Stranded II (PC+Mac 2007): Game Accessibility Review:

Stranded II (PC+Mac 2007): Game Accessibility Review:

Stranded II is a bit like Minecraft. Except Minecraft lets you build whatever world you want piece by piece. Stranded II appears to be the opposite philosophy. Namely, you have to build what it tells you you can build, and you have no idea what you’re getting as you randomly hit trees or the ground. Every tree you hit, you could get leaves, vines, or branches. There’s no telling what you’ll get whenever you hit a resource…it’s all chance!

    Also, the inventory is ridiculously small. I’ve played this game many times over to see if I could get the hang of it. I eventually did, but I don’t think it made it any more fun to play. The key strategy is to set up structures bit by bit. First, make a hammer by combining 1 branch + 1 stone. Then, click on the hammer and put it in your hand. Right click to build an available structure. Putting the hammer in your hand and clicking repeatedly? You have to do it EVERY time you build something.

Okay, let’s build a shelter: 20 branches, 30 leaves. Since the inventory is ridiculously small, you’re going to hear your character complain: “It’s too heavy!” a lot. So, basically, build the structure piece by piece, meaning once you have the materials, click 50 times (20+30) on the structure, and then, you’ll have it. And that’s the easiest structure to get in the game. Food, water, and fatigue are all measured separately too, rather than Minecraft’s unified hunger meter, so you always have to keep an eye on that.

I respect that the game is based on survival, but does: “Click on this graphically pre-determined structure, while clicking wildly on this tree to see if you can get materials to build the graphically pre-determined structure” sound fun? No, not to me; it’s tedious, and just reminds me I could be playing Minecraft. Minecraft at least let’s me take pride in what I build, because the buildings’ designs are up to me.

And before any Stranded II fans chime in, yes, I built the wood and stone storage. But, I found that, again, the inventory is so small, that I kept having to sacrifice food to carry back logs for the all purpose storage hut. Otherwise, “It’s too heavy!” And I would find that my dropped food would perish after a while, or else I’d just lose track of where I put it.

Now, to make matters worse for non-German speakers, I kept finding bits of the game that were untranslated even in the English version. These were mostly ok. “Alle” means “all” for taking all the materials in front of you. “Eingeborener” means native, as you will sometimes encounter natives. But, there was one German message where, if I didn’t speak German, I’d be toast: “Feuer! Feuer! Ein Gebäude brennt!” In English: “Fire! Fire! A building is burning!” I’d built my shelter too close to my campfire (10 branches+50 stones) and it burnt down.

 Overall, I had some fun with this game. Hunting animals, seeing how long I could survive. But, there are too many random elements in Stranded II, and the building process is way too tedious for my taste when gathering is so difficult to measure and at the same time I have to maintain supplies, and even sometimes avoid lions. Yes, lions. Now, click faster, before they kill you!

I’m posting this to prove a point about disability in gaming. Previously, I lambasted Minecraft for having nearly impossible controls. But, it was still kind of fun to build with, truth be told. But, Stranded II is proof that a game can be perfectly accessible control-wise, and still be bad. Even though most of Stranded II is controlled by simple point-and-click, other problems make the game pointlessly tedious, and the fun dies quickly. Sometimes fun transcends disability issues: If a game’s bad, a game’s bad.

FINAL GRADE: C

ACCESSIBILITY GRADE: B+ (Point-and-click for nearly all actions; some untranslated words, clicking to build gets tiresome.)

FORGIVENESS FACTOR: E (Resource management is incredibly critical; limited inventory space makes survival difficult.)

 CONTROL A-:  (Nearly all interactions are point-and-click; controls can be changed in the main menu.)

IPAD ACCESSIBILITY REVIEW: MINECRAFT: POCKET EDITION:

                  IPAD ACCESSIBILITY REVIEW: MINECRAFT: POCKET EDITION:

 
 The app store description of Minecraft: Pocket Edition says, “Imagine it. Build it. Create worlds on the go, with Minecraft: Pocket Edition!” I would add: (If you’re able-bodied.) Let me describe to you my first experience playing Minecraft on this device. Minecraft is like Legos, except you build and “craft” things from the environment around you, usually found underground (Hence, “Mining”+ “crafting” = Minecraft.)  or if you need wood, you chop down a tree, which gives you a block of wood, etc. First rule of Minecraft for me, (In the game’s Survival Mode.) is to build a shelter first, to protect myself from monsters.

   Ordinarily, this means chopping down a tree. Fair enough. But, here you have something worse than a virtual joystick or compass: A virtual keypad. I understand there’s always a learning curve with Minecraft, but the bottom line is the control of the keypad is just too sensitive, and not well-spaced. A jump button is in the middle. As if the keypad wasn’t bad enough, you have to swipe to move around the camera. Holding down the tap for just a second switches from using an item (Like an axe to chop wood.) to examining items. The end result was I was half dancing around this tree while trying to cut it down.

   Which is bad not just because I could barely control it, but because the monsters come out at nightfall. I wasted time dancing around a tree and getting my blocks. I had no shelter. Several zombies emerged, and I hastily dug a ditch in the dirt to protect myself, which meant swiping the camera down to look at the ground and several fast taps to dig, lazily shuffling into my ditch while looking at the ground. Yeah, the zombie knocked me out of the ditch.

   So, you’re thinking: “Well, you have an axe. Just turn around and whack him!” I was thinking the same; except I instead of you. This means I had to tap back to the axe, swipe to the right, swipe to look at the zombie and tap, no! don’t examine the zombie! Tap to attack it. Oh, and it was attacking me all the while, so I was being knocked around. I died. Re-spawned. I died again. Re-spawned. And again! From the same single zombie! So, when I re-spawned the fourth time I just ran far away into a nearby tundra. From there, I built a ruddy little log cabin with naught but two spaces to move around in over the course of two game days. Now, ordinarily, building in-game takes patience, I understand that. Sometimes, you click the wrong places; things get built wrong, whatever. But, the interface between: use item, build, and examine all done with taps really creates a problem. You’ll be destroying things you built, looking at them, and building where you want to destroy.

    Now, once I had my little ramshackle roof over my head (it had a door even!) I wanted to go hunting. As luck would have it, the tundra had plenty of sheep and pigs. Pigs can be hunted for meat, and sheep for wool. Maybe I’d make a bed! (Bed = 3 wood planks + 3 wool.) But, as usual, I found myself examining sheep, and even being pushed (not attacked, though.) around by pigs once I attacked. Only one sheep dropped 2 wool blocks. I ran back to my log cabin. Pushed around by pigs, for crying out loud! Seemed like I’d have to avoid every critter in the game on top of monsters!  

    I like the idea of Minecraft. I just think the iPad, with its tap formats (which you can’t change around at all.) are really ill-suited for those of us with mobility impairments. I have to say I did enjoy building things and crafting tools, when it went right! But, when it came down to I can’t even dig a ditch right (while staring at the ground!), or attack a zombie because my swipes and taps (upward or downward.) don’t register; that’s not a patience issue. That’s an accessibility issue. If I had a mouse and keyboard, I would’ve seen that zombie, and killed it in three clicks. I’d have had a bed from all the wool (maybe.) and I would’ve made those bully pigs into pork instead of dancing around them awkwardly.

    Now, there is a “Creative Mode” aside from “Survival Mode”. Creative Mode gets rid of the monsters, gives you infinite resources, and lets you fly around instead of jump. It basically just lets you build. This mode was slightly more enjoyable. Did it make the controls any less frustrating? No! But, no monsters to worry about. Building is still awkward. In Creative Mode, I just carved a dwelling out of a cave, and put a door on it. I wasn’t even in the mood to imagine! I just wanted the controls to work!
 
      Hunting was still as abysmal. Only this time, I had ducks that kept getting through my door. (Some kind of game glitch?) I will say Creative Mode is better for exploring, but then: Why build shelter? I know, I know. To exercise your imagination. But, with a control system this bad, and half the challenge gone, the only thing I could imagine was playing a better app!

  Creative Mode does offer more accessibility, but at expense of half of the game, and the controls are still the same; that horrible keypad! The terrible tap sensitivity! (And, no re-mapping is available.) It does feel a little less stressful, but the controls just try to do to much with the various taps and motions, and don‘t appear to have had the mobility impaired in mind. A sad thing for such a creativity-based game.

   In conclusion, if you’re mobility impaired, the touchscreen commands may be a bit much. I know Minecraft has a big world to offer, and it’s fun to look at, but I want to build things and hunt and to survive zombie attacks. The swiping for me to turn around then having to use the keypad to move separately means those pigs will just walk on by you, and the zombies will eat you before you have your first plank laid. It’s very confusing, and frustrating that I can’t build what’s in my mind. I would play this game to escape my physical limits, not to be constantly reminded of them. Because of running from monsters at night, I felt like I was playing a weird 3D version of Castlevania 2: WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE. ;-)


FINAL GRADE: F

ACCESSIBILITY GRADE: C (Creative Mode has no monsters.)

FORGIVENESS FACTOR: D (Can re-spawn; but not often helpful accessibility-wise.)

TOUCHSCREEN CONTROL: F (Virtual keypad; sensitive-command taps, swipe-based camera.)

                        (AHH!!! A ZOMBIE!!! AHH!!! GRAPHIC/INTERFACE OVERLAP!!! RUN!!!)

                                     


                                    
                                                       (MY NEMESIS MR. SHEEP.)