Set your learning goal

You'll have the opportunity to bring your own unique background, goals, and learning needs to this course while you learn how to create more accessible games. Reflection will be an important foundation for this; honestly reflecting will help you identify where you are as a creator and where you want to go next.

In this tutorial, you’ll start by reflecting on your personal learning goals and how you plan to approach the challenges of this course. You’ll also prepare a development log (or reflective journal) to track your progress as you work through the course. The practice of keeping a reflective journal or log isn’t specific to developers — all sorts of creators and craftspeople do it to help track progress and reflect on their work.

Take a moment now to reflect on where you are right now as a creator by answering the questions below. Record your responses — you’ll include this in your development log.

Note: There are no right or wrong answers to these questions!

Intermediate creators

If you’re an intermediate creator, consider your answers to the following questions:

• Are you comfortable working independently, or are you still developing your confidence?
• Are you working alone, or are you on a team of collaborators?
• Are you working as a generalist across many areas of design and development, or are you focusing on a particular area of interest?
• Are you ready to work on your game proactively, or do you want a little more structure and support?

Curious beginners

If you are a curious beginner, consider your answers to the following questions:

• Are you at the very start of your journey as a creator, or getting close to intermediate level?
• Are you interested in a general introduction to game accessibility, or searching for practical guidance that you might be able to implement now?

More experienced creators

If you are a more experienced creator, consider your answers to the following questions:

• Are you interested in a general refresher, or focused on one area in particular?
• Are you open to exploring a case study, or searching for solutions to specific problems?

Your answers to these questions will help you determine your personal goal and support your decision-making as you define and plan your game.

In this practical course you’ll explore and extend Out of Circulation, the vertical slice that we created, but you’ll also have the opportunity to apply what you learn by creating your own game. That’s how you’ll develop the skills that will support you in making more accessible games.

A clear goal will help you get the most out of the course, wherever you are in your personal growth journey. Take some time now to consider what you want to achieve and how you’ll be approaching this course. Record your responses — you’ll include these in your development log too.

Consider the following questions as you set your personal goal:

• Do you want to focus on one or two high priority accessibility considerations in a simple project, or take a more comprehensive and ambitious approach?
• Do you want to work solo, or collaborate with a team?
• Do you want to work on a game just to support your learning, or create an outcome that you will share more widely?

Scope the difficulty level

When you prioritize accessibility from the very start of making a game, it’s not an additional challenge — it's a core part of making the best game that you can. However, prioritizing accessibility does require extra focus and commitment. As with any aspect of being a creator, there will be a learning curve as you develop new skills and gain experience.

If you choose to work on a complicated game with a lot of different accessibility considerations, you’ll be giving yourself a more challenging experience. This might be exactly what you want, but if you’re not quite ready for that challenge, it could become overwhelming.

If you’re not sure what game you want to work on yet, don’t worry — we’ll provide guidance on scoping a game idea with the right level of challenge.

A development log, or devlog, is an ongoing record of your progress on a project. Although some creators just compile a list of the things that they’ve done since the last time they updated the log, devlogs also often include evaluation and reflection on the project so far and the next steps.

Your devlog can take any format you choose, including handwritten journals, blogs, and videos. If you want to explore a range of examples, take some time to explore itch.io’s Developer Logs section or search for devlogs by creators that you admire.

To start your own devlog:

1. Choose a format that will work well for you. If your devlog will be digital, take the time now to set up your files or account.

2. Create an initial log entry that focuses on your self-reflection and personal learning goal.

3. Decide on an initial update schedule. You might decide to try to update your devlog on a weekly schedule, once for every project in this course, or use another approach that’s right for you. You can adapt this if you need to, but starting with a plan will help you to be consistent.

Accountability approaches can be a useful tool to help you keep learning when you’re balancing lots of different priorities. They’re also something that’s very personal — what works well for one person might not work at all for someone else.

Some options you might want to consider include the following:

• You could check in regularly with a group of friends who are also learning.
• You could schedule regular time in your calendar to go through the tutorials and work on your game.
• You could participate in a longer game jam (one month or more would be best) and create a project to submit to the jam.

Important: Sometimes you might need to set aside personal learning completely, and that’s absolutely okay. This course will still be here whenever you’re ready to come back to it.

Whatever your goals for this learning experience, we hope that Practical Game Accessibility helps you to achieve them!

In the next project, you’ll explore the inclusive design approach and key principles that will provide a foundation for the rest of the course and the game that you will create.