‘If you can’t move, you can still game’ — how a developer helps make accessible video games

Several years ago, Anthony DeVergillo was playing a video game that required him to point his controller at the screen to save. 

The Bedminster, N.J., man, has Duchenne muscular dystrophy and couldn’t lift the controller. “It really frustrated me,” he told CBC Hamilton. “I could do everything else in the game, I just couldn’t save because it was not accessible. So that was really the last straw for me.”

Today, DeVergillo, 31, is the co-creator of software that aims to help people with little or no mobility play video games. In April, he and his co-creator Jonah Monaghan released Overjoyed on the Microsoft Store — a milestone for a program that only used to be available as an open source download on Monaghan’s website.

Monaghan, who grew up near Guelph, Ont., studied game design and development at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Brantford, Ont., campus. Now a teacher in Nelson House, Man., he met DeVergillo in a Facebook group on gaming and accessibility when he was researching the topic for school.

For Monaghan, a social media post about a father building an accessible controller for his daughter inspired the interest in accessibility. That controller cost around $1,000 to build, Monaghan said. 

Given how much games, systems and controllers already cost, he wondered, “Is that really what gaming should be?”

He met DeVergillo, who had the idea for what would become Overjoyed but didn’t know how to make it happen. Over recurring Friday-night live streams that began in early 2020, the two developed a prototype of what would become Overjoyed. 

The software, which costs about $7, runs on a computer and allows users to bind certain movements to controls in a game. For example, pointing one’s cursor in one section of the screen might move your character or the camera. Clicking in another region might shift the camera up, and bringing the mouse to another location might allow your character to jump. 

Overjoyed, which is now part of the non-profit Our Odyssey, has presets for gaming with a mouse and keyboard, playing Xbox or PlayStation titles, and for Nintendo Switch. For Switch, they partnered with controller maker 8BitDo so one of that company’s devices could act as a wireless relay from the software to the Nintendo console.

The virtual joystick can also be controlled using eye-tracking if a user has the tools for that. 

“Even if you can’t move, you can still game,” DeVirgillo said, adding that in total, you can program about 30 actions using his software.

The tool has come up against some limitations, but the creators say those are more due to the games than the software, which about 100 people have downloaded at this point.

For example, some games require two sticks to simultaneously control player movement and field of view. A workaround, DeVirgillo said, is to program Overjoyed so that you can quickly recentre the camera if the game you’re playing has that function. 

That’s an example of “thinking outside the box,” he said, and asking whether “games need to be as complex as they start out to be.”

“Even for people who don’t believe this software is for them, it’s worth experimenting with,” Monaghan said. 

“It gives you insight onto the design patterns we take for granted and how those design patterns impact other people.”

DeVirgillo, whose day job is communications consulting, does regular music and gaming streams. He said he invites any developer to come on his stream and try out Overjoyed so they can learn how to make games more accessible. 

Monaghan adds that the pair is also open to any developers building Overjoyed directly into their games.

Sandra Danilovic, a Laurier professor who researches inclusive design and accessibility, said many developers don’t know what people with disabilities need, making consultation and co-development important.

“If you’re not co-designing with disabled users and disabled gamers, then you’re doing that community a huge disservice,” she said.

Making assistive devices affordable is important too, she said, since many accessible gaming devices are costly and many people with disabilities earn low incomes.

“They’re not always easy to get and they’re not customized for every disability she said,” adding that the customizable nature of a tool such as Overjoyed is “wonderful” in addressing niche user needs that large companies don’t tend to serve.  

Monaghan said he had to pull back from Overjoyed while working other gaming jobs, but the duo is hoping to reunite and expand so they can one day have a full-time team dedicated to the program.

They’re also trying to spread the word about their tool so more gamers can try it out. Reception to the tool has been positive, DeVirgillo said, with friends who tried it telling him the software has been life-changing. 

For DeVirgillo, who was diagnosed with his condition when he was 2-years-old, being able to play games again has been special.

“Pun intended, I was overjoyed,” he said.