A Buyer’s Guide to Visually Accessible Board Games

I am excited to welcome Sarah Reed back to share her experiences and recommendations to support board gamers with visual accessibility barriers. This is a follow-up to Sarah’s previous essay on the topic, Supporting Blind Gamers.

Sarah’s recent video essay, A Buyer’s Guide for Visually Accessible Board Games, was featured on the Salt & Sass YouTube channel and podcast. Sarah and Will also posted it to their channel, Rolling With Two.

Heya! My name is Sarah Reed. You may know me as EuroGamerGirl on social media. I’m also one half of the YouTube channel Rolling With Two. My husband Will and I started Rolling with Two to share our perspective on the two-player experience and accessibility of board games. I’ll be focusing on accessibility today, because Will is legally blind and colorblind. This makes finding games he can play and enjoy a challenge, but we’ve been gaming for over 20 years together, so I have some tips for those buying games to play with people who have vision disabilities.

Do Your Research

Research is key. Not only do you need to know what kinds of games your group will enjoy, you need an understanding of the vision disabilities of the people you’ll be playing with. Then you need to take time looking up games on the internet to see what will meet their needs as well as be enjoyable to them. Use the following tips when you look at pictures, watch how-to-play videos and read the rules of potential games.

COLORBLINDNESS

The most common challenge most people will encounter is colorblindness. The problem is, colorblindness comes in many forms. Issues with red and green is most common, but blue and yellow and a wide range of other variations exist, so the challenge is that a lot of games use color to identify information in games. Thankfully, more publishers have started double-coding color with icons. Finding games that have these extra layers will ease all issues of colorblindness, regardless of which colors are the problem.

Cards and gem components for the game Century: Golem Edition — *Century: Golem Edition uses only color to distinguish components*

VISUAL IMPAIRMENT

Beyond colorblindness are more severe vision disabilities where a person’s vision has deteriorated badly enough that they often can’t see the whole picture, requiring assistive devices and their sense of touch to interact with the world. That’s why components make a big difference in the ability of visually impaired gamers to play autonomously, and reduce the need for others around the table to support them.

Dual-layer player boards are a wondrous invention because someone like Will, who has more severe vision impairments, can learn the layout of the board by touching the recessed areas and moving the pieces along those tracks.
Dice with recessed pips allow a person to identify what number is rolled by touch.
Components like cardboard bits and meeples are much more useful if they are distinct from one another. When a game doesn’t come with uniquely shaped pieces, we often invest in upgraded components. Etsy is a great source for 3D printed components.
Iconography that is simple, clear, and has high contrast with its background goes a long way for those who use assistive devices.

Cardboard game components (heart, shield, poison, and others) from the game Looney Tunes Mayhem. — Looney Tunes Mayhem components

Plastic game components including eggs, rats, fruit from the game Wingspan. — Looney Tunes Mayhem components

There are also certain kinds of games that are inherently better or worse for those with vision disabilities. Here are a few Will and I have found from our decades of playing games together.

Open Information. Generally, you’ll want to get games that are primarily open information. Hidden information creates a disparity between sighted people who can glance at something and a visually disabled person who must rely on assistive devices to do the same thing. Cards or components that are kept secret also reduce the ability of others helping the visually disabled person.
Cooperation. Co-op games are really great because it’s within their rules to work together. Just avoid those with limited communication, since talking is the main way a severely visually disabled person gains information.
Problematic Elements. Some game aspects to generally avoid are: large maps, tile laying, route building, polyominoes, and overlapping cards. These are games where touching pieces to see them would mess up their placement, and keeping track in a person’s mind may be challenging if they don’t have great spatial reasoning. There are exceptions. Games with simple or small grids for maps or tiles can still work really well. A 3-by-3 grid can be explained using a number pad with space 1 in the upper left all the way through 9 in the lower right.

Lastly, expect a lot of trial and error, which can result in buying a game you think will work, finding out it doesn’t, and re-selling or trading it for something else. No two people have the same vision limitations, and the same person’s challenges can change over time. Games Will could play 10 years ago are a lot more difficult now that his vision has degraded even more.

CONCLUSION

I look forward to the day when these kinds of accessibility features are standard, because it will help everyone at the table now and in the future. Vision challenges may not be something most people have to deal with now, but we all age. So “future you” will be grateful for games with larger text, clear iconography, dual-layered boards, and uniquely shaped meeples. And for the present, it means you’ll be able to play these games easily with anyone who has vision issues now.

If you want to ask me any questions, the best way is to contact me on Twitter at EuroGamerGirl.

Happy Gaming!