The Good Life Accessibility Report - PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox X|S

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The Good Life

Accessibility Report

31 Accessibility Features

We've documented 31 accessibility features for The Good Life, including Guaranteed Progress, No Quick Reactions, No Repeated Pressing, Remap Buttons and Play Without Hearing. Its accessibility is strongest in Controls and Navigation but it also has features in Getting Started, Reading, Visual and Audio to reduce unintended barriers.

This report is created with input from accessibility experts and the player community to help people find games that have the accessibility features they require. Once you have found potential games on the database, there are excellent specialist accessibility sites that offer in-depth reviews to guide your purchasing decisions.

The Good Life is a narrative adventure, where you experience a slower pace of life in an English town. However, before long you are drawn into an intriguing web of murder, bodily transformations into cats and dogs and photographic tasks. It's an absurdist exploration of human nature and the social contract we have with one another. It stands out for combining an Animal Crossing community with a dark mystery to solve.

External examiner, Angela Hickman Newnham, first checked The Good Life accessibility 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Angela Hickman Newnham and updated 2 years ago.

Accessibility Notes

The Main Quest and Side Quests in the game have no time pressure, but you may occasionally run across optional Urgent Quests that need to be done right away in order to successfully complete them, and the Flamingo Hotwords (which things will get you extra money if you take pictures of them and upload) in the game change every few days of game time, so you need to make sure to get your pictures submitted during that window if you want the bonus money.

You can only save the game by sleeping in your bed at your house, however, you can warp home at any time at the cost of one hour of energy, which effectively allows you to save at any time, but not at any location.

Game Details

Release Date: 15/10/2021

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox X|S

Players: 1

Genres: Adventure, Simulation (Narrative, Puzzle and Role-Play)

Accessibility: 31 features

Components: 3D Third-Person

Developer: Swery 65 (@Swery65)

Costs: Purchase cost

Controls

We've documented 9 accessibility features for Controls in The Good Life which deal with how you control the game, different options for alternative inputs and whether you can remap these settings to suit your needs.

Gamepad

Can play with the following:

Multiple Buttons & Two Sticks: Can play with multiple buttons and two sticks.

Mouse And Keyboard

Can play with the following:

Keyboard Alone: Can play with just the keyboard.

Mouse and Keys: Can play with mouse and multiple keys.

Mouse and Controller: Can play with mouse and controller simultaneously.

Remap Controls

Can customise the controls for the game as follows:

Remap Buttons: Can re-map all buttons so that you can use alternatives that better suit your play.

Remap Game Menu Access: Can remap buttons to pause, access and navigate the game menu. This enables you to specify which buttons pop-up the game menu.Whether you can remap menu navigation buttons isn't considered here.

Button Combinations

Specific button operation required to play

Rapid Repeated Pressing Optional: Quick, repeated button pressing (more than 2 times a second) is not required, can be skipped or switched to holding a button to trigger a repeated action.

Controller Vibration

Vibration Optional: Controller vibration not used in the game or you can disable it.

Sensitivity

You can adjust

Adjust Mouse/Stick/Touch Sensitivity: Adjust how sensitive touch/mouse/stick controls are.

Similar Games With More Accessibility Features for Controls

If you want to play The Good Life, but it doesn't offer the Controls accessibility features you require, this similar game extends the Controls accessibility:

Tchia (11 Controls Features)

Difficulty

We haven’t documented any accessibility features for Difficulty in The Good Life which deal with how you can adjust the challenge of play, and whether this is locked once chosen or can be adjusted as you play.

Getting Started

We've documented 5 accessibility features for Getting Started in The Good Life which deal with what support is offered to get started with the game. This includes customising the experience when you first open the game via any onboarding processes it provides as well as tutorials and other assistance when you first start playing.

Assistance Getting Starting

These features aid your play of the game in terms of cognitive load on learning controls, dealing with pressure and coping with the environment and challenges.

Tutorials: There are helpful tutorials and instructions on how to play. Information is provided in a timely manner, with appropriate level of detail.

View Control Mapping: You can view a map of controls during play. This clearly displays the mappings of actions to buttons/keys/mouse/keyboard without having to leave the game. This includes games that always display buttons to press during play.

Reaction-Time Not Critical: Individual game actions don’t need quick reactions, or there are settings to lower the requirement for quick reactions. This means you don't need to quickly press a button in response to an on-screen prompt, target a fast-moving target or skillfully complete a scenario against the clock.

No Jump Scares: No sudden loud noises or popping-up scary visuals that unexpectedly appear without warning, or the option to disable them.

Assistance For Progressing

These features aid your progress through the game offering different ways of maintaining your progression.

Guaranteed Progress With God Mode: There is no fail state for any game level, where you lose progress or have to start again. Or there are options to make failing impossible: infinite health or lives, unlimited time. Sometimes called God Mode or Unfailable.

Similar Games With More Accessibility Features for Getting Started

If you want to play The Good Life, but it doesn't offer the Getting Started accessibility features you require, these similar games extend the Getting Started accessibility:

Wilderless (10 Getting Started Features)
Go Vacation (8 Getting Started Features)
Tchia (7 Getting Started Features)
Toem (7 Getting Started Features)

Reading

We've documented 5 accessibility features for Reading in The Good Life which deal with how much reading or listening comprehension is required, how well the game provides visual and audible access to the text and whether subtitles and captions are a good fit for purpose.

Reading Level

How much reading is required to play the game's main path or story and how complex the language is. The presence of voiced characters doesn't reduce this requirement, as it's recorded as a separate datapoint.

Moderate Reading: Moderate reading required. The quantity and complexity of reading are at a level that a high school student (14-year-old) would appreciate.

Text Visibility

High Contrast Text: Text colour contrasts to the background or can be adjusted to be. The text in menus, instructions and other information is presented in high contrast with a solid background.

Subtitles

All Speech Subtitled (Or No Speech In Game): All spoken content has subtitles, or there is no speech in the game. This means there is no requirement to hear spoken dialogue or narrative to play the game.

Captions

Speaker Indicator: Textual captions indicate who is speaking (or there is only ever one person speaking). This can also be indicated visually in the game with character icons or placing text in speech bubbles next to the person speaking.

Voice Acted

Some Dialogue is Voice Acted: Some of the game dialogue and narrative is voice acted. This reduces the pressure on reading all the dialogue text, although not everything is provided audibly.

Similar Games With More Accessibility Features for Reading

If you want to play The Good Life, but it doesn't offer the Reading accessibility features you require, these similar games extend the Reading accessibility:

I Am Dead (7 Reading Features)
Welcome to Elk (6 Reading Features)
Bugsnax (6 Reading Features)
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (6 Reading Features)

Navigation

We've documented 7 accessibility features for Navigation in The Good Life which deal with how the game provides guidance and assistance to navigate its worlds. These are only for games that have traversal and exploration in 2D and 3D spaces.

Clarity

Large Clear Navigation: The in-game navigation and maps are clear to read. They offer large text and offer markers that are large and of high contrast. Where text or information is small, there are settings to zoom-in and increase visibility.

Clear Mission Objectives: The game provides clear, structured missions with directional guidance and advice on which can be attempted next. This also indicates (ideally on maps where they are provided) which missions can't be attempted because you do not have the appropriate items yet.

Head-Up Display

Head-Up Display Navigation: Indication of where to go next with overlaid arrows, minimaps and waypoint markers. This supplements in-game visual and audible cues with additional guidance about where you are and where you need to go.

Game Map: View a map of the game world during play, with the landscape, points of interest and missions highlighted throughout the entire game. This enables the orientation of the player and the world, confirming a direction of movement and the location of destinations or points of exploration.

Menu Navigation

Menu Audio Cues: Navigating menus provide an audio cue for each selection.

Menus Don't Wrap: Menus don't wrap and stop the cursor at the bottom of the list if you press down. Or menus do wrap but make it clear that you are back at the top of the list with sound or narration.

Visual

We've documented 5 accessibility features for Visual in The Good Life which deal with how you can adjust the visuals to suit your needs, and offer additional information if you can't hear the game.

Contrast

Medium Contrast: Game uses generally well contrasting and bright visuals, or has a slider to make this the case.

Interactive Elements

Large Game Elements: Game characters and other elements are large and distinguishable. Enemies and player characters are at least 1/6 of the height of the screen. Or there is a zoom feature to make them larger.

Visual Distractions

No Busy Backgrounds: No distracting backgrounds or you can make them static or blank. This includes the absence of other movement elements in the background that might distract or confuse the action. Where foreground contrast is high, this includes games with some movement in the background that doesn't make it overly difficult to distinguish what is happening.

Audio Cues for Visual Events

Audio Cues for Visual Events: Audio is provided to indicate visual events. Game events or progress highlighted by visual icons, effects or animations are also accompanied by audio to signify that progress. This is useful for blind players.

Menu Audio Cues: Navigating menus provide an audio cue for each selection.

Similar Games With More Accessibility Features for Visual

If you want to play The Good Life, but it doesn't offer the Visual accessibility features you require, these similar games extend the Visual accessibility:

Tchia (7 Visual Features)
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (7 Visual Features)
Alba: A Wildlife Adventure (6 Visual Features)
I Am Dead (6 Visual Features)

Audio

We've documented 2 accessibility features for Audio in The Good Life which deal with how you can adjust the audio of the game and whether audio cues compensate for aspects of the game that are hard to see.

Adjustable Audio

Balance Audio Levels: Set music and game sound effects separately. This enables you to select your preference as well as ensure critical game sounds aren't obscured by other audio.

Play Without Hearing

Play Without Hearing: No audio cues are necessary to play the game well.

Similar Games With More Accessibility Features for Audio

If you want to play The Good Life, but it doesn't offer the Audio accessibility features you require, these similar games extend the Audio accessibility:

Alba: A Wildlife Adventure (3 Audio Features)
Bugsnax (3 Audio Features)
I Am Dead (3 Audio Features)

System Accessibility Settings

In addition to the accessibility features provided in the game, you can also use system-wide accessibility settings:

Nintendo Switch
Nintendo Switch has some built-in features, including a lockable zoom, that can be used on all games.

PC
Windows has extensive accessibility features. Some, like colour correction, work with games. Lots of accessibility software can be used with PC games, from voice recognition to input device emulators.

PlayStation 4
PlayStation 4 has a range of accessibility settings. Some are system only, some work in games (invert colours and button mapping).

Xbox One
Xbox One has a system features, the excellent co-pilot share controls mode and adaptive controller support for all games.

Xbox Series X|S
Xbox One has a system features, the excellent co-pilot share controls mode and adaptive controller support for all games.

Read more about system accessibility settings.