Johanna Janiszewski
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johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Johanna Janiszewski
@johannamakesgames.bsky.social
700 followers 380 following 410 posts
she/her
Game Designer 🎮
Game Producer 📋
Game Development Teacher 👩‍💻 (all age groups)
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johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Personal review of unit 4 of the #gameAccessibility course from #Unity, pt.1 Link: learn.unity.com/course/pract...

TLDR: I finally checked out the example project in Unity and tried the accessibility plugin. Neat stuff, but of course you need to put in more work to make your game fully accessible 👇
A screenshot of the UI Accessibility Plugin (UAP) by MetalPop Games in the Unity Asset Store. It has a four star rating (out of 13 ratings), and is liked 182 times. It is free and advertises that it is easy to set up. Make your UI accessible with a few clicks!
August 7, 2025 at 1:12 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Personal review of unit 3 of the #gameAccessibility course from #Unity, pt.1 Link: learn.unity.com/course/pract...

TLDR: In this part of the course I start with developing my own project, based on the knowledge of prior chapters. I pick my idea and ask you for feedback on it.

👇

#gamedev
#a11y
A screenshot of the Unity accessibility course, unit Project pre-production. It shows the following text: What you will learn - You’re now ready to plan your game. This is a critical stage of the creative process, especially when you are focusing on accessibility. The preparation, exploration, and scoping that you do in this stage will have a direct impact on your experience when you begin design and development.
May 10, 2025 at 2:39 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Personal review of project 2 of the #gameAccessibility course from #Unity, pt.3 Link: learn.unity.com/project/incl...

TLDR: I investigated "BROK the investiGator" by @cowcatgames.com. It's a punch and click game which is accessible to #blind players and has lots of #a11y options. #gamedev

more 👇
German language title screen of the game "BROK the investiGator". The first thing the player is presented with is the option to press space to access the accessibility options.
April 3, 2025 at 2:07 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Again, more materials! My highlights were the the Game Accessibility Guidelines (I wrote about them in the past), and the Xbox-Accessibility Guidelines which come with examples and data 🤩 Knowing I can come back here and get into the details when it comes to implementing them is really valuable.

👇
Screenshot of Microsoft's Xbox Accessibility Guidelines. It says: "Chat wheel, also known as communication wheel, is an important in-game interface tool for communication. For some, selecting text messages by using the chat wheel is more accessible than typing text messages. If a player can't read the text in a chat wheel, they might be unable to communicate with others." Below that, there is a screenshot of Sea of Thieves, showing their chat wheel."
February 27, 2025 at 3:02 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
A snow covered roof. The way the snow wraps around nooks and windows on the roof makes it look like a derpy smiling face.
February 14, 2025 at 8:36 AM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
I did it and it was a delight! Lahmacun, the turkish pizza with lentil topping instead of meat. And the best is: I have enough left to make it again tomorrow! 😍 #vegan #veganuary
A piece of pizza dough, baked with a topping of lentils and spices mixed together. On top, there is a lot of fresh salad, tomatoes, spring onions and cucumber.
January 27, 2025 at 6:14 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Personal review of project 2 of #Unity 's #gameAccessibility course.

TLDR: You'll learn how to analyze situations regarding their accessibility. Great materials and tools by Microsoft linked.

Join Serenad and me on our journey in improving #accessibility in #games! Stay tuned for regular posts.
👇
Screenshot of the Unity's accessibility course named "practical game accessibility". Its a 12 hour workshop on level intermediate, and rated four stars. Screenshot of the Microsoft Design Toolkit called "Inclusive". It shows a support card called "The Persona Spectrum". It reads: We use a Persona Spectrum to understand related limitations across a spectrum of permanent, temporary, and situational disabilities. It’s a quick tool to help foster empathy and to show how a solution can scale to a broader audience. There are 4 areas of limitations, touch, see, hear, speak, with different scales of permanency. Touch: permanent: one arm, temporary: arm injury, situational: new parent (with baby on one arm). See: permanent: blind, temporary: cataract, situational: distracted driver. Hear: permanent: deaf, temporary: ear infection, situational: bartender. Speak: permanent: non-verbal, temporary: laryngitis, situational: heavy accent.
January 23, 2025 at 3:55 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Have you seen my tractor? I just left it here for five minutes... #photography
A photo of a tractor tire locked to a lamp post with a bike lock.
January 22, 2025 at 8:43 AM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Its probably all friendly reminders to enjoy the holidays 😂
A screenshot of an email header. It says: "To Johanna: Friendly reminder to enjoy holidays"
January 6, 2025 at 1:59 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Who can guess what game is depicted here? 😜 (My family members have to solve gift related riddles this year, hehe)
A hand drawn figure picking up crystal balls, wands and magical glitter from the floor and putting them into a basket.
December 23, 2024 at 6:24 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Personal review of project 1 of #Unity 's #gameAccessibility course.

TLDR: I liked the thorough introduction and additional resources. So even if you know the basics, this is worth a look!

Join Serenad and me on our journey in improving #accessibility in #games! Stay tuned for regular posts.
👇
Screenshot of the Unity's introduction to the accessibility course. The summary reads: "In this introductory project, you’ll learn more about the Practical Game Accessibility course and reflect on how you can use this course to achieve your goals as a creator. " Its marked as intermediate, 1 hour and 10 minutes, and gives 60 XP.
December 23, 2024 at 4:30 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
And of course its accompanied by an AI image. Sorry Santa, I don't think Rudolf will make it through the holidays.
A close up screenshot of an AI raindeer that has christmas ornaments stuck in its back. It looks like its being hit by shuriken.
December 18, 2024 at 9:45 AM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Aah, its the season. Nothing more festive than receiving spam mails that send me a "friendly reminder" to enjoy the holidays. 🎅
A screenshot of an email header. It says: "To Johanna: Friendly reminder to enjoy holidays"
December 18, 2024 at 9:43 AM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Did you know that there is a course on #gameAccessibility from #unity? I did't know until recently. More info in the thread 🧵👇

Have you done the course? Let me know, I am curious!

Join Serenad and me on our journey in improving #accessibility in #games! Stay tuned for (somewhat) bi-weekly posts.
Screenshot of the Unity Accessibility Course on the learn.unity.com webpage. There are 5 steps: Welcome to the course, Inclusive Design and Accessibility, Project Pre-Production, Design and Development, and Continue your Journey. It is marked as intermediate, gives 300 XP and spans 12 hours and 40 minutes. You can also read a bit of the summary: "Summary When you make a game, you’re crafting a shared experience. Whether your game is a private gift for one person or a global commercial release, for solo play or many players, it’s an invitation to connect with and respond to your ideas as a creator. When you make your game more accessible, you’re extending that invitation to a wider and more diverse audience."
November 28, 2024 at 4:37 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Ich gebe meinen Aufgabenpaketen gern Questnamen und wollte euch diese Perle nicht vorenhalten.
Screenshot eines Tasks mit der Beschriftung "Start Quest - Bernd das Angebrot"
November 20, 2024 at 11:00 AM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
In our next title, which was developed in another engine, and in which we had to develop our own dialog system, we added the option to go back in the dialog 🥳 🧵3/x
A screenshot of the game Sherlock Phones. It shows a dialog with the evil virus Cypher and the player can go forth or back in the dialog. The caption reads: In our next game, which we created in another technology, I built my own dialog system and added an option to go back.
October 31, 2024 at 5:06 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
In "Natur? Politisch." which has long dialogs, playtesters suggested to add a feature to go back. But the technology we used to build the dialogs did not provide such feature and we were too late into the development to make our own system.
A screenshot of the game Natur? Politisch open in the Unity Editor with the visual storytelling plugin Fungus open as well. The screenshot says: "Fungus is great for an easy start with storytelling games, but it has its technical limitations". A little mushroom emoji is added, because the logo of Fungus is, fittingly, a mushroom.
October 31, 2024 at 5:05 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
A spooky story for the spooky time of the year 🎃

Sometimes, we are not able to implement an accessibility feature. That can happen because of a variety of reasons, but it can be boiled down to the feature request being not taken into account early enough in the development.

🧵1/x
A screenshot from the game Natur? Politisch, showing Alex, one of the characters in front of the "Silbersee" in Bitterfeld. In spooky letters, there is written on the screenshot: Accessibility Fail! Spooky! Oh no! Accompanied by a jack-o-lantern emoji and a shocked emoji. There is more text on the image which says: "Testers wished for a way to go back to the previous when they misclicked. Sadly, we were not able to implement that feature..."
October 31, 2024 at 5:03 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
🥳 Jippie! Sherlock Phones, welches wir für und mit „SCHAU HIN! Was Dein Kind mit Medien macht.“ entwickelt haben, hat den Pädagogischen Medienpreis 2024 gewonnen!

Danke für diese Auszeichnung und herzlichen Glückwunsch an alle Gewinner*innen ❤️
www.sherlock-phones.info, Sherlock Phones, das Online-Game für Eltern und Kinder zwischen 7 und 13 Jahren. Jetzt spielen! Außerdem zu sehen: das Logo der Initiative Schau Hin was dein Kind mit Medien macht, die Figuren Cypehr und Nova aus dem Spiel, und einen Ehrenkranz, der den Schriftzug "Pädagogischer Medienpreis" umschließt.
October 30, 2024 at 4:44 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Do you know any other games that offer UI scaling? How do they deal with intersecting UI and UI that gets too big? Let me know, I am curious!
The screenshot of the slider again, this time again positioned in the white area. Caption: Do you know other games that support UI scaling? Let me know, I am
October 4, 2024 at 2:49 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
But this system has issues. The UI can be scaled to a point at which it becomes unusable because the buttons are cut off.

I tried to implement UI scaling in the past, but I ended up not doing it because of this reason. Maybe I should have done it anyways? Let me know your thoughts on the matter. 👀
A screenshot of the UI size slider, but now its scaled up to a size that cuts off the buttons at the bottom of the settings window. Caption: The UI can be scaled beyond clickability, but maybe there is a reason behind it that I am not aware of?
October 4, 2024 at 2:48 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
An accessiblity feature that I use regulary is the UI scaling in #TheSims4. Whenever I can, I will crank the UI size up to the max. ⬆️

Read more in the next post(s) 👇

Join Serenad from Food 4 Thought and me on our journey in improving #accessibility in #games! Stay tuned for bi weekly posts.
A screenshot of the game options in the Sims 4, but the screenshot is scaled so small, its not visible well. Next to the screenshot, there is an emoji with spiral eyes. Caption: "Tiny User Interfaces hurt my eyes!" A screenshot of the game options in the Sims 4. Under Accessibility, there is a slider that lets the player scale the User Interface up and down. On the slider is a white area for optimal scaling, as well as red areas. The slider is set to the maximum size that is still in the white area. There is also a setting to allow the game to get the scaling settings from the device settings. Caption: Thats why I am happy that The Sims 4 is providing me with an option to scale the UI.
October 4, 2024 at 2:45 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Depending on your game's genre and especially on the amount of text, these can look and function very differently. Here is an example from EZRA, a game I worked on for Kijufi. I did the layout by hand and displayed every single text snippet according to the story progress.

2/x
A screenshot of Ezra's notebook shown in the Unity editor. The scene hierarchy shows how the several notebook snippets are organized into pages. Caption: Every notebook entry is uniquely sized in EZRA (2022), and every page layout is done by hand.
September 12, 2024 at 6:47 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
Let players know what happened in your game's story so far and what their current objective is by implementing a notebook, diary, quest log or similar feature 📖

Join Serenad from Food 4 Thought and me on our journey in improving #accessibility in #games! Stay tuned for (almost) weekly posts.

1/x
A screenshot of the game Ezra (2022) that shows the game's notebook in german language. Several text snippets are displayed that show what people have said about traffic in the area (the topic of the game). Every one of these entries also comes with a small drawing that fits the content. There are also To Do's (e.g. talk to someone) that are already solved and marked with a checkmark. Caption: Recap your game's story and remind the player of their current objective in a diary, notebook or questlog!
September 12, 2024 at 6:45 PM
johannamakesgames.bsky.social
A few days ago, a friend told me about the website www.gameuidatabase.com . The page is a great resource for finding screenshots of #gameUI 🤩 See the next posts for details.

Join Serenad from Food 4 Thought and me on our journey in improving #accessibility in #games! Stay tuned for weekly posts.
A screenshot of the webpage www.gameuidatabase.com, advertising that you can find browse 1,347 Games , 55,395 Screens and 1,782 Videos, claiming the title of the "The Ultimate reference tool for game designers." Caption: The Game UI Database provides lots of UI references!
August 15, 2024 at 10:00 AM