Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons is undeniably a gem of a game, but its accessibility options are a little…lacking, by which I mean, there are none. While lots of games offer the chance for you to change text size, colour and more for those with visual impairments, Animal Crossing doesn’t (yet) offer such luxuries. Thankfully, the AC community is a kind one, and one player in particularly has found a way to help.
As shared to Reddit, a user by the name of SatisfiedRuby82 has received a lot of praise for signs and notes created in AC, to allow visually impaired users to better experience the game.
Sign and note for visually impaired players. More info in comments. from r/AnimalCrossing
Explaining on the thread, the user says: “My aunt is visually impaired. She loves animal crossing and wants visitors but is afraid of seeming rude if she doesn’t see the chats. So I made her these. She wants to share the design codes as well. Sign: 11N0-R0VV-WPXT
“Note (4 parts): Y58M-SPPC-V5NF, 489C-8T6K-F3FL, X0Y1-HYH4-VB51, L18C-20H6-M2DS.”
The user later added: “Thanks for all the support for this. We hope the designs help someone else. We were just talking and her condition is called double colomboma and microphthalmia. She said colomboma is a lot more common, but double colomboma is very rare. Last she heard, a few years ago, only 4 or 5 people worldwide had it, and of those, one is her and one is her daughter (my cousin). Hers is very severe. Her daughters is not as bad as hers is.”
Explaining just how the signs can help, SatisfiedRuby writes: “Instead of being on the edge of the screen (periphery) the text will show up in the center where the player is, since in the game your character is always center screen. This helps for people with impaired vision who might not see the periphery well or at all.”
With nearly 40k of upvotes at the time of writing, it looks like the idea definitely will help a lot of people!
Featured Image Credit: Nintendo/Reddit/u/SatisfiedRuby82