Every puzzle has a second route

This is a design rule, not a feature list: no puzzle in this game may require colour vision, hearing, fine pointer control or fast reactions. Every one of the seven Chapter One puzzles has a second route that is equally valid and equally quick.

The settings

All of these are in Settings, they apply instantly, and they are remembered for guests as well as signed-in players.

• Text size, from 100% to 200%, applied to the whole interface including the game view.
• Dyslexia-friendly typeface, which switches all body text to Atkinson Hyperlegible.
• High contrast, which raises every foreground and background pair to at least 7:1 and removes decorative background imagery from panels.
• Reduce motion, which removes transitions, camera drifts and the flicker on light sources. It is on automatically if your system asks for it.
• Subtitles, on by default, for every recording that plays anywhere in the game.
• Hold instead of drag, which replaces every drag interaction with select-then-place.
• Puzzle hints, which can be set to appear automatically after a number of attempts you choose.

The seven puzzles

The records keypad. A four-digit code. The code is derivable from a document; the keypad itself is only a keypad. Digits are entered by clicking, by typing, or by focusing a key and pressing Enter.

The symbol lock. Four positions, each a shape. The shapes differ by outline as well as by fill, and each carries a printed name in its tooltip and in the accessible list. The clue that gives the order is written text.

Circuit routing. Connect a supply to a load through a board of junctions. Every wire is labelled with its circuit number, so the puzzle is solvable entirely by reading labels; the colours are a convenience. In hold-instead-of-drag mode you select a junction and then select its destination.

Camera timestamp reconstruction. Put four clips in the order the timecodes require. The timecodes are text, listed beside each clip. You never have to read a number off a moving picture — the numbers are in the list.

Audio tuning. Find a setting on a dial. The dial has a numeric readout and a written signal-strength description that updates as you move it, so it can be solved by reading rather than by listening. With subtitles on, the audio cue is also captioned.

Document overlay. Line up a transparency over a printed page. The alignment has a numeric offset readout, and a "snap to marks" control that steps between the registration marks one at a time. There is no timing element and no precision requirement.

The logic grid. Six statements, a grid, and one consistent answer. Entirely text, entirely keyboard, and the grid is a real table that a screen reader announces by row and column heading.

Screen readers

The game is not a canvas with pictures in it. Rooms are real focusable elements with names and descriptions, documents are real text, and the evidence board's list mode is a real list. Panels announce themselves when they open, focus is trapped inside a modal and returned to where it came from when it closes, and every live update — a new journal entry, a deduction, an achievement — is announced politely rather than interrupting.

Tested with NVDA on Firefox and VoiceOver on Safari, playing the Prologue and the first three rooms of Chapter One end to end.

Anything that does not work

If something here is wrong, or something we have not thought of blocks you, the contact form reaches a real person and accessibility reports go to the front of the queue. That is not a courtesy line; a puzzle that cannot be solved without a sense is a bug and gets treated as one.