Call to Action to Palia Devs - Lack of Accessibility and Seizure Risk

[Mongoose]

This game has two accessibility features. One is broken, and the other is a reticule to reduce motion sickness that, according to the accessibility discussions in the discord, doesn't help.

Palia is being released to Switch and Steam without adding basic accessibility features like toggling off flashing during tool use, the ability to adjust lighting, adjusting font size, toggles for actions that require holding buttons for a long time, and having subtitles for all spoken words. There's more requests too, these are just off the top of my head.

Palia has been in open beta for several months now with new content and events released during it that disabled players couldn't attend and give feedback to because the game gives us physical pain and the potential for death to those who get seizures. We've given feedback after feedback begging for accessibility features, many of which would be easy to implement, easier than the events we've been locked out of, easier than the never-ending list of cosmetic "micro"transactions being released, and easier than the Temple of Gales and the broken promise to not have content locked behind something not everyone can do.

I used to recommend this game to my friends and now it's embarrassing to go back and say, actually screw this game, it's been this long and they've taken none of our feedback and even deleted the discord channel we used to give it? They are in BETA. They need this feedback. How is Palia even allowed to release their game on more platforms without basic accessibility? Clearly there's people at work on this game with how much content is being pushed out, so put them to work on accessibility.

[Sapling]

I know for a fact that players have been asking for many of these basic accessibility features such as brightness/audio sliders and font size options since before beta. They have had so much time to add these features, but they instead chose to push out more bundles, more rummage piles, and more cash shop items.

Almost all of the accessibility features that we have had have been controller related, and while that is incredibly important, it's obvious to me that this was only for the Nintendo Switch release.

I am vision impaired and use a wide screen monitor that is helpful with everything else I use it for, but there's something going on with the scaling or something in Palia that causes the chat to take up a very small corner of my screen. The font size is about 8pt and no way to move the chat window or scale up the text.

Palia went from being my most anticipated game of 2023 to being my biggest let down I've felt in terms of gaming. I can only hope that whoever is in charge of deciding what gets priority in terms of development will finally pay attention now that we are able to leave reviews and discussions on this larger platform.

[löyly]

Yeah, I super enthusiastically signed up as soon as I saw the game and that it promised to be inclusive and that you could choose the skills you like... Now I've pretty much given up hope that they are ever going to deliver the game they promised. I mean, they've even been going in the wrong direction with so many of the more recent updates.

For me the nasty new flashes made gardening uncomfortable, which was my main thing besides decorating. Which had been much less fun since walking through my house made light and candle "switches" pop up all over the place. Then they added nonconsensual snowball PVP as a potential PTSD trigger and I was out.
I couldn't have done the Temple of the Vertigo platforming either, and I can't do most of the bundles anyway because my brain can't deal with harming animals even in a game and we're not allowed to trade things we've never owned in this supposed MMO...
Super cozy

[Pixy OneWing]

Unfortunately, Palia is extremely lacking in accessibility options. There's a center triangle and buggy field of view options, that's it. No UI scaling, no colour blindness options, no specific VFX toggles, no specific audio toggles, and much more missing items. This is a game who's makers repeated tell us the game is "inclusive and accessible"....

The game is reportedly being built in Unreal Engine 5, which makes many of these accessibility options very easy to implement. More accessibility options asked for since at least closed beta, if not closed alpha (NDA's hinder some chat about when requests started being made).

--story time--
For me, void-like areas give me extreme vertigo (it's related to a problem with my occipital nerve). They added an optional area in September 2023 that was platforming in a void. Cool, fine, it's optional and I have to live with my limitations. I'm a completionist, but I know when I've been beat! I'm rich at this point and eat cakes instead of selling them, so I don't exactly need free Zeki coins.
Anyway, fast forward to December 2023 and they add a new story line area... and it's platforming... in a void.... exactly what they said they weren't going to do 3 months earlier!
I asked chat if there was any other way to go do the temple... they suggested the only accessibility options in the game. They don't work, and the field of view options have made everything look very distorted. I was streaming and you can actually see me get increasingly distressed as I tried to get past the raging dizziness until I gave up... went home... and try to fix the buggy field of view problem. Nope. Nothing works, everything just looks "bendy". End up re-installing... better, but not quite the same as it was. Ended up having to wait to get directions from support on how to fix it.

This consequentially leads me to learning about how few accessibility options there are in this game, how easily they could be implemented, how long people have been begging for accessibility options, the developer's terrible Glassdoor reviews, how other games of the same genre are doing so much better in terms of accessibility (ie: Coral Island & My Time at Sandrock), how badly they have mishandled the accessibility discussion channel on their official Discord, and how they are constantly telling us that "Palia is inclusive and accessibile!".

Add that to the sheer buggy mess this game is in and their huge push to go multi-platform when the game clearly isn't ready for it? They damaged their market with the Switch release with people picking up the game, seeing it's state, leaving it, and never coming back. The main complaints for the Switch appear to be the small chatbox (no UI scaling), lag (non-magic deer teleporting around), and that the graphics aren't great (Switch problem, on PC the game is beautiful).
The vibe of the game has also changed with the Switch release... no one really chats that much anymore. Like video killed the radio star, the Switch killed what little MMO this game possessed.

There are other cozy MMO games on the horizon. Loftia is looking very hopeful in terms of accessibility, as I have even seen chat of a dark mode for the UI being implemented upon the feedback of their testers. Palia has been getting accessibility feedback for ages and have made absolutely ZERO changes as of Christmas 2023.

In the end, I'm disappointed and I'm concerned for the future of Palia. I want to see it succeed, because even the fact that I'm locked out of what I consider to be one of the most important parts of the game for me... I'm still playing. Not nearly as much, but I am.

Would have been much better to have released this game as a fully-fleshed-out single player game, by a long shot.

[Mongoose]

They did fully lie to us. I've been following this game since before Alpha when all we had to go on was a website with some pretty pictures and pretty promises to build something inclusive. It's not inclusive to lock disabled people out, especially during testing phases when the timing of the feedback is most important. They could've had the game built on a foundation of being accessible to begin with if they bothered to listen. It's going to be more work to retro-fit accessibility into it, and the longer they put it off to add more content, the more complex it'll be.

The content they do have and keep adding also isn't enough to keep casual gamers interested; they honestly need us disabled players to keep their game afloat - we're the ones who have endless time on our hands, we're the ones who hyperfixate our interests to the point of becoming experts - finding all the neat quirks and interesting exploits in the code, and we're the ones who obsess with creating fanart and free hype. Ignoring our community and the needs we have will see them losing a large chunk of potential profits.

[softiedragoncloud]

they changed the lighting all because a few people couldn't see at night, when adding a brightness slider would have fixed that issue the same way and in a more inclusive way. but of course whoever is in charge of coming up with these updates didnt go down that route. the game is even becoming inaccessable to people who are abled bodied and are getting hurt by either bugged game mechanics or needing to strain their eyes to see the text because they keep making it smaller with each update.

UE5 has all the tools they need to fix this, but either the higherups are refusing or the game is such a buggy mess that they cant add them in, but keep making it worse by throwing out half done patches every 2 or so weeks without getting to the root of the issue before drafting and working on the next patch.

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by softiedragoncloud:

they changed the lighting all because a few people couldn't see at night, when adding a brightness slider would have fixed that issue the same way and in a more inclusive way.

They made day and night super bright, and even after they "fixed it" because everyone was complaining the colors got washed out, night time was still giving me migraines because it's so bright. I asked several times in the feedback forms and in the discord before that stopped being looked at for at least a quick bandaid fix for an option to toggle on or off the old version of the lighting vs. the new, but we haven't gotten anything since that last blanket change - and that was months ago. I can't play the game again until there's brightness sliders, unless I'm okay with only playing 5 minutes to avoid a migraine AT NIGHT.

[softiedragoncloud]

OH! lets not forget they dont support modding! so disabled players and even able-bodied players cant make mods to make the game easier for them, actually playable for them with their disability, AND even just for fun! S6 needs to get their act together or theyre going to face a really bad situation if they dont address a thing when they get back in office

[Kinsoku-Nyan]

Originally posted by softiedragoncloud:

OH! lets not forget they dont support modding! so disabled players and even able-bodied players cant make mods to make the game easier for them, actually playable for them with their disability, AND even just for fun! S6 needs to get their act together or theyre going to face a really bad situation if they dont address a thing when they get back in office

You mean modification for the disabled players? If I remember correctly, there were some already made for them in order to them to be able to play games. This was, what, back in 2012-14? Though, is it only this game, or all of S6's games? There could be other games that the disabled can play as well? Well, as far as I'm certain the graphics are to their liking, of course.

[Kinsoku-Nyan]

You know you can just request your problems to their official website? I've requested an issue on one of the cosmetics about the clothes being clipped, and they responded me back about it.

[softiedragoncloud]

Originally posted by Kinsoku-Nyan:

You know you can just request your problems to their official website? I've requested an issue on one of the cosmetics about the clothes being clipped, and they responded me back about it.

we've ssent god knows HOW much feedback about these ever since we could. Some have sent feedback every single day but with how its setup, its hard to tell if were being heard or not at all. them removing the accessability forums and taking weeks to put it back in a shallow way and tagging how its not going to be read by devs left a very sour taste in the disabled communities mouths.

as for the other game thing: yeah there are but we want this game to get better, and its no excuse for this game to be missing the most basic accessability features. the game doesnt even have brightness sliders STILL. its the most basic feature in every single game, esp back in 2023. them missing it with the engine theyre on and with how horrifically bright the game is really just rubs me the wrong way.

[softiedragoncloud]

if the modifications your talking about are the motion sickness reticle or the hunting one, those are very bare bones. other then those two, no other ones have been talked about or anything, and s6 really likes to sneakily add stuff, which is really bad. adding stuff is fine but they need to tell everyone and give options to turn things off if its not needed for some players (which s6 has yet to add an option for the metronome for cooking if its still in)

aside from those, there is nothing else except reshade to try and lessen the games default brightness but its hard to mess with or get it right without making the game look even more washed out. changing the graphic settings doesnt really do much but make the game even MORE brighter due to a lack of options to tone that down.

also sorry for the wall of text but when you contstantly get told to suck it up or go play another game, or get told that disabled players shouldnt play this game at all, it gets tiring to repeat yourself over and over, so ive been trying to get all my thoughts down

[löyly]

Originally posted by MadDawg2552:

If video games give you seizures, maybe you shouldn't be playing video games.

It's like asking peanut butter makers to stop putting peanuts in their peanut butter because you are allergic.

WTF? How is seizure-inducing brightness a necessary part of video games? No, it's more like asking a restaurant for the option to order a dish without peanuts.

[löyly]

Originally posted by MadDawg2552:

No, it's more like asking the entire restaurant to toss out any peanuts on the premises, then scrub down every surface.

I... don't think you've understood what this discussion is about? Are you trying to say a brightness slider in the options menu or an on/off toggle for certain effects would somehow ruin the entire game for those who love bright or flashing light? Because..?

[softiedragoncloud]

Originally posted by MadDawg2552:

Originally posted by löyly:

WTF? How is seizure-inducing brightness a necessary part of video games? No, it's more like asking a restaurant for the option to order a dish without peanuts.

No, it's more like asking the entire restaurant to toss out any peanuts on the premises, then scrub down every surface.

i have no idea what you said. a game having the most basic accessability options is the standard for games these days. even early 2000s games had a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ brightness slider. asking for the most basic accessability options isnt entitlement at all, its asking to be treated like human beings.

[Fizzgig]

Originally posted by MadDawg2552:

Originally posted by löyly:

WTF? How is seizure-inducing brightness a necessary part of video games? No, it's more like asking a restaurant for the option to order a dish without peanuts.

No, it's more like asking the entire restaurant to toss out any peanuts on the premises, then scrub down every surface.

I find it amazing that so many people these days don't understand that options mean optional. In other words, things you can change if you want to, or leave it alone. An option.