This week I'd like to talk about something a bit less flashy and cool and marketing friendly, but still very important to us -- accessibility. No matter your means or ability, we want you to be able to enjoy Penny Larceny. The lead developer at Fiction Factory Games is physically disabled himself and has struggled with playing major tentpole AAA games which lack accessibility options -- so when the time came to make our own games, we resolved to develop features that will allow anyone to play. We're carrying forward all the features we rolled into the Arcade Spirits games, but have a few new ones to show you. (Unfortunately Steam doesn't allow alt text on images, so we'll caption these with text right below them. The irony is... unpleasant.) The major new feature is the ability to change the character dialogue you'll be reading in the game. You can change how it uses color, and change what fonts are used...
Penny says: "Normally, text appears in a comic book font, and is colored to match the character. I talk in green! Like money!" We dig the "dark mode comic book app" aesthetic, the dark gray halftone dots and the stylized text. It makes the whole game feel like some modern hybrid of comic book and visual novel. But aesthetics be damned -- if you have difficulty reading this, we still want you to be able to play, so we've provided some options...
Dr. Mayhem says: "But if you prefer, you can swap to monochrome or use a more basic font. If you have color blindness, this can help." In this example we've turned on monochrome text (white on black) and switched to a very ordinary sans serif font. These options are available right from the main menu and you can switch them out at any time, to get the best possible experience. For players with dyslexia or other difficulty parsing these fonts, we have you covered as well...
The Overmistress says: "You can also swap to OpenDyslexia, if that works better for you -- and you can invert the text box to black on white." The classic OpenDyslexia font is available, as is a "light mode" box which uses black text on white. Personally I prefer dark mode, but I'm not here to tell you how to play your game -- if this is what works for you, hey, that's great! Finally, as with the Arcade Spirits games, we have a special visual impairment support mode on offer...
HATE-4000 says: "If you tap the V key, it activates text-to-speech visual impairment mode. This replaces user interface elements with simple to navigate menus and adds alt text." This does more than turn on your system's text-to-speech to read dialogue out loud. Any complicated interfaces like free roaming area maps, character creation, or other interactive elements are replaced by simple linear selections -- up and down arrows and enter are all you'll need (or a game pad!) In addition, extra narration is worked into the game's script, so Penny will describe what you're looking at in her own words whenever possible. You won't miss out on anything. Because the game is entirely focused on text, hearing impaired players should be good to go as well; any critical sound effects come with visual alerts or description in the narration ("The alarms went off! Crap!") and you won't be missing out on anything, either. Now, these features won't cover every possible disability out there -- and we're a tiny indie with a budget we may never earn back, so there's only so much we can do. But we're willing to hear your needs and if there's a way we can support you with our tools, we'll do it. So your feedback is welcome and we're hopeful we can provide you a great game experience.