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The Theory of Parallel Game Universes:  A Paradigm Shift in Multiplayer Gaming and Game Accessibility

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In other words, UA-Games possess the ability to adapt their interface and content to best serve the requirements of a specific gamer under specific gaming conditions. For example, a Space Invaders type game (Figure 1a), would use enlarged, simplified, graphics when played by someone with deteriorated vision or someone using a small screen (Figure 1b), and would decrease its speed / complexity and employ 3D sound when played by a blind person or by someone who is not using a screen at all (Figure 1c).

(a)	(b)	(c)

Figure 1: Examples of a UA-Game’s user interface and content adaptation: (a) typical single-user game, (b) content enlargement and visual simplification, (c) audio-based game.

To illustrate the concept and prove the feasibility of UA-Games, two fully-functional games have been developed, which are both freely available on the Web: UA-Chess⁵, a two-player web-based chess game, and Access Invaders⁶, a multiplayer remake of Space Invaders.

The underlying vision of UA-Games is that through such games people will be able to have fun and compete on an equal basis, while interacting easily and effectively, irrespective of their individual characteristics, the deployed technologies, or the location of use.

At this point, it should be clarified that when referring to games that are universally accessible, it is meant that these games can be played by all people who can potentially play them but may currently be restrained from it due to game design flaws, not by everyone in the world. It is obvious that there will always be games that, due to their intrinsic characteristics, cannot be made accessible to a range of people (e.g., complex strategy games for the cognitive disabled), or when made accessible may have no meaning or interest for those people (e.g., a “find the song title from listening to a melody” game for a deaf).

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