggestions for adaptive technology resources that can help them experience games beyond Painted Waters.

Via: twitter (@numinous_games)

Working towards creating the tools to make gaming accessible for as many people as possible is an ongoing and important task, and Numinous Games is not alone in their work. Perhaps the most influential and outspoken individual on the matter is Microsoft’s Xbox head Phil Spencer, who can often be found speaking about how gaming is for everyone, which is a fundamental part of Xbox’s culture.

While talk is cheap, Microsoft has recently shown that it is committed to furthering adaptive gaming through the release of its Adaptive Controller. This is a great example of how organizations can work to improve gaming for all by creating hardware that can be used on virtually any console and is not limited only to Microsoft products.

Via: microsoft.com

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This was recently demonstrated when Rory Steel, a father, saw his daughter, Ava, wanting to enjoy the Nintendo Switch but was unable to use the default controllers as designed. Through hard work, Rory created a custom controller by leveraging the flexibility of the Microsoft Adaptive Controller, resulting in Ava being able to enjoy her favorite game.

For now, it is great to see more organizations stepping forward to work towards adaptive gaming for all. The work is clearly important, and Numinous Games invites parents, advocates, therapists, and all other interested parties in adaptive gaming to sign up to receive the Playability Adaptive Gaming Newsletter for accessible game reviews, adaptive technology resources, and more. Readers can see more about the work by visiting playabilityinitiative.com.

Source: playabilityinitiative.com/blog

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