Minecraft's Accessibility Madness -Ability Powered

Minecraft’s Accessibility Madness

Hello, Ability Powered gamers! I’ve bought Mojang’s Minecraft five times.You read that right, five! I have it on PC, Playstation 3. Playstation 4, Xbox, and now mobile. You would think I would be a Minecraft professional, but I’ve never really played a decent game. Why? One word: accessibility.

Locked-In to Minecraft

As most of you know I’m a mouse only gamer. I can’t really use console controllers anymore and only play with a mouse on PC. This presents a huge problem with Minecraft since the game locks your mouse pointer in. A locked in mouse means I have no access to my on-screen keyboard and can’t move my character. I could dig down to kingdom come, but couldn’t take a step. Awhile back you guys may have saw me Tweeting about a possible mouse only version of Minecraft that utilizing The Grid 2 software, sadly it didn’t work out.

Short discusses how Minecraft's accessibility could be better and how The Grid 2 could possibly help.

A New Hope for Accessibility?

This weekend as the free trial of The Grid 2 ticked down, I was really bummed out at the thought of never being able to play this wonderful game. I was working on my new Bluetooth mouse/cellphone combo, trying to get the settings worked out and I saw the mobile version of Minecraft in the google store. What was that on the screenshot? A move pad to move your character around? I was shocked! It contained nice, big squares to move and squat. I immediately downloaded it.

Why No PC Move Pad??

The verdict on whether or not I can play is still out. It was problematic in areas, but I’m still not sure if they’re fixable or not. That’s not why I’m posting this though. My reason is actually to see if anyone could explain to me why a mobile version of a game has a movement system that could make their PC game more accessible, yet isn’t available on the PC? I am just completely confused by this. It’s 2015 and there’s a working system to move a character on a mobile game, but on a computer I can’t move around and punch 8 bit blocks? It’s sad and needs to be changed.

Please Contact Me If You Know!

Short denounces Minecraft's lack of accessibility from her hand drawn World of Warcraft wheelchair. Accessibility is important. In most cases it’s easy to integrate. In Minecraft’s case it’s even already designed and working on a mobile version. Isn’t it time it was an option in the full game? Check out our Opinion column for more accessibility thoughts from myself!