Accessibility

What it is. The set of choices that let more people play the same game: assist modes (speed, invulnerability, skip), full input remap, and a colour/contrast floor so threats and the avatar read for colour-blind and low-vision players. Accessibility is not a difficulty setting bolted on — it’s a readability and control floor the whole design stands on.

Player fantasy / why it’s fun. Everyone gets the actual fantasy, tuned to their body. Celeste’s assist mode doesn’t make a lesser game — it makes the same game reachable. The pull is dignity: the game meets the player where they are.

When to use / when NOT

Use it when	Non-negotiable when
Any single-player game	Colour/contrast is never optional — it’s a floor, always on
Skill games with a high ceiling	Remap: any keyboard/gamepad game — bodies differ
Games leaning on colour to signal	Assist modes: any game where “too hard” loses players you could keep

Accessibility is a floor, not a mode. Contrast, remap, and salience aren’t a menu you could add — they’re the baseline every player relies on, including the ones who never open the options screen. Build the floor first; the toggles are the ramp above it.

The axes

Axis	What it covers	Cheapest win
Motor	remap, hold-vs-toggle, reduced APM, larger targets	full key/button remap
Visual	contrast, colour-blind-safe palette, non-colour cues, text size	shape/icon plus colour, never colour alone
Cognitive	clear goals, no time-pressure option, readable telegraphs	slower/optional timers
Difficulty	assist toggles (speed %, i-frames, skip)	per-axis, not one slider

Tuning levers

Lever	Effect	Watch for
Contrast ratio (avatar vs. field, text vs. bg)	legibility floor	measure it — don’t eyeball it
Redundant cues	colour + shape + motion for each signal	colour-only = invisible to ~8% of players
Remap coverage	which actions are rebindable	a hard-coded key is an inaccessible wall
Assist granularity	per-axis toggles vs. one dial	one slider forces all-or-nothing

How it wires to Hayao

Contrast is measurable. contrastRatio(a, b) (grep docs/API.md) gives the WCAG-style ratio for any two hex colours — gate avatar-vs-field and text-vs-bg against a threshold. The Regalia palette is already AA-gated (world-aesthetic-direction, npm run palette), so build on it.
Redundant cues ride readability. The src/verify/gates.ts readability gate checks the avatar out-contrasts its surroundings and threats telegraph — that is the visual-accessibility floor made checkable. Pair colour with the telegraph shape so the signal survives colour-blindness (pattern-readability, JUDGE).
Remap & assist are declared tuning. Model assist axes as tuning: knobs (docs/WORKSHOP.md); resolved via world.tune(key), they stay in world.hash(), so an assisted or remapped run is still a first-class, replayable artifact — never a cheat path.
Input is action-based. Because UI intent flows through input actions (CONVENTIONS), remapping a key is a lookup change, not a sim change — the action log and determinism are untouched.

Fails when…

Colour carries a signal alone. Red-vs-green danger with no shape cue is invisible to a large minority — always add a second channel.
Hard-coded controls. One unbindable key excludes anyone whose hands don’t fit it.
Assist as a lesser mode. Withholding content/achievements on assist turns a humane tool into a punishment (the opposite of Celeste’s stance).
Contrast by vibe. “Looks fine to me” fails the players it’s for — measure with contrastRatio.
Text-size afterthought. Tiny fixed HUD text walls out low-vision players.

Verify

Contrast gate: contrastRatio(avatar, field) and text-vs-bg pass a threshold (build on the AA-gated Regalia palette, npm run palette).
Readability floor: avatar out-contrasts surroundings, threats telegraph — src/verify/gates.ts + JUDGE.md (the headless SVG look).
Assist stays deterministic: golden-hash a run per assist setting; tuning is in world.hash() (WORKSHOP knob semantics).
Remap covers every action: lint that no gameplay action is bound to an unremappable key.

Composes with

system-difficulty-and-dda — assist modes are difficulty’s accessible face.
pattern-readability — the salience floor accessibility depends on.
world-aesthetic-direction — the AA-gated Regalia palette is your contrast head-start.
system-onboarding — a readable first ten minutes is an accessibility win.