Minecraft Dungeons: Closed Beta Accessibility Review

Disclaimer

Introduction

Now, with a closed beta of Minecraft Dungeons (MD for short) being available to select participants, myself included, I'd like to give some thoughts and insight into my experiences as a gamer without sight within the current version of this interesting title.

Setup

After logging into my Microsoft account and installation of the beta was complete, it was time to launch the game and see just what awaited me on the first screen.

Starting Up The Game

Speaking of menu and UI narration, let's explore the state of that in a more general context of the game overall.

Narrated Menus/UI

Enabling Menu Narration

After closing the game and reopening it however, the menus started speaking after pressing A on the title screen, so I'm going to chalk this one up to a bug in the beta that should hopefully be resolved at launch.

How Much Is Narrated?

The only drawback is that you have to change the narration speed outside of the game, specifically via Windows control panel settings (under "text to speech settings in Windows 10"). Also, any prompts that overlap interrupt the previous one being spoken. Say for instance that you're in a hurry to pick an item up and do so, you'll miss what it does if you don't know already.

Even once you do adjust the speed, it's not necessarily a smooth experience, with the ordering and wording of certain prompts not being optimal on a personal level. Being able to change the order of prompts, whilst a great idea in theory, might not be practical, but cutting down on repeated words like "press" or "to" (i.e. "press A to pick up" could become "A, pick up") would greatly reduce time spent waiting for the right information to come along.

Speaking of the experience over all, here are some thoughts on the gameplay.

The Gameplay Itself

The ambient sounds that provide a background to all your action combine in such a way as to allow a gamer without sight to imagine their surroundings without being too overwhelming, with even the inventory sound cues making you aware that though this is a Minecraft-oriented game, it is something altogether more combat-focused.

Speaking of combat, the controls are just as smooth as I remembered from my previous experiences, with the various abilities being quick to activate and the usage of arrows and melee weapons having no latency that i could notice, both in offline and online games. The movement works in 8 directions rather than what I'd thought might previously be 4, but using the left analogue stick works relatively well for this.

During the beta, as I ran through various missions both as a solo player and with friends, I felt right at home with the easy to learn, hard to master controls and gameplay mechanics. With the addition of menu and UI narration, which might seem like a small feature to gamers who don't use or need it, I felt like I had pretty much all the control I needed over my experience and ability to fight and survive in the hostile environments, even if at times said experience wasn't flawless for various reasons.

Current Downsides

Now, whilst this interaction system and item prompting is extremely useful and works relatively well, the issues come from a point I raised in my previous discussion of this game, namely in the fact that there are currently no audio cues for navigation in the first place. Specifically, I'm referring to cues for where certain interactive objects are and how to get to them, including objectives. Let's take the tutorial as an example.

When you first start a new game or choose to go to "Squid Coast", you are able to play a tutorial. During this tutorial, your first objective is "go to the village". For a player who has no idea of where the village might be and doesn't feel comfortable with going in any random direction they choose, this is a problem as, without guidance, they are essentially stuck without sighted assistance (which I did later in the mission).

Even when you do go straight ahead and find the village, with the new objective being read without the need to press a button, you are told to "defeat the zombie". This part is relatively straightforward as, if you're a new player, you could just wait for the zombie to come to you if you're not sure where to go (though of course, again, this isn't ideal).

You are then tasked with what sounds like a simple objective given what you've just done, specifically "defeating "the invaders". This is where I get stuck, each and every time, simply as there is no way to tell where you need to go via audio. It turns out that the progression point is not, in fact, straight ahead, but instead off in one direction that leads to a bridge. This bridge, even if you get near it is very difficult if not impossible to cross meaning that, without sighted assistance, you are trapped with no way to progress in this current build.

With the footsteps being as quiet as they are on speakers without being able to adjust them, it's also difficult to tell when you hit a wall without listening really closely. Consequently, trying to find your way through via trial and error is next to impossible without a large degree of patience.

There are a few solutions as to how to make this work, from an auto navigation option that allows the player to focus more on combat (useful for players who aren't used to analogue sticks perhaps) or an auto-turn function that turns you in the correct direction when a button is pressed as has been used in other games to point you to the objective, with varying degrees of success.

However, I personally think the best possible option for this scenario is to have just a straightforward cue that varies in pitch for whether an objective is in front as opposed to behind you, with said cue using left and right panning to indicate whether it's off in that particular direction. With such a system in place, I think most of these aforementioned issues could be resolved, with branching paths having distinct cues when they appear to allow the player to choose which path to pick from and return to the start of the branching sequence.

Interacting with your environment is a key part of the MD experience, with objectives and important elements often needing to be walked onto to be activated or picked up. These can include supply cashes, gates to open or items on the ground, amongst other things. These could use a similar formula to navigation where, via a setting in the options to prevent overload, the player could turn on the closest item or a specific number of items as beacons to allow for an easier time navigating and finding new resources or the next important location to progress through the mission. Saying that, it would be better if mission progression audio cues were their own separate toggle, providing even more customisation to the player regardless of accessibility.

Notes On Falling

Unless there's a story reason why this is in the game, I'm not entirely sure it needs to be as it just makes it more frustrating for players who are uncertain where to go, due to lack of sight or otherwise. That being said, if the above suggested audio cues for navigation and interactivity are added in a patch or an update, whether before or after release, this could be fine to stay as it is. Having it as a toggle for those who want the additional risk would likely be the best option.

Ranged Combat

Having a cue when you're locked on to an enemy, as well as the ability to cancel arrows with maybe a press of the left trigger or RB whilst aiming would negate the issue of ammo conservation. That is only one solution though, with a more effective alternative being raised by Ridge, a fellow streamer who joined me in an online game during the beta period. This second solution would be for the arrow not to fire in the first place when no enemies are around, or a mob is not in targeting range. Again, if there's a story reason why this is in the game then there are likely alternative workarounds that can take this into consideration. As it stands though, even just having additional targeting cues to indicate a successful lock, as well as the ability to "arrow cancel" would make things much less frustrating.

The online Experience

Speaking of profiles, the relevant screen in-game as part of the in-game friends list didn't appear to actually show any data, though this again may have something to do with the game being in beta. As a result, it was easier for Ridge to join me in my game not only because we weren't entirely sure how this system worked, but also because when streaming the host is the only one who can see the cutscenes oddly enough. This latter point has raised some bemused reactions from people playing online alongside other YouTubers, so hopefully this is resolved later down the line.

Once in the game, however, selecting what mission to run was relatively straightforward, though as with the online equivalent, you can seemingly only cycle to the next mission with the right trigger, not through the entire list of missions. Additionally, the cursor-based navigation of the mission screen isn't ideal, having a stop sound for when you hit the edge of the map or just making it so that the cursor is instead replaced with a DPad navigable list when using the narrated UI would be more intuitive workarounds when combined for gamers without sight, especially if they're playing solo.

After getting into a mission together, I'd hoped that, whilst not an ideal navigation solution, similar to Gears Of War, I could follow my fellow player via their weapon cues. Unfortunately, these sounds don't pan as accurately as needed in terms of direction when two players are close to each other. This means that they have to be further ahead to provide directional audio, in turn meaning the player following has more chances to get stuck on geometry. This led to a second discovery.

The Teleportation System

The great thing about teleporting in MD is the fact that you actually don't need resources to do it. At least not an item that you pick up, but an item that is automatically in your inventory. If you click in the right stick then press Y in a two-player game, you will charge up the teleport and, after a time, land right next to your companion. This travel is not even impeded by dungeons that you have to travel into or out of, meaning that if ever a friend is in trouble you can nearly always assist.

Unfortunately, this teleport doesn't work in the camp, the game's hub world, meaning that if a player finds a chest and you want to teleport to it, for instance, you have no way to do so. Hopefully this can be rectified in the future as it would definitely improve the experience even in terms of consistency.

Interactivity With Multiple Players

Moreover, you can't drop anything to give to other players and they also can't drop items to give to you meaning that, if you are starved of arrows and the game isn't dropping any for you personally, they can't help you out. Hopefully this can be resolved in the final game.

Finally, there is no cue for when loot drops from enemies occur, making it impossible to tell when you've even got a chance of gaining something from a mob. This could be added along with the other cues suggested throughout the rest of this article.

Other quirks

Secondly, when you pick up items, no indication of elements like the number of available enchantment slots on a piece of armour or a weapon, as well as the power level when the item is first picked up, are spoken. Speaking these could instantly give an idea to the discerning player as to whether, at least in terms of power or number of enchantment slots in this example, the armour or item might be more worthwhile than what they currently have.

Being able to turn on or off narrated UI navigation hints (including but not limited to "use left thumbstick for navigation") in the game's numerous menus would speed up things like inventory management, as players might quickly pick up what buttons activate what functions in-game. Moreover, minimising the number of empty slots spoken in the inventory, making it so that you only see the items you have, would make navigating this screen less cumbersome as currently you spend more time trying to find the items than, say, salvaging them for emeralds to use later.

Coming back to a previously mentioned point, the narration in the inventory doesn't start playing until a while after the sound cue for movement has played, thus meaning you spend a fair amount of time just waiting for the prompt to start speaking. Having this time cut down would mean that players can get back to mob slaying and enjoying what might be their first experience of the Minecraft universe.

Finally, if there is an inventory limit, it could be possible to just turn this into a number ("inventory opened, 50% full" could be a good spoken prompt for this). I've seen no reference to a cap on the number of items you can have at one time, but it is certainly a possibility.

With all these accessibility suggestions, let's quickly backtrack and cover something that I didn't expect to see, a narrated chat wheel.

The Chat Wheel

Final Thoughts On The Online Experience

Conclusions

Even though, locally, I still need sighted assistance via a Titan2 to get anywhere in missions in terms of navigation and rely on teleportation in online games with friends, the sound design, atmosphere, music, UI Narration and gameplay make for a very enjoyable experience.

Once the creases are ironed out, I have high hopes for this game and look forward to playing it for a long time to come, including with full teams of fellow gamers without sight given the opportunity. The team have clearly put a large amount of work into this title and, even though I don't know how playable the game will be at launch, I'm still confident that this has the potential to be the most playable non-fighting game on consoles without requiring any sighted assistance.

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