When Klemens Strasser designs a new game, he asks two questions: Is it fun? And can it be made accessible to everyone?

“I scrap ideas where I can’t answer yes to both,” says Strasser, who most recently developed the beautiful nature-inspired puzzle game Art of Fauna.

Strasser’s focus on accessibility began with his first release, the 2015 beat-the-clock quiz game Elementary Minute, which earned him a Student Winner award at the 2015 Apple Design Awards.

Later that year at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, a software engineer with low vision asked Strasser why the game didn’t also support VoiceOver, Apple’s industry-leading built-in screen reading that gives audible descriptions of what’s on your screen.

“He knew it would work perfectly,” says Strasser. “He guided me along the way, and a couple of weeks later I released a VoiceOver-accessible version of the game.”

That meeting was a career-shaping moment for Strasser. “It made me realise many other developers, like me, could make their games accessible but simply hadn’t thought of it.”

His 2022 release Ancient Board Game Collection was similarly informed by feedback from a player with low vision. It digitises nine long-forgotten games, including the draughts-like Latrunculi, dating back to the first century B.C.

“It led to High-Contrast mode, where all backgrounds are removed, the game field becomes a simplified grid and your pieces are easily distinguishable colours,” says Strasser. “The player can set all of these colours to account for any kind of colour vision deficiency.”

Strasser’s commitment to accessibility is perhaps best illustrated in Art of Fauna. In this multifaceted puzzler, there are two ways to solve each level: rearrange the jumbled artwork or rearrange the jumbled text. On one side of each puzzle is a beautiful drawing of an animal (sourced from the Smithsonian’s Biodiversity Heritage Library in the US), on the other, a written description.

Strasser added text to the game to make it accessible to VoiceOver users – but this ended up adding a new way to play, making it more fun for everyone. “It’s similar to the curb cut – it not only benefits people with wheelchairs, but also people pushing baby buggies. And me, when I walk with luggage to the train station,” he says.

Accessibility settings pop up when you first open the game. You’ll find options that make navigating with VoiceOver easier, as well as fonts for dyslexic players. Art of Fauna also includes a “phobia filter” that hides spiders, snakes, bats and other critters that might give you pause.

“I looked at a ton of drawings and photos of animals that made me a bit uncomfortable,” says Strasser, who reviewed over 100 for the game and flagged any that might make players squeamish. “I received many messages from people who were super happy about its inclusion.”

Designing games with accessibility in mind from the get-go is much easier than trying to shoehorn features in later during development – and it’s always worth the effort, says Strasser.

“Being inclusive is just the right thing to do,” he says. “If big games and apps aren’t accessible to everyone, people with disabilities are not only excluded from the experience itself, but also the subculture around it. And we shouldn’t let that happen.”