Accessibility

Every hooman talks, and every line stays on screen App and website

The cast’s lines are voiced, and each one also appears in a speech bubble, so the bubbles work as subtitles. Turn Voices off and the bubbles stay. It’s in Game Settings, and on the pause card (the app) or the pause screen (the website).

A few things are text only on purpose: Charlie, Puppy and Pepe bark, yap and hiss instead of talking, text messages are shown rather than read out, and lines built from numbers (prices, the clock) aren’t voiced.

Subtitle size App

Game Settings → Subtitle size: Small, Medium, Large or Huge, with a preview. It sizes the speech bubbles, Charlie’s thoughts and the opening scene’s captions.

Separate volumes App

Game Settings has its own switch or slider for Sound, Music, Music volume, Sound effects, Voices and Voice volume, and the music steps back while someone talks.

Sound captions App and website

When a sound means something, a short caption in brackets appears where it comes from: [smoke alarm], [sirens], [honk], [doorbell], [knocking], [elevator dings], [glass breaks], [splash], [wave crashes], [toilet flushes], [explosion], [fire crackles], Fluffy roaring and growling, and the sounds of a place, like [heart monitor], [dogs bark], [gulls], [phone rings] or [PA chime]. If the sound is off screen, the caption sits at that edge with an arrow pointing toward it.

Each caption stays up about two seconds (an alarm that keeps going keeps its caption up), the same sound isn’t captioned again for a few seconds, there are never more than three at once, and they keep clear of the speech bubbles, the top bar, Charlie’s thought card and the minimap. They’re visual only: VoiceOver doesn’t read them out. A caption marks where the sound started; it doesn’t follow something that moves.

In the app: Game Settings → Sound captions, next to Subtitle size. It starts on if your device’s closed captions are on (iPhone and iPad: Accessibility → Subtitles & Captioning → Closed Captions + SDH; Mac: Accessibility → Captions → Prefer closed captions and SDH), until you set it yourself. On the website: Game Settings → Controls → Sound captions (off until you turn it on). The game’s own sounds are captioned even with Sound off; the background sounds of a place only while Sound is on.

VoiceOver in the app App

• Menus, Game Settings and the in-game buttons are labelled: Health, Fluffy’s temper, each ability with “ready” or “recharging”, Zoom and Pause.
• The goal at the top of the screen is read in words, not emoji: “Fawns booped, 0 of 4”, “Birthday stops, 1 of 4. Next: a candle, from the bar”, “Elevator at floor 9”, “Score, 1,240”, in every mission, Survival, the Daily Walk and Charlie’s Day. On the website a screen reader reads the same words.
• Big moments are announced once, not on repeat: Volcano Mode and Devil Mode, each Auto Play Mode highlight as it starts, and every mission result with its stars.

Describe Auto Play Mode App and website

Auto Play Mode plays itself, so you can enjoy Charlie’s week by ear. With a screen reader running, it describes what’s on screen in the gaps between the voices: what the narrator says, who’s talking, where Charlie is, each highlight and each new day (Auto Play Mode never stops for a card: the days run straight into each other). It’s on by default.

In the app: Game Settings → Describe Auto Play Mode (it only speaks while VoiceOver is on). On the website: Game Settings → Controls → Describe Auto Play Mode. Pause and pick Today so far to go over the day.

Audio Guide: play missions by ear App and website

Story missions and Survival can be played without seeing the screen. Headphones help: everything is in stereo.

• The beacon blips from the way to go next: the next toy, the next stop, a fawn, or the open door. It leads around walls, not through them. Left, centre or right is where it sits in your ears; its second note rises if the way is up the screen, stays level if it’s straight across, and falls if it’s down. The closer you get, the higher and faster it blips, and it blips right away when the way turns.
• Danger: a two-note warning from where a red zone is about to land, before it goes off, and a buzz from the zone while Charlie is standing in one (lower once it hurts): move away from the buzz. Pills, glass, steam and other live dangers close by tick softly from where they are.
• People: each character has a short sound of their own, heard from where they are when they’re near (never over a voice).
• A thud (and a light tap on iPhone) when Charlie walks into a wall, and a chime when Zoomies, Bark or Puppy Eyes is ready again.
• Where am I? VoiceOver’s two-finger double tap on the game (the app), the G key, or a controller’s View / Create button: the room, Charlie’s health, the next goal and which way to head, the nearest danger, and which abilities are ready, plus how the mission you’re in sounds.

Every mission has its own rules, so the guide has its own sounds for them. With the guide on, a short “how this mission sounds” line is read at the start, and again at the end of Where am I?

• The road trip (Mission 9): the beacon keeps Charlie in the middle of the back seat. A rising whoosh from one side: Aunty is about to throw him that way, so push the other way (Zoomies on the thump). Rustling paper: her loose shopping is coming, so Bark.
• The F-150 (Mission 10): up is ahead. The beacon points at the clearest lane; a low engine hum is a car ahead in your lane; the rumble behind is the F-150 (Bark when it warns, Puppy Eyes when it’s right behind).
• The open house (Mission 12): the beacon leads to the keenest buyer, or first to an eyesore they can see (stand on it while you hear sniffing). A soft tick from the buyer rises as they warm up.
• Herding Fluffy (Mission 19): a hollow, bouncing beacon leads round behind Fluffy; right behind him it becomes a warm hum: keep following it and he walks to the stop. On Park Avenue the beacon goes by the crosswalks, and a low hum is a car coming.
• The deer (Mission 20): a quick double flick (ears twitching): stop. A low hum (she’s looking up): don’t move. Munching: go. Hooves: a family is still coming out of the woods, wait.
• The elevator (Mission 21): the beacon leads to a quiet spot far from Fluffy. A tense pulse from the Super means he’s at Fluffy or the meter is filling: Bark from the quiet spot and he comes to the noise.
• The firehouse (Mission 22): the beacon follows Fluffy’s cologne puff by puff; when you hear sniffing, stand still until the chime. The faint decoy trails are never followed.
• Good Boy School (Mission 23): each command has its own sound from the trainer (two low thumps: SIT; a rising sweep: COME; a yap: SPEAK; a sparkle: LOOK), then four rising ticks as the ring closes: Bark or Puppy Eyes right on the fourth. A frisbee coming across Charlie whooshes.
• Anything thrown at Charlie (a violation notice, a fireball) whooshes like someone running at him.

In the app: Game Settings → Audio Guide. It’s on while VoiceOver is running, until you set it yourself. On the website: Controls → Audio Guide (off until you turn it on; the website can’t tell whether a screen reader is running). The guide’s sounds follow the sound-effects volume and step back while someone is talking.

How we tested it: a computer player that hears only the Audio Guide’s sounds (never the screen) plays every mission (1 to 23) and Survival in all three places, and does far better than one that hears nothing. Some missions are still hard by ear (the road trip, the F-150 chase and the open house are won less than half the time). See the README’s Audio Guide notes for the numbers. Tell us how it goes for you.

The website with a screen reader Website

Buttons and switches are real buttons with names, the ability buttons say which ability they are, and Auto Play Mode’s descriptions and highlights come through a polite live region, so they don’t cut off what your screen reader is saying.

The game is one main landmark, and a button’s spoken name starts with the words you can see on it, so “click Wider” or “click Photo” works with voice control. The key hints on the buttons (E, Q, Space, F) are left out of the names; the shortcut is announced as the button’s keyboard shortcut instead.

Voice Control, Switch Control and Full Keyboard Access App

• Every button can be reached and pressed without a gesture. Apart from moving Charlie himself (on a touchscreen that’s a drag; a keyboard or a controller works too), anything you’d drag or pinch has a button or an action: the mission map and Photo Mode zoom with buttons, Photo Mode pans with VoiceOver actions, a Scrapbook moment shares from its actions, and Auto Play Mode’s picture-in-picture moves to any corner from its actions.
• Buttons answer to the word on them (say “Tap Wider” for the zoom button), as well as to their full name.
• Everything you tap is at least 44 by 44 points, including the zoom, pause and Auto Play Mode speed buttons, everyone in the crowd you can tap on the main menu (each is a button with their name; a tap brings them to the front), Mission Mode’s List and Map switch, and the rows in Game Settings. The one exception is the Daily Walk calendar on an iPhone: seven days fit across the screen at 42 points each.

Bigger text in the menus App

The screens you read follow your device’s text size (Dynamic Type): Mission Mode, a mission’s intro, How to play, Meet the Cast, Top Dogs, Auto Play Mode, Player Guides, Game Settings, Extras, Charlie’s Guide, the pause and result cards, and Photo Mode. On an iPad, or a wide enough Mac window, they grow up to the largest accessibility sizes. On an iPhone they grow as far as the screen’s width allows without breaking words: the pause and result cards (they scroll when they’re taller than the screen) and Photo Mode’s caption list and finished photo go up to the largest sizes; the other screens grow by about a quarter to a third; Auto Play Mode’s setup, with its rows of speed buttons, only a little. Photo Mode’s buttons grow by up to about a third everywhere, so they don’t cover the picture. The main menu and the game world are drawn art and keep their size; inside the game, use Subtitle size and the zoom.

Zoom App and website

The Wider button switches between Close, Room and Whole. You can also pinch, scroll or pinch on a trackpad, press − and +, or use the shoulder buttons on a controller. Charlie remembers your choice.

Pinch-zoom the pages Website

Browser zoom isn’t blocked: you can pinch-zoom the menus and every page of this site, including this one. Over the game itself, a pinch zooms the game’s camera instead.

Light and dark App and website

Theme: Auto (follows your device), Light or Dark. It’s in Game Settings (and, on the website, on the pause screen and at the foot of these pages).

Bold Text iPhone and iPad

Every screen follows your device’s Bold Text setting, the words drawn in the game world too (speech bubbles and signs).

Increase Contrast App and website

If your device is set to Increase Contrast (or your browser asks for more contrast), the grey secondary text and the dividing lines get much darker in light mode and much lighter in dark mode, about twice the contrast.

Danger patterns App and website

Danger zones don’t have to be told apart by color. With Danger patterns on, a zone that’s about to go off gets light diagonal hatching, a thin dashed outline and a warning mark; once it hurts, it gets dense cross-hatching and a thick solid outline; puddles and oil slicks get dashed lines. The lines are dark with a light edge, so they show on light and dark floors.

In the app: Game Settings → Danger patterns. It starts on if your device’s Differentiate Without Color is on, until you set it yourself. On the website: Controls → Danger patterns; it starts on if your browser asks for more contrast. Not marked: the playful waves in Free Roam Mode and Auto Play Mode (they don’t hurt), the pills, and things thrown through the air (the thing itself is the warning; the strip it will cross is marked before it’s thrown).

Reduce Motion App and website

In the app, Game Settings → Reduce Motion: Device (follows your device’s setting), On or Off. On means gentler screen shakes and flashes, screens that fade instead of sliding, and a zoom that cuts instead of gliding.

The website follows your device’s Reduce Motion setting: screen shakes drop to a fifth, flashes are shorter and fainter, and the pulsing, bouncing and popping animations on the main menu and the HUD stop, and whoever you tap in the crowd is at the front at once instead of walking there.

Haptics iPhone and iPad

Game Settings → Haptics turns off the bumps, Volcano Mode’s rumble and Devil Mode’s heartbeat.

Touch, either hand App and website

Put your thumb down anywhere and drag to move; the abilities are one tap each. In the app (not yet on the website), Game Settings → Left-handed puts the ability buttons on the left.

Keyboard and game controllers App and website

The app works with Xbox, PlayStation and MFi controllers; the website with any controller your browser supports. On iPad and Mac the app plays with a keyboard, and so does the website.

Those are the usual keys and buttons. Controls (in Game Settings) moves any of these actions to another key or button: pick the action, press the new key, and a key another action already has swaps with it. Reset keys and buttons puts them back. Moving (arrow keys, W A S D, the stick and d-pad), Esc and Menu / Options stay where they are, so there’s always a way to pause and get back. In the app your choice follows you through iCloud; the website keeps it in that browser.

Hold to move or tap to toggle. With Tap to toggle (in Controls), tap a direction key or the d-pad (or flick the stick) and Charlie keeps walking that way; tap it again to stop, or another direction to turn. Every ability is a single press, never a hold, and petting, digging and starting a mission from Free Roam Mode only need Charlie to stand still.

On menus, a controller’s stick or d-pad moves between the buttons, A / ✕ presses and B / ○ goes back. In the app the arrow keys move a gold focus ring the same way, Return or Space presses and Esc goes back or closes the card on top (Charlie’s Guide, Survival’s chooser, the pause card), and the ring goes back to the button that opened it. On the Mac, Tab and ⇧Tab step through every button of a screen in reading order, and the page scrolls along; How to play stops on each card so you can read it all. Every Mac screen, from the title through a mission and its result, has been played with the keyboard alone. On the website, Tab, Return and Esc work as they do on any page.

Menu bar and shortcuts Mac and iPad

The Game menu has Pause (⌘P), Restart (⌘R), Quit to Menu (⌘.), the Mission Map, The Cast and Player Guides (⌘1 to 3), and Sound (⇧⌘M). How to Play is ⌘? and Game Settings is ⌘,.

• Extra hearts: Charlie has twice the health, 200 instead of 100.
• Slower hoomans: everyone else walks at three-quarter speed. Charlie doesn’t.
• Quicker abilities: Zoomies, Puppy Eyes and Bark recharge twice as fast.
• More time: every clock or meter that can lose a mission gives Charlie half as long again, so buyers are slower to walk out and Fluffy is slower to lose his patience.
• Just a Walk: Free Roam Mode where nothing hurts Charlie.

Stars count the same and it’s still the whole story. Survival runs with Chill Mode on stay off Top Dogs and Game Center, so those boards compare like with like.

Adaptive difficulty App and website

On unless you turn it off (Game Settings, next to Chill Mode). Lose a mission and your next try at it is easier: every Chill Mode assist, twice as long on every clock or meter that can lose it, and softer hits. Lose it twice and that try can’t be lost. A win puts the mission back to normal.

Or don’t play at all App and website

Auto Play Mode needs no input: pick a speed and an excitement level and Charlie lives his week by himself. Nothing can hurt him there.

If something gets in your way, or one of the gaps above matters to you, email support@caldrion.com. Say whether it’s the app or the website, and which device. It helps us decide what to build next.

Something else? The FAQ covers sound, saves and controllers.