Your daily frequent11y newsletter, brought to you by @ChrisBAshton:

VR Game Gravitational Blends Puzzles With Real Accessibility Challenges

• Electric Monkeys Studio has built a VR game set in the future, in a scientific facility where gravitational technology is being discovered. The protagonist, Sebastian, uses a wheelchair, presenting an extra challenge in navigating the environment after an explosion destroys much of the facility, as you have to find ways around obstacles in your path.
• It’s promising to see more representation of wheelchair users, adding to games like Life is Strange and Sly Cooper. In November 2020, Bethesda added wheelchairs to Fallout 76 after a fan asked the developer to add her aid to the game.
• The article lacks detail on the gameplay, but there are a few reviews on Steam. Whilst there are complaints around the graphical quality and the controls, one positive reviewer goes into detail about some of the accessibility constraints forced on the player, which I thought was interesting:
• “You can’t look around very much without seeing the start of ‘tunnel vision’ and colors fading, and a red icon reminding you to push a button to re-orient. I accept this because a person with paralysis mainly turns their head, not their body. In real life, such a person has to make big adjustments just to see in a different direction. Yes, it’s annoying, and holds you back. I accept it as simulating part of what it feels like to be this person.”
• As a VR player myself, one of the most immersion-ruining aspects is movement. Pressing a button to walk or run kind of pulls you out of the experience (and can cause motion sickness), so to have a game where being seated matches what your character is doing, is quite a clever solution to the problem.

Prefer longer newsletters? You can subscribe to week11y, fortnight11y or even month11y updates! Every newsletter gets the same content; it is your choice to have short, regular emails or longer, less frequent ones. Curated with ♥ by developer @ChrisBAshton.