GetKeyDown
GetKeyDown is a one-button dungeon crawler developed as part of a research project into the creation of bespoke ‘low-input’ games for users that experience motor impairment following a stroke. Therefore, the design challenge for this project was that the entire game had to be playable with one hand and one button. This includes navigating and interacting with any menus in the game.
GetKeyDown will be showcased at the Abertay Digital Graduate Show 2025 as part of my research project: ‘Designing for One | One-Button Game Design for Accessibility’.
GetKeyDown uses a unique ‘Movement Spinner’ mechanic to handle movement, combat, and interaction with only a single button. It accomplishes this through contextual inputs that check what grid cell the player is interacting with and responds accordingly. A similar ‘spinner’ system is also used to navigate the user-interface.
Following game accessibility guidelines for motor impairment, it was important to me that the whole game experience was playable with this single button mechanic. The speed of the spinner is set during the FTUE and can be adjusted during gameplay as well to suit the player’s preference or needs.
This project was also a great opportunity to upskill on the Unity engine and C# scripting. The game uses Unity’s tilemap system to allow for rapid iteration of level designs by simply painting or erasing parts of the map in-engine. The player and enemy stats are also handled through scriptable objects to make adjusting values for balancing very designer-friendly and scaleable.
Future development of GetKeyDown is already being considered beyond this simple prototype, with plans for additional enemies, levels, and a skill upgrade system in the works. The game is currently playable in-browser via Itch.io and works on PC and mobile devices.