foldingpaperflowers:

I know the cyberpunk epilepsy thing has been talked about a lot at this point. We, as epileptics, tend to focus a lot of energy on the “what was done badly” since it has such a drastic effect on our health, and strobes are such a big problem.

I was thinking about Stardew Valley, and kinda wanted to talk about the one tiny thing that made it accessible, and why it makes this game my favourite.

It seems surprising, thinking about it, that stardew valley could trigger seizures. I didn’t think it would the first time I played it, and it wasn’t until I got to winter that I actually had any problems.

You see, with photosensitivity its not necessarily about flashing so much as it is the sharp contrast and the change between colours. As well as how much of your vision is taken up by that movement speed.

While the storms during the other seasons didn’t cause me issues (blue raindrops on a grey blue background) the snow storms did (white on a dark ish background)

The first time I saw the snow my heart completely shattered. I’d been watching stardew as it was developing and wanted to play it so badly. It felt so unfair that I played multiple hours before even finding out the game wasn’t safe. I spent the rest of the night crying about it, which may sound stupid, but photosensitivity means you can’t get excited for video games, and this was one of the few I let myself be excited about.

My ex gf was the one who pointed out the snow transparency setting after looking into it themselves. This one slider bar in the settings. Something I didn’t think to check for since I rarely see them.

That slider made this game for me, and it was there when the game released. I can’t tell you how much that single setting has made me cry over the years because one man decided it may be useful to some people.

When epileptics make posts about a specific video game or a movie or whatever its because we have examples of how easy it is to put in these settings! My bf’s modded 3 games for me so they don’t give me seizures and all he had to do was like change a timer? Or set images to static????

Keep your flashing lights if you need them for your “artistic vision” just give us the settings so we don’t need to be scared