Video game accessibility comes in lots of different ways. You can make enemies easier to beat, make the colours on the screen brighter, or even get super strong weapons to take down tough bosses easily (yep, that’s a real thing in one of these games!). While no game can be perfect for everyone, these 5 indie games try their best. Indie games have tons of different styles, so there’s something for everyone. Here are 5 accessible indie games that give you more control, so you can have fun your way.
Hades
Hades is a roguelite game, meaning death is inevitable. You play as Zagreus, son of Hades, attempting to escape your father’s underworld domain. With various weapon choices, you can play as you like but expect to die frequently. Upon death, you respawn at home since you reside in the underworld. You can gain small boosts between runs, but you’ll still start relatively weak. Fortunately, there’s an assist mode called God Mode to help with this.
God mode in Hades might sound like you become impossible to kill and you can just walk through the game, but that’s not true. This accessible indie game uses a clever roguelike mechanic, death itself, to make the game easier when you need it. You can enable God mode at any time during a playthrough and disable it at any time as well. This will grant you the buff “Deus ex Machina” giving you 20% damage resistance.
Well, that’s all well and good but it’s hardly god mode. Correct, but each time you die with this buff active, you revive with 2% extra damage resistance. This genius mechanic allows players to experience the game as intended, as a roguelike. But provides them with a cap of 80% damage buff meaning you can withstand a lot of attacks. This doesn’t remove the difficulty from the game but allows people who may not be able to react as quickly to enemy attacks the ability to progress with the story.
Hades God mode is a very clever way to ensure the Roguelike nature of the game is still at the forefront of the player’s experience while still being a good adaptability feature. Best of all, it doesn’t affect achievements at all!
Celeste
Celeste is a 2D platforming game where you play as the protagonist, Madeline. Made up of 8 chapters, Celest follows Madeline on a story of personal growth and battling inner demons. This platformer has simple mechanics, jump, dash, grab, and that’s about it. Using the environment, Celeste makes these simple mechanics a testament to even the most skilled gamer. Therein lies the issues, sometimes you just don’t have to skills or the time to develop them, Thankfully assist mode is here to help.
Celeste has an assist mode that allows you to change a lot of the game mechanics. This setting can change the game’s speed to 50% giving you more time to react. It can also give you unlimited stamina and dashes which will help in the climbing section. The other and in my opinion, best assist function is the dash assist which pauses time to allow the player to get the dash angle correct.
All of these functions are independent of one another and can be altered in stages. You can just reduce game speed by 10% and add one extra dash if you want. You can also set the game speed to 50% and give yourself unlimited dashes and stamina if that makes the game more accessible to you.
With Celests need for quick reaction times these settings really do allow this to be an accessible Indie game, suitable for most people.
Phasmophobia
It wouldn’t be an indie game list without a horror game. Phasmophobia has you hunting ghosts across various locations. Play alone or with friends online and try to identify the ghost types by collecting evidence. Don’t stay in the dark too long, the lower your sanity gets the quicker the ghost will hunt you down. While the concept is simple the gameplay is exhilarating and to ensure that anyone can join, there are various accessibility features.
Phasmophobia allows players to change the key binds of all major functions in the game. This can help dramatically if you can’t use standard keyboard or controller configurations. Since the game uses a cursor there is also the option to change the size, colour, and opacity. These changes can make the cursor much larger, brighter and more easily visible.
Phasmophobia Is a great accessible Indie game for wannabe ghost hunters. The game also allows for fully customisable difficulty settings enabling completely custom difficulties. While these setting changes affect how much money you’ll get in-game, they allow anyone to access and play the game.
Moving Out
Moving out is a family/party game that lets you run a moving company. Collect items and throw them (gently of course) into the moving van in the time limit to get the gold medal but watch out for the ghosts, evil pianos and other obstacles the game throws at you. With some mechanics making this game more challenging the further you progress, it might be hard for everyone to enjoy the fun.
Moving Out is a fast-paced and chaotic game with its normal settings. The accessibility settings thankfully allow for some of the chaos to be removed for those who want it. Moving out’s accessibility settings allow for more time for levels making it easier to get gold, silver or bronze rewards. There is also a setting that stops the annoying ghosts from spawning and chasing you, which I have to say I will be using in the future. Another essential accessibility option is the removal of items that have been successfully placed in the van.
While Moving Out is quite a simple game, some of its mechanics, like tossing items together, can be difficult to master. This accessible indie game allows you to grab and throw heavy objects alone, so everyone can partake in the fun. Considering this is supposed to be a fun party game, these accessibility features really make this game perfect for all parties.
Another Crab’s Treasure
Another Crab’s Treasure invites you comically into a relentless soulslike adventure set in a decaying underwater realm. Step into the role of Kril, a hermit crab, using discarded trash as armour to endure brutal assaults from enemies. Embark on an epic treasure hunt to reclaim your repossessed shell, unearthing the sinister secrets lurking in the polluted ocean depths
The assist mode for Another Crab’s Treasure allows you to affect mostly combat-based settings. This includes allowing you to avoid dropping any microplastics (in-game money) when you die. Yes, this game has microplastics as currency, check out our review of the game if you’re interested, it’s brilliant!
Another toggle in the settings menu adds one of the most interesting features I have ever seen in a video game, a gun. While that may not sound dramatic, seeing a tiny hermit crab holding a life-sized pistol and one-shotting the hardest bosses in the game is a sight to behold. It is also a wonderful accessibility feature allowing players to toggle the gun on, kill the big boss, and turn it off again to continue the story. In my opinion, it can’t get more accessible than that. Another Crab’s Treasure is a great example of how accessible Indie Games can be, and how you don’t have to be too serious when adding these features.
Accessible indie games are definitely becoming more common, which is great! But we still have a ways to go. More and more games are letting you change how you play, so everyone can have fun. We picked 5 games that do a really good job of this, giving you lots of options to play your way.
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