Ticket to Ride – Options for Accessibility

Posted on December 6, 2017 by short

Short shows all in this Options for Accessibility for the Steam game Ticket to Ride and its available accessibility options. Seen is the main screen for the game.

Hello, Ability Powered gamers! Today on Options for Accessibility we look at the Steam game: Ticket to Ride. It starts in fullscreen mode, and has no options on the main screen. You can force window mode by pressing “Alt+Enter” on the PC. It can be achieved with Windows’ On-screen Keyboard.

Ticket to Ride In-game Options

Short shows all in this Options for Accessibility for the Steam game Ticket to Ride and its available accessibility options. Seen is the options, but only include sound effect and music volume.

Only sliders for music and sound effect volume are included for this game.

And there you have it, the accessibility options! You can find many other options for other games here!

Cat Goes Fishing – Options for Accessibility

Posted on November 13, 2017 by short

Short shows us the game options for accessibility in the Steam game Cat Goes Fishing

Hello, Ability Powered gamers! Today, we’re going over the Options for Accessibility for the Steam game Cat Goes Fishing. Let’s see what we’ve got!

It all begins in windowed mode:

Short shows us the game options for accessibility in the Steam game Cat Goes Fishing. Here we start in windowed mode.

Next, we have the Options menu which is pretty much save files, Controls, and Exit menus. (Playing on a PC with Windows’ you can press “Esc” on the keyboard/on-screen keyboard opens Options.)

Short shows us the game options for accessibility in the Steam game Cat Goes Fishing. Here we see the options available for the game which is pretty much save files, Controls, and Exit menus.

Now you can find the Controls menu (Controls are not remappable)

Short shows us the game options for accessibility in the Steam game Cat Goes Fishing. Here we see the Control menu that contains non-remappable controls for buying, selling, etc.

And there you have it, the accessibility options! You can find many other options for other games here!

Spinraza Journey: Part 1 – Short Notes

Posted on July 18, 2017 by short

Short talks about her experience so far regarding the new revolutionary drug to treat Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Spinraza AKA Nusinersen. Seen is a vintage picture of a child in butterfly costume with motivational quote "What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?"

Spinraza Journey: Part 1

I started an epic quest June 19th, 2018 thanks to a reader here at Ability Powered. A few months ago, Pro-Able messaged me with amazing news. A treatment for Spinal Musical Atrophy (SMA) had been been approved in North America. It’s called Spinraza. I would have had no idea had it not been for her. I can not begin to thank her enough…

A Flash of Hope

These months have been a whirlwind emotions. I have had SMA for 38 years and my whole life has been preparing for certain unavoidable outcomes. Progressively losing the ability to move all my body parts, weakened lung function, and of course the low life expectancies that thankfully I have broken. I had it ground into my head since I was a small child that there was no cure, there was no treatment, there was only fighting the effects. Then one day… in one Twitter message… all this changed. It was a lot to process, so much so that I still am trying to.

Short talks about her experience so far regarding the new revolutionary drug to treat Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Spinraza AKA Nusinersen. Seen is a young Short seen in her wheelchair.

Procedural Fears

The procedure is one that admittedly scares me. It is a given in shot form into the spinal fluid. Since I had spinal fusion surgery when I was little for Scoliosis this makes the whole process more difficult. Think about it like this… instead of running a regular dungeon you find yourself in a mythic raid on opening day. I am also a huge wuss when it comes to pain.

Breaking the News

I am very lucky to have people that are experts at handling panic mode Short. I never really talked about disability stuff with anyone growing up. This is something relatively new to me. I immediately went literally crying to my best friend because I was partly in shock and didn’t really know how to process the possibilities. I got myself together and I finally told my Mom. Next was the only person that for years I was comfortable sharing this part of life with. We weren’t in touch for a few years and if there was ever a day that I was glad to have him back around, it was then. By the time my brother got home that night, I managed to get through the news tear free!

Short talks about her experience so far regarding the new revolutionary drug to treat Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) Spinraza AKA Nusinersen. Seen is Short with her beloved World of Warcraft guild at a get-together.

Over the next week or so I read everything I could find and talked to more people. Especially my circle: the people who I’m super close to. I am admittedly still super nervous, but everyone all unanimously agreed that I have to give it a shot. I know a lot of people have my back.

Here’s to Never Giving Up

Short sits in her World of Warcraft inspired wheelchair as she discusses her journey through her Spinraza experience. I know this is still such a new thing that other people are like me and desperately trying to read as much as they can. So bare with me Ability Powered gamers, you guys are going on the Spinraza journey with me. I know it isn’t my usual content, but it will be cutting into my usual on-goings. Hopefully this will help someone as much as accessibility guides will.

Find more Ability Powered updates on our Short Notes!

Area Targeting Macro to Help Disabled Gamers in World of Warcraft

Posted on November 7, 2016 by short

Hello, Ability Powered gamers! Boy, do I have exciting news from World of Warcraft’s Azeroth! We have a new targeting macro that can literally change the game for many of us who are disabled in Azeroth. I know, I know, you are asking “but Short, HOW??” Let me show you!

What Are the Targeted Macro Commands?

I am going to cut straight to the good stuff. In thee case where you just need the codes then I will go into a little more detail about what they do.

Target Yourself

/cast [@player] spell name

Example: /cast [@player] Power Word: Barrier

Target Mouse Pointer

/cast [@cursor] spell name

Example: /cast [@cursor] Power Word: Barrier

What Do They Do and Why It Matters

Short has discovered a new targeting macro to help disabled World of Warcraft players with spell selecting issues better play the game! Seen in Short targeting an area to cast her spell.

For a few years now I have heard from disabled gamers about a problem they’ve had in Azeroth. Spells with an Area of Effect (AoE) targeting system require you to click the spell then click the ground where you want the spell to cast. For mouse only users it has been an issue with speed. The time it takes some of us to click on a spell, move our mouse to where we needed it, then apply it could be problematic. Especially if the user has accuracy problems. For keyboard only users it was even worse. The inability to use the mouse made some spells unusable. This hurt their performance and led to enough frustration that some actually quit. Now there’s a solution!

Quality of Life Targeting Macros

These macros now remove the need to target areas of the screen. Instead, the spell can be cast instantly with two results. First, you can choose to target yourself with the spell. With this targeting macro the spell will target in a circle around you. Just run to where you want the spell to hit, hit your button or keybind, and profit. This works with healing and damage spells.

Short has discovered a new targeting macro to help disabled World of Warcraft players with spell selecting issues better play the game! Seen in Short targeting an area to cast her healing spell.

The other targeting macro is helpful to a little smaller audience of disabled gamers. It lets you immediately cast the spell you have macro’d to your cursor’s current location. This can be helpful if you are a keyboard only gamer by pre-positioning your mouse pointer an inch or two in front of your character and just leave it there while you play. This is not optimal, I understand, but it’s a start.

How They Could Improve

Adding a few more conditionals could be a complete game changer for disabled gamers in Azeroth. Things like “@focus”, “@target”, or “@assist” could actually make our spell usage on par with players who can easily use mouse and keyboard together. Controlling the target with a pre-positioned cursor or with the current location of our character helps. Although, I feel like it will still make players relying on these methods a little behind players who do not.

Final Words on Area Targeting Macro

Short sits in her World of Warcraft inspired wheelchair as she announces the discovery of a new targeting macro for Area of Effect (AoE) spells for disabled players .n WoW. While these changes could be improved, they are still huge for Ability Powered gamers! By using your position wisely you can now control your targeted AoE spells. This is great since because being REQUIRED to move your mouse or use precious time with unnecessary movement or clicking is bad. But don’t take my word for it! Get out there and try out the new macros now! Let us know if they have helped you, and be sure to look for more World of Warcraft help on our WoW Short Guides!

Alice in Wonderland (Wii U) – Accessibility First Look

Posted on October 11, 2016 by short

Hello, Ability Powered gamers! We have a special Accessibility First Look this week. Why special? It’s our first one on the Nintendo Wii U platform! I usually stick to PC games, but the guys over at Brave Rock Games asked us to check out their new visual novel on Wii U. It’s called Alice In Wonderland. Let’s take a look!

What Is a Visual Novel?

I will be completely honest. When approached to check out Alice in Wonderland, a visual novel, I wondered too. I knew what they were, but on Wii U? I wasn’t sure what to expect on a console. What I found was a great way to bring books to people in a whole new platform. It was exactly what you would expect, a book given graphics to tell the story.

Alice in Wonderland Options

There aren’t many options to share with you guys. The only one was an option for voiceovers. This option would read the story to you and would benefit people with vision impairments. Each character had a different voice making it easy to follow along with the story without needing to see the screen.

Alice in Wonderland Controls

Controls were simple! Tap your Wii U controller screen to “turn the page.” Tapping was not confined to any certain place on the screen, you can tap anywhere! Another plus for me was if you tapped multiple times on accident pages didn’t scroll ahead! Each page would finish before you could advance. Also, the tap anywhere page turning effect will benefit anyone with mobility issues. I can see this easily done with hands, toes, elbows, ect. Just position the screen and bump it!

What to Expect with Alice

I have read/watched other reviews of this developer’s other titles. There appear to be a few negative reviews because of their content. Firstly, you cannot pick this up on Wii U expecting a game. It is not a game. I think visual novels sometimes get a bad rap because of incorrect expectations. At first I thought the same thing, “What am I playing?!?” You aren’t playing at all. You are being presented a story.

Keeping that in mind, I really enjoyed the experience. Real life backgrounds and colorful characters were something new. Sometimes I didn’t understand some of the backgrounds. Like why Alice was falling past jars of canned foods for so long as she felt through the rabbit hole. Honestly, I haven’t read the original book though. Overall it didn’t hurt the story and definitely wouldn’t for a younger audience.

Final Accessibility Thoughts

Accessibility wise, I appreciate the fact this is in the Nintendo library. Nintendo is pretty bad about having options for someone like me with little movement. That paired with books themselves being a struggle, I can see how this is something new that people like myself could actually enjoy on the console. There are some areas that could make this even better though. First, the option for toggling voiceovers on and off was super small and needed precision to tap. My assistant, who has no disabilities, had issues with it. Larger buttons would have helped immensely! Another option that would have helped was an option to make the text bigger. It was well contrasted, so it wasn’t bad to read for myself. I can see where some others could have problems. Voiceovers should help for most gamers, but a sound free option with bigger text would be welcomed.

Positive Thoughts for Alice

Short seen hand drawn in her custom World of Warcraft wheelchair as she reviews the Nintendo Wii U visual novel by Brave Rock Games known as Alice in Wonderland As a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland and taking this as a visual novel, not a game, I enjoyed it. I liked the colorful characters and voiceovers. I could see this being perfect for young bookworms who have disabilities. But don’t take my word for it, check it out in the Nintendo Game Store! Have you tried novels on consoles? Share your favorites below! Big thanks to Brave Rock Games for sharing this with us! Check out more Accessibility First Looks today!