itch.io

This is brilliant fun. For one-button / one-switch players who struggle with more controls, I wish you could activate "CONTINUE" with a key-too on PC (e.g. SPACE BAR). Then an accessibility switch could easily be set-up for players, rather than having to mess about with JoyToKey.

Superb though!

Nice one, Jason. I've blogged a bit on it,

https://switchgaming.blogspot.com/2023/07/love-tester-3d.html

and have added to the One Switch 100 musuem (room 1): 

Best love tester on the internet! Great work Jason. Would be very nice to have a full-screen option (ALT+Enter to toggle perhaps).

That's a really handy link. Thanks for that Foppygames. Appreciated. Turned this 2003 competition one-button up too: https://web.archive.org/web/20041020195436/http://forum.qbasicnews.com/viewtopic... - I wonder if there was no prize ever awarded though for the 2004 Blitzcoder compo. I assume "Specis"  is not OddBob from RetroRemakes, although looks a bit similar.  

Fair enough. I thought it unlikely, but worth a punt. Time flies! Do you remember much about that Blitz Coder competition in 2004? How was it first made known do you know? Any idea if anyone won it? 

https://web.archive.org/web/20040520184831/http://www.blitzcoder.com/cgi-bin/sho...

10 years later, great to discover this. Any chance of making a one-switch / one-key version, as with the original? Great little game, and so unique in the one-switch field.

Ooo. Chill Balloon World Tour. I like it. A lot.

Thanks, Leafo.

Firstly, bravo to Itch.io for including accessibility criteria that can be searched on.

Unfortunately for the one button area: https://itch.io/games/accessibility-one-button - far too many people misunderstand what a one-button game is. The section is jammed packed with inaccessible games for many one-switch / one-button players.

It should be possible to start, play, and restart using one-single button. Nothing else. No mouse pointer movement. Nothing. 

SPACE BAR / LEFT-CLICK / PRESS-ANY-KEY / CLICK-ANYWHERE..... but no need to move the mouse pointer once you start the game. Is there any chance this can be made clear to people who keep labelling their games incorrectly?

Thank you, very kind. Much appreciated. :)

I noticed that if you click on the menu options with a mouse, it seems to kill the game. If there's a chance of getting this fixed, it would be appreciated.

Also wondered, if you would be okay with this excellent game also being hosted at OneSwitch library of one-switch games, with me linking back here? 

https://oneswitch.org.uk/art.php?id=28

No worries if not, but I'd love to share it a little wider.

BTW, I quite like that you can do that.... but I'd prefer it didn't crash my computer.

Small bug. If you jump over the very last target area on the last level, you can fall down to infinity, and then (I assume related) I got a blue screen of death.

I loved One Button Peggle. Certainly deserves plaudits. 

Thank you. Much appreciated

Fantastic one-button / one-switch game. Was wondering if you would mind me linking to it from here: https://www.oneswitch.org.uk/art.php?id=28 - in the low pressure area for accessibility switch users.

And maybe mirroring the hosting, but encouraging people to donate to you? No worries if not.

Congratulations again.

Barrie.

OneSwitch.org.uk

Good on you for entering the competition, and making something unique.

My suggestion for making Phoune Clicker truly one-button accessible, would be to forget about moving the mouse pointer anywhere. Just left-click or SPACE BAR to play. 

Then make clicking do more interesting things, with things happening after every 10 presses or so. Make them really clear. That would make a one-switch / one-button accessible activity to fit in with the competition rules. Still worth doing, I'd say.

Best wishes,

Barrie

OneSwitch.org.uk

Hugely impressed by the variety of entries. Some real passion and imagination here. Well done all, and thank you to all who organised this. You're all winners in my book.

Barrie

OneSwitch.org.uk

Good on you.

People may find it hard to download the Windows version as a .exe file. Also, seems to crash on my Windows 10 machine once playing. Looks interesting though.

Big improvements. Well done. Very pleasant game, and very relaxing.

Some more thoughts.

1. PLANT SELECTION problem. To start the game you have to hold LEFT-CLICK for a long-time. This goes against the competition rules. Two ways to overcome this. Click to cycle through the three plants. After the first click... when you stop clicking a timer ticks-down (maybe just use the progress bar in reverse), and when it reaches zero that option is chosen.

Or, press once (and release) to start the plant options cycling automatically. When you press again (and release), that selects and starts the game.

2. HARD TO READ FONT.  A lot of the text is hard to read, depending on the weather/time-of-day, and where the text is. If you can, a white outline would really help.

3. Small grammatical mistake, I believe with "Your plant grew to bore the fruit of.....". Should be "Your plant grew to bear the fruit of...."

Love it. Some thoughts.

1. Full screen doesn't work for me. Not in Chrome.

2. Any-key to play is great, but that should work too for the menu select system.

3. Wish there was more in-game progression. E.g. clear one screen to go to the next. Or at least, have the target balls reappear when you clear them all.

4. A download PC / Mac version would be great.

5. Would be nice to have symbols for Play (VCR play symbol), Settings (cog or spanner symbol), and quit (European EXIT sign)... for those who can't read. Ideally symbols/graphics for the other options too.

Fun game.

Very nice, gentle platformer. A couple of thoughts.

1. Making it playable with left-click and/or the space bar, would help it work with more assistive technology.

2. Occasionally there are some fast jumps needed. I'm not sure if you're able to solve this issue for some players. Perhaps, if they continually fail, helping them in some way? Or have that as an option.

Fun idea. But not true one-button. You should be able to start it, play it, restart it, with one-button alone (e.g. SPACE BAR or Left-click). No need to move the mouse pointer, or your finger to a different position. 

Nice improvements. Good work. :)

Good improvement, but asking the user to press ENTER stops it being a one-button game.

Ideally, allow the game to be played using the SPACE BAR and/or LEFT-CLICK alone. No need to press anything else. No need to move a mouse pointer. No need for keys.

It might be nice to allow the user to skip the intro too, as once you've seen it once, you might want to get straight into the game.

On the full-screen option, bear in mind that the most able switch users may be using a mouse emulator. It would be good to offer a clickable way to go back to windowed mode. 

Nearly! But because you have to move the pointer position, this is no longer a true one-button game.

Ideally the game should be possible to start, play, and restart, using SPACE BAR alone, or left-click in a fixed position (ideally, a very large target area - but no need to move the position of your finger X-Y co-ordinates wise). Hope it's not too late for you to fix this. 

Brilliant. I really like the purity, and mellow nature of it.

You may find Jet Stream Trader of interest: https://oneswitch.org.uk/art.php?id=114

I like this, although I think for the competition rules, it does require fast presses and reactions at times. A few possible improvements.

1. To restart the game, don't make the player have to click the centre box. Perhaps pause for 2 seconds, then allow the user to click anywhere to restart. Also, if you have SPACE BAR as your control, you should be able to restart the game using SPACE BAR too.

2. Sound effects can be nice to boost comprehension. That said, I do personally like the quietness of the game. 

3. Perhaps a speed control, to make much easier for players with slower reaction speeds.

Quite an addictive little game.

Lovely idea and implementation. Two thoughts for improving further.

1.  Allow additionally for SPACE BAR and/or LEFT-CLICK (perhaps an enlarged area bottom left where it says FLAME ON / OFF), to control the flame. Those will work with the majority of assistive technology for switch users. it would also help eye-gaze users too.

2. The Windows download doesn't seem to have a full-screen option. It would be good to allow the user to toggle between windowed/full-screen via an on-screen option at the menu screen perhaps.

Very nice, but this is not a one-button game, as you have to move a pointer about. The game should be possible to start, play, and restart using a single button (e.g. SPACE BAR, or the left-click with no need to move the pointer).

Excellent improvements.

I like the swarm of attackers. Good idea. Making that optional a very good idea for players unable to deal with the pressure. On that front...

...to really bump up the accessibility of the game for users with very slow reactions, you might want to also add a difficulty slider for the black-hole frequency, from none to what you have now.

High-contrast mode a nice option (maybe use the TV contrast symbol for that. I would suggest that your space ship should be more prominent in high-contrast. If I blur my eyes, I find it hard to work out where my craft is.

Still think it would be good to have a sound effect for when you press SPACE BAR/Left-click. Even if just a gentle blip. Helps understanding.

I still think the master volume is unnecessary clutter. 

Nice!

Interesting. Don't forget, if you're forcing the user to interact with the voting, by changing the X-Y coordinates of their finger, then it's no longer a proper one button game.

However, it would work with iOS and Android switch scanning, so you're there in some ways. But if you want the nice web-browser version to work too, you may want to consider integrating scan-and-select. Where the options are manually scanned through (with a highlighter of some sort perhaps), and you select the one you want by tapping the screen anywhere (or pressing the SPACE BAR).

Some nice work there. A few more thoughts.

1. SPACE BAR and LEFT-CLICK: It would be better for anyone using a mouse (or mouse emulator) if you could use LEFT-CLICK to play. It would be more intuitive for such users. I do like that once the game has started, it's easy to RESTART and play again. That should be the same for Space BAR, and Left-click use. You shouldn't have to move the pointer to do that.

2. Front end MENU is all text: Same problem as before for people who cannot read English. Possible solutions: PLAY symbol could be a triangle on its side pointing to the right. SETTINGS a COG or spanner. EXIT a European door exit sign symbol. CREDITS perhaps a question mark, or something better.

3. ESCAPE KEY. Requiring this key forces a switch user to either have access to an On Screen Keyboard (normally using a mouse-emulator to click on it), or a helper. Might be an idea to also have a back-arrow symbol to get back to the front menu screen. Additionally, ESCAPE does not seem to work at the GAME OVER screen, which is confusing.

4. FULL-SCREEN. Once you enter this, how can you exit it, if you don't have access to the ESCAPE key?

5. MASTER VOLUME. This is redundant as you have sliders for SFX and MUSIC. I'd recommend defaulting to 50% as it's too loud in competition with the SFX in my opinion. 

6. SFX. In game, when you press SPACE BAR (and hopefully soon left-click), I'd recommend it plays a sound effect. This will help users realise that what they've done has taken effect, alongside the visuals.

7. Making sense of the game. I think that the stars are good, and black holes are bad, becomes clear quickly in the game. I would say that the dark holes are not that easy to see, if your eye sight is not brilliant. Maybe a HIGH-CONTRAST option might be an idea?

8. Improving the gameplay further. Maybe a audio-visual reward for certain targets. 10, 20, 30, 40 big one for 50 and so on?

9. SPEED. If possible, I'd suggest 5 divisions, with SLOWEST being even slower than the one you have. 

Best wishes,

Barrie

OneSwitch.org.uk

Great improvements there, KennyTheBard, some last thoughts from me....

Sliders: I like that you can click anywhere on the sliders, and it jumps to that %. For a switch user with a mouse emulator, this is good I would suggest making the bars a bit wider and the sliders bolder and brighter, to make the target area clearer and easier to drag.

Text: Not everyone can read text, and some will struggle with the font (although I personally like it). I'd suggest (if you have time) reducing the text and using a symbol with it for anyone unable to read English. Will make the game more international, and more accessible in general.

"STAR BRIGHTNESS" with a symbol for the sun (a common TV brightness symbol).

"GAME SPEED" with a symbol for a tortoise at the left side of the slider, and a hare the right side. Or a running figure. Or something better. I would recommend that your slowest speed, is a quite a bit slower than it currently is. For some switch users, there's no such thing as too easy.

"MUSIC VOLUME" with a symbol for a musical note. Maybe just ON/OFF if easier. Strongly recommend being able to turn off music.

"SFX VOLUME" with a symbol for loud-speaker, or something better. 

Sound: Being able to soften (or completely turn off) music, whilst having SFX that are not overwhelming, but clearly tied to you pressing your switch, and the events on screen can have big benefits. Some Autistic people can find constant music overwhelming. Some switch users, and visually impaired users can find it confusing to not be able to work out what is happening, or even if they've pressed their switch and it's been detected.

Anyway, great work, and brilliant that updates can be made so seemingly painlessly.

Very nice! If you have a chance, some improvements for accessibility for you to consider, for when you have time: 

1. Reducing distractions: Option to turn off the starfield (or dim it right down). Makes me a bit dizzy, but some will really like it. Some people may find it a distraction too.

2. Option to make your star-ship far more prominent. Maybe a bolder outline, or make it pulsate colours a few times at the start, or some sort of highlighter. For people with tracking issues, as it is, may be a problem. It took me a while to work out what I was supposed to be tracking. Some will constantly find it hard as it is.

3. Speed option. It's still too fast for some players. Perfect for some too.

4. Sound FX. Can really help someone. I like that it's sparse now, but some sounds would be really help people with tracking issues, comprehension issues, sight issues and so on.

5. Menu option. I love the purity of your start, play, restart. But menu options can still be extremely important... even if those menu options are only available via a cog that can be click on by a mouse... (or one-time set-up at the start). It's worth knowing that some switch users can use mouse emulation... and some would be purely reliant upon a helper anyway to sort that out. 

Anyway, good luck, and well done.

If helpful, there are some useful examples here: OneSwitch PC Games - especially so the cause and effect and low pressure area. Not all would fit within the parameters of this competition, but it may give some examples.

I've even seen a couple of one-button (and you only need to touch it once) games in the arcade. Both redemption/ticket games. One based on Frogger, where you press an illuminated green button, and it sets a frog off (up - pause - up - pause - [repeat]) - across a busy road, then river, trying to get to a safe lily pad.

Another was a bit like Angry Birds, with a human cannon ball, where the cannon constantly automatically adjusted the angle. When you hit the switch you fired the man out across a city scape, trying to get him to land on top of a sky-scraper. Basic, but shows just how far you can reduce controls to make a game.

Good luck, and I hope it doesn't put you off.