Accessibility Features in The Forest Cathedral

We teamed up with Game Developer to bring you an accessibility feature deep dive for The Forest Cathedral - Accessibility Deep-Dive

A video summary can be viewed here

List of accessibility features

The Forest Cathedral contains two types of gameplay: a 3D visual novel (referred to as 3D) and a 2D platformer (referred to as 2D). Settings can be adjusted for different areas of the game.

General Settings and Saving

• Settings and Pause menu accessible at all times during gameplay

Gameplay Difficulty

• 2D Difficulty options are able to be turned on and off at will through the Settings menu. It does not require a new save or restart to implement them.

• 2D - Option to Turn Off Spikes which removes all deadly spikes

• 2D - Option to toggle on Float Mode which reduces the speed at which the 2D character will fall

• 2D - Checkpoints during platformer happen at regular intervals, allowing players to restart from a checkpoint if they die.

Input and Button Presses

• PC - Has mouse and keyboard and full gamepad controller support

• Rebinding is supported for most actions

• Button map available at any time in the Settings menu for default keybinds

• Player key rebinds will be reflected in button map

• 3D - Camera sensitivity adjustable

• 3D - Can invert camera controls vertically (y-axis)

• 2D - Character is moveable using thumbstick or D-pad

Haptics

• No haptics

Tutorials

• Gameplay Mechanics onboarding for both 3D and 2D gameplay takes place in a separate tutorial zone with checks, buttons prompts, and text

Audio Accessibility

• Max volume adjustable

Text and Reading

• UI text and menu text are written in a high-contrast bold typeface by default

• Subtitles and journal text are written in high contrast and sans-serif typeface by default

• Option to change all in-game text to OpenDyslexic, a sans-serif typeface

On-Screen Movement and Visual Effects

• Option to replace flashing static screen on terminals with a black screen

• No motion blur

Heads-up Display

• Key bind prompts viewable on-screen when needed for progression

• Player key rebinds will be reflected in button prompts

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for our early 2023 release!