Canberra-based video game studio Uppercut Games has been nominated for the Excellence in Accessibility Award in the 2021 Australian Game Developer Awards (AGDAs) for their work, Submerged: Hidden Depths.
Their first time nominated for an AGDA, Uppercut Games co-founder Ed Orman said the acknowledgement was both “thrilling” and “an honour”.
Available via Google’s Stadia gaming platform, Orman described the work as a “relaxploration” game.
“It provides players with a really serene, nice place they can zen out in,” he told Canberra Daily.
A sequel to their successful 2015 title Submerged, Orman and his team decided to focus on making an accessible game when starting development in February 2019.
“Our game is a simple, serene, relaxing game where you’re controlling a single character on screen, there’s no combat or failure states, which makes it a strong candidate for opening up for accessibility,” he said.
Work on the sequel started when Google approached Uppercut asking them to create a game for Stadia that would promote the platform to a broader, more casual audience.
“Submerged fit really well in the push they were trying to make,” Orman said.
Funding from the tech behemoth allowed Orman and the team to “massively increase the quality and scope” from the 2015 original.
“Once they gave us greenlight for that, we really assessed what had Submerged one done really well and where we could approve,” he said.
So, what exactly makes a video game accessible?
According to Orman, in real terms, producing an accessible game requires making sure the controls are as accessible and configurable as possible, all the way through to providing colour options in the guide for people who are colour blind.
“So much work that you can do, and I feel like we’ve only really scratched the surface but great to do as much as we could.”
Having been based in Canberra since co-founding the studio with Andrew James and Ryan Lancaster in 2011, Orman said the bush capital is an idyllic spot to produce video games.
“It works well for us,” he said.
“We’ve been here the whole time and there are a few advantages, especially if you’ve got young families which all three founders ended up with over the years.
“It’s perfectly fine to run a studio here, you’ve got access to really good internet, a talent pool, we really like it here and have got no plans of going anywhere else.”
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