Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

232 - Disability in Games - Is To a T about living with disability?

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In this second part of our disability discussion, Alex, Jem, and Matt dive into To a T. A quirky, cosy narrative game with a quietly powerful take on difference, access, and fitting in. It’s weird, whimsical, and worth talking about.

Key Talking Points

  • Is a game that explores life's challenges in T-pose an allegory for living with disability?
  • Teenager uses long-handled spoons and rides a unicycle, normalising adaptations.
  • Is it ever helpful to discuss disability and superpowers in the same breath? 
  • Why does a game about needing and using adaptations to tackle the 'little things' lack basic accessibility features for players?

What do you think? Is To a T about living with disability? 

#GamingRepresentation #AccessibleGaming #AbleWashing #DisabledProtagonists #InclusionInGames #IndieGamesMatter #GamingWithDisability #toat #annapurnainteractive 

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Alex:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. Today, I'm your host, Alex, and I'm joined by my friends, gem and Matt, before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/gaming the system for some exclusive content. Or you can send us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address. We are gaming the system@gmail.com. Hello and welcome back to our Exploration of Disability in gaming. We are going to spend this second part talking about a game that's recently come out, called To a T released by Anna Perna Interactive, who also released. Stray, which is very popular with the pod so this game is quite new, and, animated style. It's very Japanese, focused and inspired. It's very much like you're playing an anime. It's quite fun, bright, colorful, cartoony style. Your protagonist is Teen and you can choose to name them whatever you like. You can also name their dog but you start off with the names Teen and dog. The special thing about Teen is that she is a T shape or they are, they spend the whole game in this T shape and you have to navigate the world with their arms constantly up. And one of the first things you do in the game, is you wake up from a nightmare. You've got your dog in your bedroom next to you and you suddenly realize you need the loo. You're in a bit of a panic and dog has to help you open the doors, get into the bathroom, and help you use the toilet. And you go through the door as you actually have to turn your body. So you have to use the sticks to turn teen's body and twist them around. It's definitely a very whimsical game. There's a lot of very whimsical things that happen. Very interesting things that happen a lot of. Interesting humor, a lot of toilet humor. Actually. It's, very prevalent throughout the, maybe five to 10 hours that you spend in the life of teen. Teen as implied by their name has just turned 13 at the start of the game, and it's basically their life. Going to school, spending time with friends at the weekend, going shopping in the little map, which is just basically you've got your city, you've got your home, you've got the forest, and you've got the school. And the beach as well. Must not forget the beach. It's very cozy. It's definitely fitting into that mold of cozy games, which was a recent topic we explored on the pod. You spend your life navigating the world. When you start doing the little things. One of the most fun parts of the game is each episode of the game is introduced with a musical number, which stays the same, but the action that you see on screen changes depending on what's happened in the story. And it's a really great song. It's very catchy. About t being the perfect shape and then they spend the song wondering why they're tea. They dunno why they're a T shape, and they want to know what their dog is thinking. All these really cute things. And then at the end of each episode, you get a song from giraffe who makes you sandwiches and she sings about how much she loves making sandwiches so if you like. Little songs, then you're gonna love this game one of my favorite lines from the opening song explains how it's the little things that they struggle with. So it's changing PJ washing face, using the restroom by myself is the little things. Hard for me, that's one of the lyrics. So I think that's a really good reflection of perhaps some of the barriers that people with disabilities face on the day to day. It's those things you, that non-disabled people would take for granted, that they don't have to think about how they get up in the morning, how they put their clothes on, how they brush their teeth, and one of the coolest things. In the game is that it really reflects some of the things I'd like to come on and talk about. Say dog I mentioned is perhaps the first assistance dog within gaming, not your typical assistance dog. What do you think of when you think of assistance dogs, guys? Just to get broad idea,

Matt:

Guide dogs.

Alex:

you know what breeds of dogs here are? Yeah.

Matt:

the, the original and then there are, uh, emotional support do you, how an emotional support pet?

Alex:

Yes. Who knows?

Matt:

some, sometimes they, they're just. Uh, the, the pet is the, the worst of, least soothing animal you could possibly have. And yeah, the, the, again, what makes creating disabled gameplay, disabled character based game play hard? Is a character, a disabled. Like, depending on the disability, there are things nor day-to-day things I'm doing air quotation marks for normal that they need assistance for. You need to program in and have an assistant dog have a, a, an assistant doc. Assisting you have to have a companion that assists you in things. It's not say, the, the the Assassin's Creed where you are. They're they're you use

Alex:

scout. Yeah.

Matt:

Whereas this is right. If, if I, without this dog, then I, I can't turn on. I can't open the

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

'cause I'm a tea.

Alex:

Yeah,

Matt:

And

Alex:

exactly.

Matt:

it in, in a, you go, that sounds like a lovely little game. It sounds

Alex:

yes it is.

Matt:

I, 'cause what it would be simple to go is like, oh, it be funny if someone was stuck in the shape of a tee? That's funny. And then you go off and think about something else. But this is going odd things have happened than someone being stuck in the shape of a tea. What would happen to, what if you just took someone and put them in that situation and then had a story happen to them? What would that be like? And then it, it, out very organically into Yeah, of course you'd have a, have a dog that would just. That can open doors for you, which is adorable. An animal in diesel is adorable.

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

then the things that they, they can go do and they can, you can have adventures and you going along as a tea and it's the, it's just becomes a, you can see it in your head straight away and goes, oh, that's sweet. Little girl

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

with this going down the street like that with a little dog and then saying hello to people as you go past, and then any literally anything's possible from once you, it, 'cause you, you need to ground it and immerse it and then build from there than thinking,

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

how could, how what if Geralt was stuck in the shape of a tea or Kratos or Joel? We can't just put those people in here. We go, well, you need to make world that, that,

Alex:

yeah. Fits, yeah. Exactly, but yes, dog subverts our traditional expectations of an assistance dog. It's very small and very fluffy and very cute, and it's got a little cross on its bum, like a little animated bum. It's very cute. Basically you just press buttons. The button says dog or whatever, and dog will do the action for you. He'll jump up and grab bits from the wardrobe. He also has hats. Must stress how important that is. You can put him in hats, which is great. I wanna talk about aids and adaptions and as I was playing the game. I was thinking to myself, I know what the obvious ones are. Teen's got a really long handled toothbrush so they can reach around and reach their mouth and then dog helps with the toothpaste. He bops on it, and the toothpaste goes on the toothbrush. They've got a specially designed tap to clean their face that their mum made for them, and it squirts up from the top of the tap instead of from the bottom. So they lean into the water, rub your face when you go and eat cereal, you have an extra long spoon to eat the cereal with for your breakfast. Interestingly, all the calendars that I've seen on the walls, dated 1999, I dunno what bearing this has on anything, but it might interest you to know that it's set in the late nineties. Other aids and adaptions. One that came into my head and is pretty obvious but doesn't necessarily come to mind as an actual adaption, is the fact that about partway through the game I dunno if you guys want spoilers, but I will say instead of riding a bike like your friends, you ride a unicycle because when you are shaped like a T, you can't hold on to handlebars. So teen rides the unicycle which of course is an adaption. It's just got one wheel and not two, which is very cool.

Matt:

much

Alex:

Uh,

Matt:

just

Alex:

yeah,

Matt:

one of those

Alex:

it does.

Matt:

right, what would happen if this happened? You go, yeah. Obviously they'd have a unicycle wouldn't they? Or a skateboard

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

or

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

go, oh, oh Yeah,

Alex:

yeah,

Matt:

And then, right. What they do next.

Alex:

Exactly. Most of the time when you are not in school, you wander around the town and you get to do, eating contests for giraffe. That's the main activity other than shopping. So again, it's very chill vibes, very cozy game. But one of the other things about teen being in a T shape, and it mentions this in the song, is that when they spin around really fast, they can fly. They basically go up like a little whirly, tornado, and that is what the game purports as their superpower essentially. Now this taps into a really interesting thing about Disability Jem. You mentioned in, part one of our look at gaming and disability about the Paralympics, and there was a lot of criticism of one of Channel Four's early ad campaigns for the Paralympics saying that Paralympians are superhuman. And that disability is a superpower. 'cause when you think about it, that kind of takes away from. The individual just having a normal life. It's oh, we don't want their disability to be bad. Let's make it super good. And they can be so inspirational and so amazing. They have to have this superpower as the only way to overcome perhaps the negative attitudes or the assumptions around what they can or can't do. 'cause they're super and they're really special. And I wonder how much is the game leaning into that, perhaps negative. Way of thinking about disability,

Jem:

when I was, about 12 or 13, I had a friend who was blind She. Was really good at finding her way around houses that she only needed to be told once, Would then, she would be able to find her way around. And I remember being amazed by this. But of course, it wasn't amazing. It was essential for

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

functioning,

Alex:

Yeah.

Jem:

and for her to be able to go and visit other places and all But I didn't realize that until I was much older. There's this sort of, oh, it's okay that you've got this disability This better thing. And I think that's really that. I think that can be quite harmful firstly, it detracts from. The ability for people to actually be unhappy about their situation or to be honest about the difficulties that they experience. And secondly, it maybe sets up unfair expectations as What your life might bring. Problematic.

Alex:

Exactly right. Jem. There is a danger that it is problematic in the way that it tells that part of teen's story potentially. But there are other parts to the story, which I won't spoil here today. I would urge you to go play, but it's also a story about being a young person, a teenager on the cusp of becoming a teenager and trying to fit in at school. And in one of the early parts of the game, teen does face some bullying from the other kids in the school. And obviously there's a lot there that maybe a kid's playing the game 'cause I think it is quite a child friendly game, would relate to perhaps 'cause obviously when you're in school, that sort of thing happens quite a lot. So I think that there is a place for this game in helping people work through feelings of trying to fit in when growing up because it can be really hard. I looked up what to a t actually means, and I hadn't quite got it into my head. I think I had heard the expression previously, but I hadn't fully appreciated that. It just means exactly or to perfection. Which is really interesting because there's a lot of talk, especially in the latter half of the game, about what perfect means. So it's definitely a game with a lot of lessons in it. It doesn't go deep into what perfect is or isn't, but it touches on it in a way that makes you think about it. And think about how someone's perfect isn't necessarily everyone else is perfect. And also that what is perfect anyway, because no one is perfect. I definitely think it's worth exploring as a story. It goes to some strange places, that you wouldn't necessarily expect, but I think that's part of its charm and its quirkiness. It definitely surprised me, in each of the chapters, there was something that caught me off guard. I definitely think it's a game that, is worth having a play with. And I still want to go back in and do more. Interestingly, the trophy list is really hard. So getting the platinum for this one's gonna be quite tricky I reckon. But, yes. That's one to attempt in the future. So don't let the coziness of the game fool you. It's got some tricky trophies in there for sure. Did you have any, the other thoughts, Matt, on, on our discussion?

Matt:

The Paralympics again Paralympics directly after the, I'm gonna use air

Alex:

Olympics.

Matt:

need to say for people who are listening, normal Olympics, the Olympics, and then the Paralympics, they don't happen at the same time. They happen in the same place, but

Alex:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

afterwards, what is

Alex:

Yeah,

Matt:

Paralympic village like?

Alex:

I think it's pretty similar to the Olympic Village, but

Matt:

Because,

Alex:

they did have some trouble with certain places being not accessible.

Matt:

Should be the paragon of dis friendly infrastructure because You're taking people, disabled people from everywhere on the planet. You've gotta get them from where they live, to the airport, to the plane, to the other airport for the connecting flights to the other airport. Then if it was in like when it was in London, getting through London. Just a simple, oh, there are people in, it's just a couple of thousand people in wheelchairs. No, it's every, every of disability you could possibly imagine is there, these are the most, in terms of the Olympics, is the most physically capable people in any given discipline. you're going the, disabled people who are like. Prove proving that the reason that they're there is the physical capabilities that they have, that's where you should be taking your inspiration is the loaded word. It's, you're going examples, you're going.

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

Of what is possible. Not just going, oh, this person lost both his legs and now he plays wheelchair basketball. And you go, oh, isn't that inspiring? You go, look what he can do. He would beat the shit out of lots of people with two legs that playing basketball and on the Olympic Village itself is to go, you'd think that. When you're having thousands of disabled people coming in, you, you need for, it's there two weeks. You can't just put them in the place that you put the, bodied Olympic athletes. And people be thinking, oh, we should be showing, we should be showing everyone that a, completely disability friendly. Physical infrastructure is possible.

Alex:

I think that there's a lot to be said for the legacy left after the Olympics and Paralympics leave a city because they've had to do a lot of work around the Olympic Village slash Paralympic Village and all the other venues for the sports to make them accessible and make the route to them accessible. I think there was a lot of work done in London, and in Tokyo I think there's been a lot, and Paris. I know Paris is notoriously bad. The metro especially, or it's like the underground here, is they're both pretty inaccessible. But yeah, there's still a lot to be done. But I think that every time the Olympics and Paralympics come along, then there are improvements made, but only within that like locality. So it is a shame that it can't be like expanded further. But yeah. That's a really good thought, Matt. Definitely. It should be. It should be where everyone starts from because if you don't start from someone from an accessible start point, then how are you gonna make everything fit for use? You're not, are you?

Matt:

I'm just

Alex:

yeah.

Matt:

reminded of the, um, went to one of the recent times you went to Wimbledon and the disabled toilet wasn't very good.

Alex:

No, it was, it wasn't, very clean. And that was at the start of the day. So they obviously hadn't put them down as a priority to, to clean them,

Matt:

and

Alex:

from the night before.

Matt:

Are there, they're the, they're the afterthought. They're the

Alex:

mm.

Matt:

whereas they need to be

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

thought of first, like Right, we're, temporary. Uh, for all the disabled athletes, you go, well, okay. Some of them aren't gonna be able to carry trays. Some of them aren't going to be reach up to the level of the counter. Some of them, uh, are gonna so they're not gonna be able to see what going. And then you go, right, we need to plan for this. And that is doable. You have, you have. Braille on the,

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

on the sidings. You have speakers, you have guide animals. You have it is, finite. There is, it's not just an

Alex:

Yeah.

Matt:

list of, increasingly crazy, uh, to be made. people don't absolute, they don't need to be carried everywhere. That's

Alex:

No.

Matt:

Your, friend who is Jam. You go, well, you don't need to carry me around this new house. Just tell me where everything is. Maybe show me where the toilet is so that I know where that is. Definitely. And then I, I'll take you go, right? Okay. It's the idea that disabled people can be an equal partner to anything. You're not. Carried everywhere. asked to go. I need to be able to get in there.

Alex:

No, we just want to have access, don't we? Yes, but I should also say, I think really that the Paralympics should be first and not second because then it will give a much bigger, stage to the Paralympic movement, if you put it first, then people will watch it more, I would hope. But also there's a common misconception, and again, it took me years to understand. Often people think that Paralympics, the para relates to like paraplegic. It's not at all, it is just a Greek, part of a word that just means across. So it's the games next to or across. From the Olympic Games, that's all it means. It doesn't necessarily mean paraplegic, but it's often a thing that people think it means.

Jem:

when you mentioned about this game earlier, you said that you hadn't found it necessarily very easy to play,

Alex:

Thank you for the reminder. Yeah, so you've got very simple controls. And you can't really move the camera around. But in terms of things like the text size, so there's a lot of speech bubbles in this game because the characters all speak a form of ish. So they're like, B poopy, blah, blah, blah, like that. And then their little speech bubbles come up next to them. Sometimes the text on that is quite small. To read, when you go to the visual settings, certainly on the PS five, all it is a bunch of filters. So they might not be helpful for visually impaired people. Or colorblind people. There's one that's really, I think, quite bad for if you might have, epilepsy. 'cause it's just a bunch of neon colors, like radiating back and forth, and I found it quite uncomfortable to look at. So goodness knows what it would do for other people. Sometimes the camera would misbehave when you play as a certain other character who I'm not going to say 'cause spoilers. Generally there's a lack of the wider sets of accessibility options that were present in larger games. Say for example, God of war and the last of us, the gold standard at this point for games. The color contrast, the audio description, the audio cues, things like that are obviously missing in this game because it's a small game by a smaller developer. So there is room to improve on that, which is why I said it wasn't the most accessible game that I've played. And I definitely struggled with the text. I think most out of everything. Sometimes I couldn't quite read what some characters were saying. There's a lot of depth perception things, so when characters are far away, their speech bubbles are smaller and so the text is smaller than when they come closer, they, their speech bubbles get bigger. It was only like one or two options for things, like subtitles or a toggle for running or something like that. I think there was two things that you could change and nothing else. So it was quite limited in that way. There's a lot of languages that you can choose the speech bubbles to be in, but I just think there could have been a few more options in terms of accessibility and I feel like the visual menu was just one of those weird. You know what, like games from the early noughties where they used to have the gray scale filter or the CP filter. There's all of those in there, which I think, I don't know if it's like a Nintendo, it reminds me of Nintendo, those sorts of games where you could just put a filter on and run around and it isn't this cool, quirky thing, but actually they could have done more to, to explicitly say, maybe this filter would work if you've got this type of colorblindness or something. They could have perhaps looked at that as less of a gimmick and more of a tool, yeah.

Jem:

it marketed as being, about disability as a game?

Alex:

Not per se. You can read between the lines, I think. Do you have the blurb to hand Jem?

Jem:

It says to a T is a narrative adventure The extraordinary life of a 13-year-old teenager. Whose body happens to be in the shape of the letter T. They live in a modest seaside town that they explore by foot train, or even their favorite unicycle,

Alex:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jem:

interact with a charming cast of characters who live there. From teenager's, loyal, fluffy, canine companion and their caring mother to a gang of despicable bullies and a giraffe that makes the most scrumptious sandwiches after a chance encounter, the teenager discovers a new found ability and a story begins to unravel around a mysterious object enveloped in light that falls from the sky. yeah, it doesn't talk about disability

Alex:

doesn't.

Jem:

at all.

Alex:

That's, that is interesting. Thank you for flagging that up, Jem. I should have used the blurb to introduce the game, really, but, yeah, it definitely,

Jem:

was

Alex:

Thank you. Thank you. But yeah, once you've played it, you can read between the lines, I think. Maybe it's just easier for me to notice because I also sometimes have trouble with little things. And I'm like, oh, that's clearly. A disability thing. I don't know whether it would be as obvious to other people. That'd be so interesting to see. I've informed you before you play it now you're gonna see it as a disability. It'd be really interesting to see what other people think. And I definitely think it's one that kids can play as well. I would definitely say it's a good one for kids. It's funny as well,

Jem:

I can get my daughter to play it and review it,

Alex:

I'd love for that.

Jem:

I think she, I that would be good.

Alex:

I think there's certain parts that might come across as slightly patronizing, but then I also think the whole tone of the game is very anime in the sense that they're like overly explaining. Plot points and emotions, they'll be like, huh, what was that weird shape that flew by yesterday? Or whatever, and then they'd have a long conversation about the shape for a minute more, and you'd be like, okay, can we get to the next thing? But yeah, I think you, if you let yourself into the whimsy of it, it's definitely a fun game to play. That does bring to an end our discussion of, To a T. And I hope you've enjoyed this. Look at disability in gaming. You can find us on all your usual podcast places and we should release another episode every Thursday. So thank you very much for watching and listening, and we hope you've enjoyed, this episode. See you again soon.

Jem:

Stick around for the bits that didn't make the cut for, good reason. But as you know, the GTS team believe in honesty and integrity and authenticity. So this is an acknowledgement that's, perfection is overrated. And secondly, it maybe sets up unfair expectations as

Alex:

Hmm.

Jem:

you know, what, what your life might might bring. And so, yeah, I think it's. It's, problematic. I just have to share with you that while I was having that conversation, my entire family snuck through

Alex:

Oh, well,

Jem:

the room to to get snacks and treats from the fridge,

Alex:

ah,

Jem:

and they snuck back out

Alex:

they're obviously well practiced.