in the visual layer and game mechanics

Chapter 2. Representations of disability in the visual layer and game mechanics

In this part of the article, two very important contexts of gaming disability have been addressed. By analyzing how both characters with disabilities and the settings in which they can be found are presented to game users, we have indicated visual tropes and figures related to representations of disability. Furthermore, as games are not static visual environments to be admired passively, we have also aimed at pointing out in what ways disability is represented by means of deep game mechanics. Our goal was to investigate how active characters with disabilities are in the game environment, to what extent we can talk about their interactivity, and how closely game mechanics reflect the ways of being in the real world of people with disabilities.

It can be stated that in connection with the contexts of research on game characters distinguished in the literature on the subject, we have focused more on the ludological rather than narratological approach because it emphasizes the issues related to the rules of the gameplay and touches the process of playing itself. Therefore, we have indicated the contexts of characters related to what Schröter and Thon (2014, p. 49–50) called the “ludic experience” of the player who treats the characters in this approach as “elements of the game mechanics, as game pieces that are defined by game-related properties, such as ‘health points,’ ‘speed,’ ‘special abilities.’” On the other hand, the perspective of the character’s “playability” and interactivity and treating this character as a tool in the game also raise essential questions about the issue of simulation related to heroes with disabilities. As stated by Farris (2020, p. 178), simulation in disability studies is in disrepute because researchers see it as “an attempt to control or homogenize nonnormative identities [...] for giving a false or partial impression of what it is like to have a disability.” Nonetheless, the immanent feature of interactive characters in games are various forms of simulation, which is why we have investigated this issue in this section of the report.

Visual analysis of avatars with disabilities

This part focuses on the formulation of typology of visual representations of disability in games. This typology intends to identify popular visual figures related to disability, along with a critical view of the strategies for using these themes as visual metaphors of disability. These

figures are also a measure of the schematic representation of disability in games and visual “narrative prostheses,” as understood by Mitchell and Snyder (2001).

An elderly lady in a wheelchair

The stereotype of an elderly woman in a wheelchair has been known not only from video games but also from other forms of presentation. It seems to do much harm because it somewhat undermines not only the community of people with disabilities, and also bears negative links with ageism. This is an uncommon but quite specific theme in games because, most often, the image of an elderly woman in a wheelchair is applied when creating parody racing games. Therefore, it is used instrumentally and for a specific offensive comic effect, which is associated with disability. Such is the nature of the game by Fareeda Banu, withdrawn from the App Store, entitled Granny Racing, in which elderly women compete in wheelchairs on the racetrack. Save Granny by Sajwar Khizar employs a similar theme; the game uses the genre convention of the so-called endless runner—a game in which a player’s mission is to avoid obstacles in a continuous run. The game features an elderly lady in a wheelchair, who dodges cars on a busy street heading towards her. Electric Wheelchair Simulator 2020 by Deep Pocket has a similar character. A player controls an elderly woman in a wheelchair and again goes through busy streets, complicated paths, and ramps.

It seems that the most bizarre effect was caused when the discussed theme was used in

the convention of an educational game. A puzzling game called Granny Prix Multi-Player— Multiplication in witch the developers’ intention is to teach children multiplying in connection with racing characters in wheelchairs. The player-controlled character is an elderly lady whose appearance can be schematically determined at the beginning of the game by choosing the color of clothes, hair, or graphics on the wheelchair. This customization of a character is an example of an intensely stereotypical approach not only to age and disability but also to the color of the skin and a social group. The old lady may ultimately be a dark-skinned punk in a wheelchair in LGBTQ+ rainbow colors; however, the schematic nature of these solutions means that we are dealing here with grotesque visual reference to the representation of minorities. Then there is a race in which the granny wins the competition with other wheelchairs if a player gives the correct result of multiplication.

Shooter in a wheelchair

It is a visual figure which appears as both a playable character, an opponent, and a non-playable character. As narrative prostheses, these characters most often communicate a reference to the “old times”—characters in wheelchairs are usually older, forgotten by the world guardians of their territory. This is the case with Out-of-Date, a supporting character in Biomutant, who explains to the protagonist what happened to the game setting in the past. It can be indicated that Jardiniero in the Viva Piñata series exhibits similar features, even though he is not equipped with a weapon.

An interesting example of this type of character are also opponents in the game Bloodborne, known as the Wheelchair Huntsmen. These are the opponents equipped with various types of weapons, most frequently they move slowly around; however, in one version, they are able to ride a wheelchair at high speed. Their presence in the game raises discussions and doubts about their logic and ethical issues among the players. In posts concerning these characters in wiki services (https://bloodborne.fandom.com/wiki/Wheelchair_Huntsman), voices have been raised that the concept of opponents as elderly people moving quickly in wheelchairs is ridiculous, and a sniper in a wheelchair sounds funny, and so on. A player Scribe1995 feels discomfort when shooting at a “guy in a wheelchair.” Other players dispel his doubts by pointing out that these characters are not children, which would be more ethically challenging, or that “it is self-defense when a cackling geezer chases you around with a flame thrower.”

Sometimes characters of this type suffer from mental disorders, which should explain their distrust of strangers, agitation, and easy anger. Harman Smith, a character featured in Killer7, is slightly more complex in this case: he is a hitman on a wheelchair who is affected by “Multifoliate Personae Phenomenon”—a condition invented for the game that enables the hero to absorb the consciousness of the dead.

William Blazkowicz, who appears in the Wolfenstein series, is also a wheelchair shooter; in The New Colossus in one of the complex sequences he uses a wheelchair. Mechanics of this character have been discussed more extensively later in this chapter.

Male/female scientist in a wheelchair

The figure of a scientist in a wheelchair is also related to the theme of a wheelchair shooter. There are numerous representations of both male and female characters of this type. Their

extensive profile is often conveyed rather in the narrative layer of games, while in the visual layer, the heroine or hero is simply a person in a wheelchair without any special graphic distinguishing features. In a sense, the scientists represented in this way are, for example, Joker in the Mass Effect series, Barbara Gordon in the Batman: Arkham series, Professor X in the X-men series, or Jasper Guns in Overkill (until transformation into a monster). When a character is provided with a visual indication of a scientist’s profession, it seems then doubly stereotyped—next to a wheelchair, there are expressive but schematic graphic elements, such as glasses and an ID (Huey Emmerich in the Metal Gear Solid series, Richard Keller in Half-Life: Decay), an overall or apron (Dr. Finkelstein, among others, in the series of Disney games Kingdom Hearts), and a character even has the elongated skull. The image of Code Talker—a character featured in the Metal Gear Solid series—is slightly more visually developed. The protagonist is a Navajo biologist who uses a wheelchair, and instead of an apron, he wears more traditional clothes associated with the Native American community. Talker conducts experimental work on parasites which he applied to his own body. The cloudy eyes of the character indicate that these parasites have replaced many of his internal organs, including his eyesight. Due the support of parasites, Talker managed to live to over a hundred years.

A burly thug with an intellectual disability

Such a visual figure is also present in movies and comic books. These are characters with a low IQ, who most frequently appear as mass killers, and enemies with high damage power but low agility. An example of such a hero is Piggsy featured in Man Hunt, a sadistic thug who wears a mask made of a pig’s head. One of the opponents featured in Dead Rising, Theodore “Ted” Smith, with whom the main character has to face, was shaped in a similar way. He is a heavyset, impetuous psychopath whose only goal is to feed his tiger with the meat of defeated enemies. In numerous other games, whole classes of opponents are shaped according to the described pattern, for example, the so-called atomic men featured in Tormented Souls.

Max Hass, a character featured in Wolfenstein: The New Order and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, is created distinctively. Max is a positive character, a member of the resistance movement. He was born with severe brain damage; therefore, the doctors decided to remove a significant part of it. In the visual layer, the character has a pronounced skull deformation and a giant-sized body. Since the operation, Max has not spoken; he can only say his name and surname. Due to the extensive interpersonal relationships with other characters

presented in the dialogues of both mentioned games, this character has been discussed more thoroughly in the chapter devoted to the language layer.

Blind nemesis

This group of characters most often comprises protagonists who have lost their sight as a result of some act of aggression in the story and return as blind avenger. The visual attribute of the character, in this case, is a blindfold. Daredevil from the Marvel universe (even though he lacks a blindfold), Kenshi in Mortal Combat, General Rahm Kota from the Star Wars universe, as well as Con Smith in Killer7 (who wears a red bandanna covering his eyes) belong to this group. These characters possess developed, particularly sensitive hearing or other forms of technological or organic echolocation and are often utterly fast.

Antagonists with deep deformities

This group incorporates examples of opponents of the main male or female character, who are to threaten with profoundly deformed bodies. Diane Carr has already addressed the problem of these deformities as an expressive emblem of disability (2020). While studying the game entitled Dead Space, the author wrote about the “abject bodies” of undead monsters present in the game, which symbolize disability as a major threat. These deformed bodies as excesses and the root of terror can be found in other games. Little Nightmares and Very Little Nightmares, two games with a similar setting, connected by the heroine—a little girl in a yellow coat,6 feature numerous deformed antagonists. They are supposed to awe with their bodies. In the former game, the girl is threatened by the Janitor—a blind man with monstrously long arms, the Twin Chefs with deformed faces, and extremely obese Guests. The latter features the Craftsman, also with very long arms and legs, who is permanently in a wheelchair, and the constantly hunched over Butler. Even more ghoulish images of physical disability are featured in Tormented Souls, in which the main protagonist’s opponents are, for example, monsters in wheelchairs described as elderly people with dementia, who have become victims of inhuman experiments—their eyes with cataracts have been removed, and resonating “forks” have been implanted instead in their heads, thanks to which they know where the sound is coming from and attack this place with grotesque clawed arms. The other

6 Although both characters are remarkably similar to one another, fansites claim that they are different persons: the protagonist of Little Nightmares is the Girl Six, and of Very Little Nightmares—the Girl in a Yellow Coat.

opponents, Acid Spitters, are former doctors who have removed their digestive and vascular systems, replacing them with an acid reservoir. The Spitters have no legs, but they can strike the opponent with spit acid and claws made of surgical steel. Furthermore, Slashers are a group of former doctors who have gone insane and started experimenting on their own bodies. These procedures resulted in brain implants amputations of hands replaced with blades and scalpels. The appearances of the enemies in the described game resemble the effect of the medical discourse on disability intensified to the point of absurdity. Its medicalization was most frequently associated with the desire to repair the “defective” body, while in the game, the experiment has turned towards monstrosity, which has here become a visual symbol of the absurd of the medical approach to physical forms of disability.

A wheelchair as a “household appliance”

Disability-related visuals do not have to relate to character representations only. In several games, a wheelchair appears as a piece of equipment belonging to the player’s environment. In the horror movie entitled Granny, a player hiding from the main character—a killer elderly lady, may come across a wheelchair in one of the locations (a prison cell), and, which is also characteristic of several other games, cannot be moved. It is a permanent element of the surroundings, which, on the one hand, is to deepen the dark atmosphere of the room, and on the other hand, it is a place where a player can hide from the opponent. Symbolically, a wheelchair is here an old, unused piece of equipment covered with cobwebs, which is clearly associated with unfriendly space and a feeling of discomfort and danger.

A wheelchair featured in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a popular game with a nice and fairytale atmosphere, should not bear negative associations. Nonetheless, the representation of a wheelchair is also problematic because it is a stationary device which can only be placed at home, to sit in, but without the possibility of moving. It simply functions as a piece of furniture that can be bought in the store and adapted in a color that suits the player. What is even more bizarre, the wheelchair can be given as a gift in exchange for another present. An attempt to “activate” this wheelchair appeared in the community of Animal Crossing players. A user suffering from a movement disorder, famous activist Sam Bosworth, adapted the wheelchair in the game to the appearance of his real one, which sparked a very lively discussion on Reddit (DrBozzyBee, n.d.) about the sense of placing this equipment in the game and the needs of the community of people with disabilities regarding the representation of disability in the game setting.

Disability mechanics analysis

Here, we have attempted at showing in what ways the game developers deal with creating disability mechanics. In the digital medium of games, these mechanics attempt to imitate the ways people with physical disabilities move, simulate the ways of communicating and perceiving surroundings by people with visual or hearing impairments, as well as people with a wide range of cognitive limitations. It is not a simple undertaking. Despite great possibilities of creating realistic simulations and graphic representations in games, their creators use various schemes and simplifications, which are influenced both by decisions related to the choice of the genre of games and their narrative background, as well as the attitude towards disability itself. Disability is frequently treated instrumentally as a “visual attraction” or is supposed to evoke a feeling of fear and threat.

From the research sample under study, we have chosen those games for a more extensive discussion in which mechanics of various forms of disability appear. We have sought to point to those elements of the selected games which indicate in what way the structure and procedures of the gameplay are related to specific aspects of disability.

Disability as an element of character customization

The above-discussed customization of the elderly lady in Granny Prix Multi-Player—Multiplication is a great example of how the simplified possibilities in this respect associated with a given game can stereotype disability in a highly negative way. In other games, this can also be an issue. Alayna Cole and Dakoda Barker (2021: 86-87) indicated that in Sea of Thieves (Rare 2018), a player has the option to adapt the character to the appearance of a typical pirate, that is, replace his hand with an appealing hook, put on an eyepatch, implement a wooden leg, and so on; however, a player can return to the previous appearance of the character at any time. In this way, the signs of disability are misrepresented here as “clothing” accessories that can be switched on and off. The possibility of changing prostheses in the case of the protagonist of the Metal Gear Solid series requires similar criticism. The main character, Venom Snake, has lost his arm on the battlefield; it has been replaced with a bionic prosthesis in the fifth part of the game entitled Phantom Pain. During the gameplay, these prostheses can be changed, and each of them has different combat capabilities. Again, using the prosthesis resembles an activity of getting dressed. And even though this part of the game includes numerous references to disability, and also other characters (for example, Kazuhira Miller, Snake’s comrade) suffer from wounds sustained in combat, the entire context of disability

is another narrative prosthesis here. Furthermore, conscious planning of Snake’s disability by the game developers is questionable. According to the Metal Gear fandom, a lead game developer, Hideo Kojima, indicated in his project notes that the decision about the hero’s disability was made early in the production of Phantom Pain. Snake was not supposed to have the two fingers of his other hand. All these decisions were to increase the range of possibilities of the character (“Venom Snake’s Bionic Arm,” n.d.). Thus, we are dealing here not only with prostheses in the narrative layer of the game but with the “purposefulness” of disability and its conscious design at the level of character mechanics. This “usability” of disability also translates into the commercialization of Snake’s prosthesis: its replicas in various sizes are offered in fan shops as gadgets to buy.

It is noteworthy that the focus of Phantom Pain on amputation and prostheses translated into Konami’s collaboration with a leading prosthesis designer—Sophie De Oliviera Barata, who developed a game-inspired prosthesis for James Young, a player whose arm and leg were amputated in the aftermath of an accident (“Konami Helping Engineers Create Bionic Arm for Amputee with ‘The Phantom Limb Project,’” 2015).

Mechanics of prostheses and limb dysfunctions

When discussing prostheses, it is noteworthy to point to a few examples of games the designers of which undertook to develop specific mechanics related to them. Overwatch features many heroes with multiple forms of disability; however, only one character, Junkrat, has mechanics in which disability is somewhat visible. The hero uses a “pirate” prosthetic leg and visibly limps, and is slower than other characters on the battlefield.

Among the numerous users of prostheses in games, the protagonist featured in Blood Will Tell, Hyakkimaru, deserves mention. The game, based on the famous manga “Dororo” by Osamu Tezuka, employs the theme of a specific hero with disabilities. Hyakkimaru has been deprived of many parts of his body by demons and strives to recover them throughout the plot. Visual representation of these deficiencies is the use of two swords embedded in the hero’s arms or the use of a bazooka hidden in his knee. Due to the fact that the character

has magical powers in the game, representation of disability is treated only as a visual attribute—a player smoothly switches between the “able-bodied” and “disabled” hero mode in the mechanics layer.

A special character after the entire arm amputation is Baiken, featured in the Guilty Gear series. The game is an example of the genre of the so-called fighting games in which two

characters face each other in direct confrontation. Visually, Baiken’s hallmark is a wide sleeve that flutters in the wind and covers the lack of arm. In-game character animations focus on one-handed combat, but mechanics of the character deal with an interesting move because this sleeve is the place where various weapons, such as a mace, a fan with blades, a spear, a hook, a claw or a chain, appear. Mechanics of the character are specific because the use of hidden weapons and prostheses is associated with the so-called combos, that is, a special combination of hits triggered by an appropriate sequence of keys.

An interesting instance of the limbs with dysfunction in terms of mechanics is Xenoblade Chronicles. The game features Dunban, who wields a powerful sword; however, this weapon causes almost complete paralysis of his right hand. Therefore, the hero has to learn to fight with the left hand and acquire new skills related to it.

Lisa is yet another intriguing example of a game with successful mechanics representing behavior of a character after amputation of limbs. In spite of using only simplified pixel graphics in the game, the creators managed to develop a system in which a player has to decide whether the heroine loses one or two hands during the gameplay or manages to save them. Depending on the choice, Lisa’s combat mechanics change.

Mechanics of a wheelchair

We have sought to discuss mechanics related to the representation of wheelchair riding taken from the selected games, namely Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Wheelchair Simulator.

The New Colossus comprises an extensive sequence in which the main character of the game, William Blazkowicz, after severe injuries in combat and a 5-month coma, is in a wheelchair, from which he then fights against the Nazi soldiers. This sequence shows how greatly simplified the mechanics of riding a wounded Blazkowicz’s wheelchair is— the wheelchair easily overcomes very high thresholds between rooms; it is hardly visible that these thresholds exist at all. The hero freely maneuvers his wheelchair with one hand while shooting at opponents with the other. Another footage shows Blazkowicz simply riding his wheelchair down the high stairs in a bizarre way, and yet another as he climbs up in his wheelchair along two steeply arranged pipes. Moving in the wheelchair, the hero also effortlessly rides over the bodies of killed enemies. To strengthen the pseudo-credibility of these mechanics, the game features a scene in which the hero falls off his wheelchair and has to climb onto it with difficulty. More reliable mechanics of overcoming obstacles are visible only in non-interactive cutscenes between game

levels (for example, one of the side characters, Set Roth, helps Blazkowicz ride over one of such thresholds).

Wheelchair Simulator is defined as an important game presenting the issue of disability. It deserves special attention due to the availability of its version for VR devices. The use of virtual reality is of particular importance for the problem of simulation in relation to disability because a game user plays the role of a person in a wheelchair, and the game creators described the gameplay as facing transportation problems by people with such disabilities. The narrator of the game is a Ukrainian, Dmytro Schebetyuk, in a wheelchair himself. His utterances during the gameplay have been discussed more thorough in the chapter on linguistic communication; here, it only needs to be indicated that the participation of a “real” person with disabilities is to strengthen the credibility of the game. Meanwhile, the mechanics of the character controlled by a player have a rather conventional and “entertaining” nature. It seems that the developers have not attempted at precisely reflecting the life of a person in a wheelchair but rather have given a player a set of quite difficult levels with accumulated obstacles and missions, many elements of which are quite funny. This creates certain cognitive dissonance because as players we would expect a real disability simulator, which Dmytro authenticates, and we have got a game focused on agility with very simplified elements of the setting or the character.

Visually, the game departs from the realism that is achievable for video games. In the mechanics layer, the character falls unrealistically off the wheelchair when hit by vehicles and is able to knock over other passers-by, who bounce off a few meters upon impact. Admittedly, the wheelchair responds to obstacles by wobbling or tipping over them; however, the effects of the physics of the setting are exaggerated. A player has to deal with missions which would not be encountered in real life—he smashes densely set equipment and furniture on the road with his wheelchair, rides across the road between speeding cars, which an able-bodied person would not dare to cross, trespassed on the construction site where the entry is forbidden for anyone. This very conventional approach to building the character’s environment and missions in the game corresponds strongly to frequent accusations by certain disability researchers that, in numerous instances, we are dealing with a simulation distorting disability. The problem with Wheelchair Simulator is particularly visible when following the game videos recorded by several YouTubers. They have had fun with a game that requires real physical effort in the VR version, and they have appreciated the mission of the game, which is to support a foundation that helps people in wheelchairs. Nonetheless, they also have had the mistaken idea that they already know what problems people with motor disabilities face.

Mechanics of visual impairment

From among a large number of characters with visual impairments, four groups with specific mechanics associated with them deserve distinction.

Primarily, attention should be paid to audio games as a genre addressed to blind people, and simultaneously, the one in which the controlled characters are frequently also visually impaired. BlindSide, kept in a horror convention, features Case, a university lecturer who has lost his eyesight for unknown reasons one day and woken up in a city overrun by mysterious creatures devouring people. During the gameplay, the hero has to save himself and his fiancée and solve the mystery of the apocalypse around him. In Three Monkeys, the game which gives insight into life in Byzantium, a player controls Tobar— the hero who was born blind. The protagonist of Papa Sangre gets to a world of complete darkness after his death. Blind Legend features a blind knight, Edward Blake. All these characters are usually controlled in a traditional way, that is, they can move in different directions, frequently fight or defend themselves. Due to the fact that games of this type are entirely devoid of graphics, a player has to react only to sounds generated in 3D audio format; therefore, the entire mechanics of the gameplay are subordinated to the audio track.

The second group consists of characters of typical games with a visual layer, but those who use either skills or technology which replace their eyesight during the gameplay. Therefore, the mechanics of the characters undertake to reflect these methods of compensating for the lack of vision. One such example is Daredevil, a hero from the Marvel comic book universe, present in numerous games since the 1980s, but only in a few of them actually shown as blind. Daredevil, with his keen sense of hearing which he developed to the level of vision-replacing echolocation, is most often shown as an “ordinary” superhero with all the possibilities of able-bodied protagonists. One exception is The Punisher from 2005, featuring non-interactive video sequences in which the protagonist, who is a lawyer in everyday life, hides his superhuman abilities by using a white cane.

On the other hand, in the 2015 fighting game Marvel: Contest of the Champions, certain animated sequences of the attacks explicitly show that the hero is not looking at the opponent, but listening, and echolocation is graphically “visible.”

The game entitled Perception operates a much more developed system of mechanics related to echolocation. The blind heroine, Cassie Thornton, while moving through dark monochromatic corridors and corners of the mansion, “sees” only those objects, phenomena, and

characters that make sounds. The way the character moves is also connected with echolocation mechanics because the heroine can deliberately get familiar with the place by tapping her cane. Then the immediate surroundings appear for a moment.

In games, unequivocally negative associations seem to accompany quite numerous characters of blind opponents, most often the strongest ones, called bosses. The game developers frequently refer to the mechanics of sound reaction of such heroes if a player’s character is close to them. In such a situation, blind opponents attack when they hear where the player’s hero is. This often happens with a slight delay, during which a player can either avoid being hit or hide somewhere. Such mechanics related to blindness present this form of disability explicitly as negative—an encounter with a blind person leads to loss of health or death. The sequences of battles with the bosses, namely the Adjudicator and the Old Hero, featured in Demon’s Souls were arranged in this way. In the horror Little Nightmares, several sequences are related to the above-mentioned blind Janitor, from whom the heroine seeks to escape. In extended sequences, the girl silently sneaks behind his back or tries to avoid the character’s monstrously long hands moving in the dark.

The third group, perhaps the most unique, comprises blind animals. The presence of animal characters in games which relate somewhat to the problem of disability is a broader issue, and other parts of the report address a variety of protagonists of this type. In the case of blind animals, character mechanics need to take into consideration both the context of disability and the specificity of animal behavior (even though these animals are frequently anthropomorphized). Such an animal is also Badu, a member of the inhuman race, featured in Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator; the creature has no eyes and uses organic radar, as the game developers called it. Moreover, a blind animal character is Seath the Scaleless, an albino dragon featured in Dark Souls. A less unreal animal is blind Grizzle Face, a bear that appears in Sly 2. Band of Thieves. This character is associated with a specific type of stigmatizing mechanics. The bear is insultingly and instrumentally treated from the very beginning by the main characters of the game (also animals)—they refer to him as an old animal that is ignored by the guards because of his blindness and necrotic nerves. Nonetheless, due to the fact that the bear uses the sense of smell, this character can be employed by the main protagonist to smash the elements of the surroundings and attack enemies that he can locate by the smell of fish thrown at them.

Mechanics of hearing impairment

The game The Quiet Man features a deaf protagonist. A player controls a deaf boy who attempts to find a singer kidnapped by a masked aggressor. During the game, the hero wanders through the dark streets of the city and fights against the members of the underworld. In the mechanics layer, we deal with a rather traditional action game. However, choosing the protagonist, the developers aimed at reflecting his way of perceiving the surroundings; therefore all sounds appearing in various locations are very muffled and become unrecognizable.

Players’ attention was also drawn to the game entitled Moss for VR systems, in which Quill, a mouse, uses American sign language. A player can control the mouse to solve puzzles in the game and move to further locations. Sign language messages, however, are a supplementary element here—the character formulates clues and expresses emotional states by signing; however, the knowledge of sign language is not particularly needed to participate in the game. Nonetheless, the use of ASL by the heroine was very warmly received by the gaming community and proves her uniqueness.

Among other deaf protagonists in games, Hailey Cooper featured in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales deserves attention; the character has been presented more extensively in the chapter on the linguistic aspects of games. A small attempt to use sign language in the game Tacoma is also noteworthy. The main female character uses it, for example, when entering a password to a computer (which is capable of recognizing her gestures). Serious games addressed to deaf people need to be mentioned, particularly Deafverse, which, according to the developers, is aimed at preparing deaf teenagers to fight for their rights at school and at work and to shape their interpersonal skills.

Mechanics of mental disability and neurodiversity

It appears quite difficult to incorporate mental disability and neurodiversity in the mechanics layer, as diseases of this type often do not exhibit external symptoms. The unique way of representing schizophrenia in the game entitled Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is undoubtedly worth noting; the developers have undertaken to reflect the presence of different voices/ personalities in the head of the main character. Mechanics of this internal polylogue have been discussed more thorough in the chapter devoted to the language layer of games. Due to the fact that the autism spectrum and Asperger syndrome are also quite often represented in the dialogues and the text layer of games, further examples of this type (Josh Sautchak in Watch Dog 2, Max Hass in the Wolfenstein series, Symmetry in Overwatch) have been

discussed in the “language” chapter. Nonetheless, these instances indicate that it is easier to represent this type of disability through linguistic messages than mechanics.

Special mechanics have been presented in Auti-sim, which belongs to the group of the so-called serious games. The developers of the game have sought to simulate the perception of the surroundings and the reception of visual and auditory stimuli of a child with autism. There is one location in the game—a playground where a group of children plays. They are portrayed as static, identical 3D models without clear details; perhaps the developers intended to illustrate problems with reading facial expressions by people with the autism spectrum. The protagonist of the game, seen in the first-person perspective (view from his eyes), can hear the standard “sounds” of the playground—screeches and yells, reciting the alphabet, when approaching children. Nonetheless, getting closer to the shapes causes the intensification of both auditory and visual stimuli. The noise becomes unbearable, and the picture becomes fuzzy and flickery—full of visual noise. The only chance for the audiovisual layer to “calm down” is distancing from the children. A player naturally looks for a secluded place in the playground to shelter from the excess of stimuli. It can be said that the moment the player realizes that the playground has a closed structure, a place with no way out, is an intense experience. It needs to be highlighted that the game does not portray autism as a whole (difficulties with social interaction and communication, restricted behavior) but focuses mainly on the atypical perception of the world through the senses, which very often accompanies autism, in this case on too intensive sensing stimuli and consequences of sensory overload.

While the gaming community has appreciated the effort of developing the game, it should be considered a metaphor for autism, not a detailed simulation. The players with autism spectrum have argued how well the game has reflected their experiences. Some have claimed that these are their real feelings, while others that the spectrum of autism is broad and the perception of the surroundings does not always look like in the game. Voices have been raised that the sound layer is plausible; however, the visual stimuli reaching particular autistic people may differ. The users are right because autism is a spectrum, which means that it is slightly different for each person. This raises a great difficulty in presenting this comprehensive developmental disorder, which is why the developers probably concentrated on the sensory issues that are relatively recognizable by the environment or identified with autism.

From the narrative side, Max: an Autistic Journey is also an interesting project, which translates into a well-thought-out layer of game mechanics; the game has been discussed in the chapter devoted to game narratives.

In the context of mechanics related to mental disabilities, Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy deserves mention. The game features a sequence in a psychiatric hospital for particularly dangerous criminals (Bellevue Asylum). The protagonist conducts her investigation there, during which there is a power cut and all patients get out. The heroine has to escape from them to a safe part of the hospital. The halls of psychiatric hospitals are mostly depicted negatively in games, and this is true in this game as well. Patients are shown as beasts resembling zombies. Nonetheless, the most interesting is that the game creators /developers have built special fear mechanics in this sequence, which deepen the negative perception of people with mental disabilities. The heroine, sneaking past the criminals, gets hysterical and terrified; therefore the player’s mission is to balance the indicator responsible for these emotions in order to calm down the character. Only then can she survive.

Activist modding mechanics

The graphic elements of the game setting and its mechanics addressed in this chapter have been presented so far as the effect of the actions and decisions of the developers. Nonetheless, video games provide the option of involving players in the creation of the game content, which may be particularly important in the case of disability underrepresentation. The range of possibilities for creating the game content is very diverse. Players can create new maps and levels for the games using the editors implemented in them. In numerous instances, it is possible to significantly modify the game by providing players with the game code, which results in advanced modifications that allow for adding new types of weapons, items, and buildings, as well as game modes and narrative missions.

Here, we have analyzed the case of the reaction of the gaming community to the lack of disability representation in one of the games. The game in question is The Sims series, which can be briefly described as a set of simulators of everyday life. Players have a fairly advanced option to choose a character whose life they manage in the game, starting from gender, race, appearance, and creating character’s surroundings to developing the professional path or shaping family relations. The series has been developed since 2000 and comprises numerous expansion packs and subsequent parts. Despite this fact, and even though the essence of the game is the representation of everyday life and social relations, it is very difficult to find aspects related to disability in it. The long-term failure to incorporate the issue of disability by the game developers at Maxis Studios sparked a discussion in the gaming community, who treated the absence of disability in games as a specific deficiency and defect.

The change in approach resulted in numerous mods to the game as new elements of the surroundings and characters, such as hand prostheses, eyepatches, scars, or wheelchairs, the color of which can be changed. There were even cataract eyes or a guide dog. The players have pointed out that it is much more difficult to implement mental disabilities in the game. Russie Wright, suffering from fibromyalgia, deliberated in “Why We Need Disability Representation in The Sims 4” (Wright, 2019) how to represent invisible forms of disability in the game. In the discussion in the comments below the text, the Internet users argued that the set of features and indicators assigned to them, which already exist in the game, allow for the representation of mental disabilities. And one of the modders—miceylulu from Mode the Sims community, together with his acquaintance with Asperger syndrome, developed a simulation of selected behaviors for a Sim related to this disorder, such as total concentration on a favorite thing or activity or overstimulation. The set of parameters assigned to characters with Asperger syndrome is well thought out and extensive here—for example, the indicators of friendship and romantic relationships increase slower and decrease faster, the character has a higher indicator of logical thinking, loses energy faster, it is more difficult to raise a character’s charisma indicator, and a character has a different set of hormones, the so-called moods. The features of Sims have been shaped in a similar way in other mods concerning various social phobias and even aquaphobia.

Nonetheless, these noble and activist actions of the gaming community are not able to compensate for the lack of representation of disability in the basic game project. As Danielle M. Marascalchi wrote in “Where Are the Disabled Sims?” (2020), the problem with disability mods is that they are unofficial, unregulated, and completely voluntarily created. There are numerous which offer simplified and underdeveloped solutions. They require a longer search, and the very idea of mods that need to be installed additionally can be a significant limitation for less technically gifted players. Disability in The Sims thus seems to be doubly excluded—it is absent in the basic game and presented via mods may reach a limited number of users.

Under the pressure of the gaming community, Maxis Studio announced that they are considering the implantation of various aspects of disability in the game but wish to do it carefully so that these issues do not raise controversy and do not offend the community of people with disabilities. One idea is to introduce an ASL-like sign language to the game. The future shows how these declarations will be fulfilled.

Visual representations and mechanics of disability in games discussed in this chapter are frequently found to be negative solutions as they reinforce the stigmatization of disability and intensify players’ ambivalent attitudes towards it. Due to the choices made by the game developers, the characters with disabilities appear to players as dangerous, to be avoided, and even frightening and disgusting. They are often characters that the game design itself puts in the role of the player’s tools, depriving them of their subjectivity. Among the attempts to overcome these unfavorable tendencies, the selected games which tackle sensory and cognitive disabilities deserve attention because representing the specificity of disability is a considerable challenge in this case and involves the risk of misunderstanding from players. The games such as Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Ether One, or Perception, however, give a sense that this type of risk can result in a new, unusual way of gameplay and translate into high ratings from users.

Visually, disability, mainly physical, is frequently an attractive attribute, not an element of everyday life. Following the narrative prosthesis, it becomes a visual prosthesis because, thanks to it, the game developers can provide players with new combat mechanics or make the character’s image more attractive. In a symbolic way, the game developers become conscious creators of disability—they mutilate the characters at the stage of building their concept in order to obtain specific benefits.