Michael Heron's Blog
My name is Michael Heron, and I'm a lecturer at Robert Gordon University. This page serves as a container for all the various things with which I'm involved. My research interests are accessibility, games, and especially accessibility in games. You can find links to my published academic work here.
I am also the owner, admin and lead developer of Epitaph: a text-based MMO set in the grim darkness of the zombie apocalypse.
I am also the editor for Meeple Like Us, a board game blog with a strong focus on the accessibility of tabletop games.
Member Blogs
There are lots of excellent design lessons to be learned from all kinds of board games. This is a list of ten games that contain especially useful features that tabletop game designers should try to emulate.
We often have to confront issues of unethical behaviour in game coverage. The way we do that is important. Sweeeping things under the rug makes things worse, but proportionality matters. Here are my thoughts on the topic.
There is often a demand for reviewers to be transparent with how long, or how many times, they have played the game. I don't think that's helpful. This blog post outlines why that is.
You can't have fun without inaccessibility. It's an iron law of play. That has implications for game design and accessibility advocacy, and it's the subject of this post.
Meeple Like Us is three years old now. In this post we reflect on what we've found, where we've been, and where we're going.
Is the battle for board game accessibility an unwon cause, or an unwinnable cause? I don't know the answer, and I invite you to join me in my own uncertain search for an answer.
Michael Heron's Comments
Comment In:
[Blog - 08/17/2018 - 06:42]
I think it 's uncomfortable ...
I think it 's uncomfortable territory - if you 're already flirting with the idea that Patreon is a kind of crowdsourced welfare something I hear a fair bit it only intensifies the unease to open up and talk about it. Kickstarters are usually an easier sell - 'give me ...
Comment In:
[Blog - 07/29/2016 - 10:38]
Hi there - sorry, missed ...
Hi there - sorry, missed this at the time r n r nIt 's definitely true there is nothing specific about hunting around for words/environment hooks that is a problem, but in my experience this was almost always unintended. I don 't recall many people, during my time coding collaboratively ...
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[Blog - 08/10/2016 - 12:12]
Cool - who were you ...
Cool - who were you on DW MUD I was Drakkos there was a Lord, IIRC correctly, at the height of the Quest List Wars . r n r nThere certainly was an ingrained opposition to the idea of cheating in all its forms, but I don 't think it ...
