Deep Dive: Building a robust accessibility toolbox with The Forest Cathedral

gamedeveloper.com:

Hey everyone, my name is Brian Wilson, and I’m the creator of The Forest Cathedral, a first-person environmental thriller set on a remote island. Playing as scientist Rachel Carson, players will slowly uncover the effects of a pesticide by using advanced environmental technology to solve 2D and 3D connected puzzles.

2D platforming is at the heart of the game, but a series of precise jumps and dashes aren’t for everyone, so this was my first call to action in terms of accessibility. Controlling the Little Man, a tiny person inside of the terminals, players will have to jump, dash, wall-cling, and attack their way through the levels. Deadly spikes are filtered throughout the 2D world, giving the game its initial challenge. As an indie, my resources were limited, so I was looking for the “easiest” way to get the most done. Adding an option to turn the spikes “off” was a no-brainer because I knew there would be people more interested in the story and less in the platforming. This option accomplishes so much because The Forest Cathedral is inherently a difficult platformer—a game I set out to make, but it also allows me to reach a wider audience at the same time.

Next, a typeface option called OpenDyslexic was added to the game after reading an article about Overland developed by our friends at Finji. OpenDyslexic is an open-source, free-to-use typeface designed against some common symptoms of dyslexia. At first, OpenDyslexic only changed the subtitles typeface, and I was totally proud of that. A lot of these implementations start with questions like, “Why does the font of the menu, UI, or in-game journal not change as well?” and you’re like, “Oh yeah, why doesn’t it?” So now OpenDyslexic changes the UI, menu text, and in-game