Quadriplegic aims to design accessible video games
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/07129/784361-51.stm
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
By Cindi Lash, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Robert Florio presented this portrait of Jay Gibbons to the Baltimore Orioles slugger in 2003. Mr. Florio, 25, of Glen Burnie, Md., was paralyzed from the upper arms down in a diving accident about 11 years ago and has taught himself to paint with a special brush placed in his mouth.
Crying, praying and floating face down after a mistimed dive into a swimming pool snapped his spinal cord, 14-year-old Robert Florio was certain his life was over.
By the time friends noticed the eighth-grader wasn't moving and pulled him from the water, he'd run out of air and blacked out. He awoke to a new reality as a quadriplegic -- unable to walk, move, lift a pencil or manage daily tasks.
Over the next decade, Mr. Florio would struggle through depression, bouts of pneumonia, other health problems and rehabilitation programs before he regained enough movement in his left arm to drive his motorized wheelchair.
It also took years to discover an alternative mouth-and-air powered system that enabled him to resume playing "Earthworm Jim" and other video games that had engrossed him before his accident. And all too often, he found that hot new console or computer games required too much quick button-mashing or typing for him to compete.
Now Mr. Florio, 25, is preparing to graduate with a bachelor of arts degree in Game Art & Design and to embark on a career aimed at making it less difficult for other disabled people to enjoy those diversions.
After completing his degree this fall through The Art Institute Online, a division of The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, he plans to design games that appeal to all gamers but can be played by people with limited abilities to move, hear, see or quickly process information.
"Most of the games out there now aren't accessible. [Existing] developers aren't really interested, but why do they have to shut out people? That's not fair," said Mr. Florio, who lives with his parents in Glen Burnie, Md. "It's a missed market."
Mr. Florio plays games by using his mouth to sip and puff air and activate switches on a specially designed Quad Controller that attaches to a PC or standard console controller. Those controllers sell for $225 to $260, compared to about $30 to $50 for standard controllers.
Even with his modified controller, Mr. Florio can't manage "Halo 2," "Grand Theft Auto" or recent hits that require players to aim, shoot, run or jump simultaneously. Instead of blasting the vicious Locust Horde in last year's Xbox 360 hit "Gears of War," he's playing games from a few years back that don't have quite so much going on at once.
Most major companies in the billion-dollar game industry have not sought input from disabled gamers or seen a need to include alternative ways for them to enjoy mass-market games, said Michelle Hinn, who teaches game design courses and is completing a doctorate in Game Accessibility at the University of Illinois.
For more than four years, Ms. Hinn has been contacting developers and setting up workshops as a member and now the chairwoman of a special-interest group on game accessibility for the International Game Designers Association. She's dyslexic, so it's personal for her.
No one is sure how many of the 49.7 million Americans with disabilities play video or computer games, Ms. Hinn said. But based on inquiries and feedback the group has received, there's no question that many more would play if they could.
Most games allow players to start out at easy levels and work up to more difficult, fast-paced challenges. Many contain options that allow players to shift commands to different buttons on their controllers or PC keyboards.
So accessibility advocates want to know why developers won't program additional options or create patches -- software code that can be downloaded and applied to existing games -- to allow differently abled people to play games more slowly or to use fewer buttons or a single switch.
Also on their wish lists?
Alternative controllers that are reasonably priced and work with more games. Closed-captioning for voices and sound clues to assist deaf or color-blind players. Audio instructions or larger type on the screen and in instructions to assist visually impaired players.
Larger "click-on" areas to enable players with shaky or limited muscle control to position a cursor and complete a task. Icons to cue players with cognitive problems. Typing options to allow players with speech problems to join online games that require the use of headsets to communicate.
"Games, like any source of potential social interaction, provide a way to communicate with others," and like art, music and literature, can help to promote a positive outlook on life, Ms. Hinn said.
"But people with disabilities may or may not be able to communicate in a fun way with people," she said. "Everyone has the right to enjoy life."
So gamers like Mr. Florio are stepping into the breach.
After his accident, Mr. Florio said, the sight of an old Super Nintendo System at a rehabilitation center in Maryland "was the only thing in five months that got me excited."
But he couldn't operate its controller, and therapists couldn't adapt it for him. He later entered another rehabilitation program at Hershey Medical Center, where therapists "changed my life" by helping him to regain function in his arm muscles.
After completing more programs and undergoing surgery to implant electrodes that stimulate his muscles, he drives his motorized wheelchair and reaches the top of his head with his left arm. He can lift his right bicep and elbow, but cannot move or feel below his chest.
Mr. Florio graduated five years ago from Chapelgate Christian Academy, a private, handicapped-accessible school in Marriottsville, Md. He also attended classes and resumed studies in drawing and art through Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland.
He now draws and paints with a pencil or other implements attached to a stick held in his mouth. His portraits of Baltimore Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons, Baltimore Blast soccer midfielder Denison Cabral and other works have attracted considerable attention and news coverage.
He also began making appearances as a motivational speaker. And he kept trying to play video games.
At first, he replaced a standard console controller with a plug-in joystick that had larger, flatter buttons that he could push with his mouth stick. But as games and game systems evolved, they required more buttons and controller-mounted joysticks than he could quickly operate.
The mouth-operated Quad Controller he bought about four years ago is also being outpaced by chunky, button-laden controllers for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2. And forget about handheld systems or PC games that require players to communicate or enter commands by typing. He's limited to a few, mostly older games with streamlined controls.
Online classes open his world
Frustration over missing out on the most current games and his growing interest in art and animation led him to enroll in The Art Institute Online's program, in which he's learned to develop, produce, illustrate and animate video games.
"As soon as I started taking classes online, everything opened up for me," he said, explaining that other schools offered game-development programs but not an online curriculum that he could complete at home.
The online division has about 6,500 students, although spokeswoman Robin Beckham was not sure how many are disabled. But for Mr. Florio, the program was ideal, allowing him and other students from around the country to post and critique work, brainstorm and work together to create games.
Through instructors and school forums, he's developed and pitched ideas to contacts in the International Game Developers Association and is active in its accessibility group headed by Ms. Hinn. He's also part of a team assembled to compete in a project, code-named "Top Secret," in which winning ideas will be used in an online game by well-known developer David Perry and Acclaim Games.
"Developers run around trying to find bugs in their games, but not accessibility bugs," said Jeannie Novak, online program director of Game Art & Design with the Art Institute Online, who has featured Mr. Florio in a book she's written. "We need people with those issues to actually go in and test games."
Last year, Mr. Florio beat hundreds of other applicants for one of 25 IGDA scholarships to the annual Game Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., where he met with professional developers to lobby for accessible games.
He also helped with "Accessibility Idol," a first-ever contest for developers with accessible game concepts, at this year's conference held in San Diego. After graduating, Mr. Florio hopes to land a job with BreakAway Games or Big Huge Games, which both make computer games in Maryland, and one day to run his own company.
"It's not that I'd be making games just for people with physical challenges," he said. "I'm trying to change things so that games are across the board accessible for more people."