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:Solipskier

Written by Patrick Hancock

Published on 17 July 2011

Solipskier

This week's AbleGamers' web game of the week is called Solipskier. It's a mouse-only game with a huge sense of speed that has you shooting for a high score. Your goal is to survive as long as possible while at the same time garnering as many points as you can.

In Solipskier you don't control the character but rather the terrain that he needs to ski. You can create inclines to launch him or slow roller-coaster-like hills that help him keep his momentum. There are green gates that you can pass through which will give you a temporary speed boost and red gates that will cause you to fall and restart. There are also blue tunnels of gates, which consist of many gates in a row, giving you a large speed boost if you manage to stay in it for its entirety. Certain areas will restrict your ability to draw terrain, forcing you to launch your skier into the air for that area of the level. All of these things are indicated on the right side of the screen and will change color from white as you get closer and closer to them. You can get a score multiplier by going through gates and the best way to get points is by launching yourself high off the screen.

Solipskier-fb The game's accessibility is greatly helped by the fact that it only uses the mouse and has great visual cues. To draw terrain you hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse up and down. For the most part you'll be holding the left button down the entire time, which some gamers may have troubles with. Slight movements of the mouse are also required to get a decent score and hit many of the gates. The game distinguishes between good and bad gates uses green and red, however they both have very different indicators on the right side of the screen. Good gates are marked with just an arrow while bad gates are marked with large Xs. I'm red/green colorblind and have no issues while playing Solipskier. The game does have a very fast-paced nature and as such requires some pretty quick reflexes to be played well. The audio has no gameplay importance, so hearing-impaired gamers will be able to play the game fine. Low-vision gamers may have a hard time distinguishing just how close the upcoming gates are since the numbers are somewhat tiny.