No Barriers to Fun!

We met our friend Giddeon at the AbleGamers Accessibility Arcade in Atlantic City, New Jersey. When he first sat down with the AbleGamers crew, Giddeon didn't want to play any games. He told us that with his disability gaming was difficult. Giddeon has a rare disease that caused the growth of his arms .. Read More
A Window to the World

Shepherd University invited the AbleGamers Foundation to come on campus and do one of our Accessibility Arcades for the students and local disabled community. The event was a roaring success with hundreds of children and adults coming out to see the technology and in some cases experience gaming the first time. Read More

About the AbleGamers Foundation

Since 2004, the AbleGamers Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, has served more than 56 million members of the disabled community by advocating greater access in video games. Today, AbleGamers is a leader in the development of equipment, programs and services to those living with disabilities, hardships, and quality-of-life issues that are a result of chronic illness or trauma. It is our goal to ensure that all people, regardless of their disability, can use gaming as a tool to have enriched social experiences with friends, family, and the world at large.

AbleGamers Web Game of the Week : Soul Brother

Written by Patrick Hancock

Published on 31 July 2011

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AbleGamers' web game of this week is Soul Brother, courtesy of Adult Swim games. I'm always pleasantly surprised by the quality of games that come out of the Adult Swim website, and Soul Brother is no exception. Your job is to guide Mr. Soul throughout a very strange world in order to seek out wisdom. The game is, at its heart, a platformer that uses the arrow keys and the X button to maneuver.

The key to Soul Brother is dying. Every time you die your soul shoots into the nearest creature for you to take over. If there are no creatures to inhabit, you will have to start that room over. Each creature has their own unique ability like being able to fly, push blocks, or fit into small places. This causes each room to be its own small puzzle. There are gems of wisdom scattered throughout the rooms that you can collect, but don't actually have to in order to beat the game. The more you collect the better your ending cinematic will be, however. Collecting the gems starts out easy enough but soon turns into a very difficult task as the rooms get very complex and intense.

soul_brother_splash Soul Brother isn't very long, and took me less than a half hour to complete, but there are a ton of secrets to be found over multiple playthroughs. You are awarded for doing secret objectives in an achievement-like fashion. The incentive to play through again gets pretty strong after seeing just how many secrets there are.

The game's accessibility is pretty standard for a platformer. While X is mentioned as the action button for jumping and special abilities, the up arrow also works, making it easier for one-handed gamers to play the game. There are a few tricky rooms that will require some very precise jumping that may be hard for some gamers to perform. The sound and music in Soul Brother isn't important to the gameplay at all, so hearing-impaired gamers can enjoy this game to the fullest. The game sports a very colorful and vibrant art style ensuring that colorblind gamers won't be having any issues distinguishing one thing from another. Low-vision gamers may find the skinny text somewhat hard to read, but playing the game shouldn't pose much of a problem. The game also never sends you back more than a room after a death thanks to its great checkpoint system.