Sarah Clarity Studios

Chapter 4: Accessibility & Player Choice

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Accessibility & Player Choice — Non‑Lethal & Tools

Accessibility turns non‑lethal tools from niche mechanics into mainstream options. When stun, foam, net, EMP, grapple, and cutting tools are readable, configurable, and respectful of sensory and cognitive limits, they become a credible path for every player fantasy—from pacifist runs to humane law‑enforcement or rescue play. Concept artists shape the first layer of inclusion through silhouettes, material logic, and diegetic UI; production artists lock it in with shader tiers, audio mixes, input mappings, and menu toggles. This article maps practical, art‑driven ways to embed accessibility and meaningful player choice into non‑lethal tools without sacrificing competitive clarity.

1) Design Values: Agency, Reversibility, and Readability

Non‑lethal tools advertise control rather than harm. Their accessibility promise rests on three values. Agency means players can foresee and select outcomes—telegraphed timing, range envelopes, and consistent counters. Reversibility means effects can be undone through visible interactions, guarding against permanent loss of control. Readability means the device and its effects are legible across distance, post‑processing, and screen sizes, regardless of color vision, hearing, or haptic availability. When these values lead, non‑lethal kits feel fair, empowering, and dignified.

2) Inclusive Visual Language

Concepts should not rely on hue alone. Back color with shape, motion, and location. Stun reads as stacked capacitors and ceramic collars; foam shows cartridge bays and duckbill nozzles; nets reveal perimeter rings and luminous nodes; EMP shows cage panels and iris petals; grapples separate anchor, line, and winch; cutters present guards and worklights. Use high‑contrast value breaks between functional zones and the body shell so silhouettes stay legible in fog, bloom, and low light. Favor matte base materials with restrained, high‑salience emissive bands for status; avoid full‑body glow that floods the scene. Keep icons large, simple, and consistent—a bolt for stun, hex for foam cells, knot for nets, ring for area effects—so players learn once and generalize across the roster.

3) Photosensitivity & Motion Safety

Avoid full‑screen whiteouts and rapid strobe effects in non‑lethal telegraphs. Prefer single expanding rings, steady emissive ramps, and low‑frequency pulses. Keep flicker rates gentle and limit sudden camera shakes; when impact feedback is essential, provide a “reduced intensity FX” toggle that attenuates bloom, vignette, chromatic aberration, and shake. Animated ground decals should scroll at consistent speeds that remain readable without inducing motion sickness. For foam, favor smooth growth over popping chunks; for nets, allow a clear mid‑air “star” moment without micro‑strobing node flashes; for EMP, use a continuous refractive dome edge instead of flashing scanlines. Provide a safe mode for first‑time users that defaults to reduced FX and disables auto‑camera punches.

4) Color & Contrast Rails

Establish palette rails that tolerate protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia. Instead of red/green oppositions, pair hue with distinct geometry and temporal patterns. Reserve a limited set of emissive temperatures for critical states: cool‑to‑white for charge, warm ambers for adhesives, desaturated cyan for safe/idle. Add a color‑agnostic motif—ring contraction, band sweep, or petal opening—so status is obvious even in grayscale. Ensure ground rings and cones maintain value separation from typical map materials; a faint outer shadow halo can keep decals readable on bright floors. When shipping variants, never let cosmetics alter the value hierarchy that tells function.

5) Audio, Haptics, and Substitution

Offer redundant, distinct cues for arming, telegraphing, firing, and recovery. A rising tri‑tone or inverter whine can signal impending stun; a soft chuff and wet crackle telegraph foam; a foil unspool and node clicks signal nets; a harmonic lock and air‑push announce EMP; a spool‑up and rope creak mark grapples; a stepped RPM ladder and chip rattle describe cutters. Provide “reduced audio complexity” and “dialogue priority” mixes that duck non‑critical layers. Map haptics to the same state machine but offer a no‑haptics path that boosts visual cues. For hearing‑impaired players, show waveform‑style HUD widgets or diegetic light bands synchronized to audio events.

6) Input, Timing, and Cognitive Load

Non‑lethal tools often ask for sequencing and prediction. Reduce cognitive load with clean input choreography: hold‑to‑prime, release‑to‑fire for stun and EMP; toggle spray for foam; tap‑to‑throw and hold‑to‑expand for nets; aim‑and‑commit for grapples; hold‑to‑cut with visible progress. Use consistent button families across devices so muscle memory transfers. Telegraph windows should lead impact by a human‑readable beat—enough time for a decision but not so long that tools feel sluggish. In training ranges, show ghost outlines for radius and flight path to teach timing without text.

7) Per‑Modality Accessibility Notes

Stun

Prefer corona glows and capacitor breathing over camera bloom. Keep arc particles tapered and sparse. The post‑hit recovery shimmer should be brief and predictable, with a visible “you regain control in…3…2…1” diegetic band. Offer a toggle to desaturate the neural‑haze effect for photosensitive players.

Foam

Show wet‑to‑dry transitions as a smooth specular rolloff, not flicker. Make cured foam matte with subtle pore normals that read without noisy sparkle. Provide solvent cues with a clear color‑temperature drift and a brittle crackle so escape feels taught, not frantic. Preserve collision readability with fat silhouettes rather than dense micro‑detail.

Net

Use big‑read geometry: perimeter cord and nodal highlights. Keep node pulses below distracting rates. On capture, show two or three highlighted sever points so escape logic is obvious. Avoid cloth‑overload; on low specs, swap to a planar mesh with animated normals and node lights that still teach the mechanic.

EMP

No full‑screen flash. A dome that expands at constant speed with a crisp edge is accessible and fair. Brief, low‑contrast UI brownouts communicate impact without blinding the player. Distinguish friendly EMP by a different audio tritone and cooler color temperature.

Grapple

Project a reach cone and ground mark so maximum distance and angle are clear. On hit, show tether tension as a traveling highlight; on break, show controlled recoil that avoids violent camera snaps. For traversal, offer a “motion‑safe” mode that reduces swing amplitude and camera sway.

Cutting

Keep the worklight focused and anti‑glare. Avoid shower‑spark spray; use material‑appropriate chips (foam crumbs, polymer curls). Provide a progress band that telegraphs time to completion and a cancel without penalty.

8) Player Choice: Loadouts, Presets, and Ethics

Non‑lethal kits flourish when players can express intent. Offer curated accessibility presets—“Low‑FX,” “Color‑Assist,” “Audio‑Assist,” “Motion‑Safe”—and allow per‑tool overrides. Expose meaningful tuning: ring thickness for ground decals, reticle size, crosshair snap, haptic strength, and audio cue loudness per device. Let players opt into humane campaigns—reduced gore globally, arrest counters instead of executions, rescue bonuses—without locking rewards behind lethality. Narrative framing should reinforce dignity: municipal or medical brand livery, compliance language, and visible safety interlocks.

9) Documentation for Downstream Teams

Concept packets should include: silhouette studies that separate function zones; orthos with ground‑ring diameters, cone angles, and emissive masks; a storyboard showing patrol → telegraph → fire → effect → recovery; material sheets with roughness/metalness rails and emissive ceilings; and accessibility notes for color‑agnostic reads. FX sheets specify shader parameters for foam curing, EMP refraction strength, stun corona intensity, and net node pulse frequency. Audio maps define event names for charge, commit, fire, and recovery. QA receives acceptance criteria like “telegraph must be visible on bright floors,” “recovery shimmer not longer than effect,” and “reduced‑FX mode preserves all counters.”

10) Performance & LOD Without Losing the Read

Accessibility fails if the read collapses at distance or on low hardware. Bake simplified envelopes directly into LODs: ground rings with thicker lines, net meshes with fewer but brighter nodes, foam as blobby silhouette cards during growth. Preserve a minimum pixel footprint for emissive bands. Ensure post‑process stacks never stack destructively—EMP plus flashbang plus ultimate should clamp brightness and bloom. Provide engine toggles for “High‑Contrast Readability” that boosts decal contrast but respects art direction.

11) Training, Onboarding, and Tutorials

Teach with do/don’t vignettes, not walls of text. A timed lane where nets auto‑blossom teaches escape pacing; a foam corridor that cures in stripes teaches path prediction; an EMP echo chamber shows the dome’s advance; a grapple gym prints reach cones on the floor. Offer ghost overlays and slow‑mo replays in the range so new players see cause and effect. Let players export their accessibility preset straight from the tutorial.

12) Telemetry & Live‑Ops for Inclusion

Track whether players recognize and counter effects in time, not just win rates. If counters drop below target, first increase telegraph clarity—thicker rings, longer brace, brighter nodes—before altering power. Monitor photosensitivity reports and motion‑sickness toggles; add per‑map presets when fog, rain, or snow reduces read. Surface “Community‑Trusted” presets curated with accessibility consultants.

13) Collaboration Map

Designers define intent and counters. Concept art builds the readable body language and diegetic UI. Tech art owns shader rails and LOD persistence. Audio crafts distinct event families with a reduced‑complexity mix. UI binds assist widgets to device states. QA validates readability under post‑effects and across color‑vision modes. Production keeps sockets, collision capsules, and state events stable so assist modes do not desync. This alignment protects accessibility from becoming a late‑stage compromise.

14) Putting It Together — An Inclusive Encounter

A squad enters a smoke‑heavy plant. The foam sprayer lays a mint‑toned seam that cures from gloss to matte in steady bands; the “reduced FX” player still sees thick ground ticks and hears the soft cure chuff. A net drone dips; large node lights form a star then settle; two bright sever points blink at a comfortable tempo. An EMP tech opens petals and a cool dome expands with a gentle chime; friendly HUDs brownout rather than flash. A grapple operator projects a reach cone; on hit, the tether shows a traveling highlight; camera sway is softened for motion‑safe users. A cutter’s focused worklight and progress band free a trapped worker. Every beat keeps agency, reversibility, and readability front and center—and every player, regardless of settings, reads the same intent.

15) Checklist (Embed in Your Packet)

• Does the device read by shape without color?
• Are telegraphs visible on bright and dark floors?
• Are there reduced‑intensity and motion‑safe toggles tied to the device state machine?
• Do LODs preserve emissive pixels and ground‑ring thickness?
• Are counters obvious and reversible within a predictable window?
• Can audio cues be substituted by visual widgets and vice versa?
• Do cosmetics avoid altering the value hierarchy that communicates function?
• Have tutorials taught the mechanic through timed vignettes?

Designing for accessibility is designing for more players—and for clearer, fairer play. Non‑lethal tools are the perfect canvas: humane by theme, disciplined by engineering logic, and powerful when every player can read and choose them.