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: The End

Written by Patrick Hancock

Published on 21 August 2011

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AbleGamers' web game of the week is titled The End. For a browser game it's surprisingly long and very introspective. The End really wants to get to know you and it does this by asking you a lot of yes or no questions at the end of each level. These questions may seem bizarre or perhaps out of place, but still have an odd ability to put you deep in thought.

The main game could be considered a puzzle/platformer with the emphasis on the platforming. You move around with the arrow keys or WASD and jump with the spacebar. The puzzle aspect comes into play with the character's ability to freeze and walk on shadows. While not in sunlight you can press E and create a platform of shadows wherever they currently are cast. They will remain there until you either press E again or enter into some sunlight. While it's not explained in great detail within the game, you'll get the hang of it fairly quickly.

TheEnd_splash At the end of every level there's another layer of gameplay that acts as a "boss fight." It's a game that reminds me of Othello but with hexagons and numbers layered on top. You are presented with a set of hexagon pieces with three numbers taking up two sides each. You place them on the board with the intention of capturing your opponent's tiles. In order to capture their pieces you need to have the larger of the two numbers that meet when you place your tile down next to it. It's actually a very interesting board game-like battle that is only bettered by the fact that you get powerups that you can place on your pieces, keeping things interesting throughout the game.

The game's accessibility is pretty good, although you can't remap the controls in any way. The platforming will require quick button presses as some platforms will disappear once you touch them and others are constantly moving. Color never really becomes an issue since it's pretty easy to tell your character apart from the background and you can change your color at any time in case you do happen to run into any issues. All of the dialogue is subtitled and with the exception of some cutscenes, only moves on with a button press. All of the menus are easy to read so low-vision gamers won't have many issues. One-handed gamers with their left hand will have a much easier time than gamers with only their right hand since WASD, E, and the spacebar are all close together on the left side. The checkpoint system leaves something to be desired, since many times I had to repeat a large portion of the level.