Deaf Game Review – Little Dragon’s Cafe

Review in short

Little Dragon's Cafe is very simple in its presentation and mechanics and widely accessible for Deaf/HoH kids (and not bad for adults either if you're a fan of games like Star Dew Valley or Animal Crossing).

Score

10 out of 10

Full review

Little Dragon’s Cafe is a game about doing the chores surrounding running a cafe. Your mother’s cafe. While your twin (you play as either the girl, Rin, or boy twin, Ren) harps at you about how to do these simple chores. My brother told me how to pick a freaking onion from a bush and how to watch the bobber to know when I’ve caught a fish. Thanks Ren. Thanks.

Your mother is fine one day, making you toil away making “slightly sweet” over-easy egg dishes (who the hell wants slightly sweet eggs?) one day and she’s in a coma the next. Why? Because this fully human looking woman is apparently half dragon. How? Don’t ask me, she doesn’t look dragony at all. Anyway her human and dragon blood have mixed and this apparently puts one into a coma. Pappy, a wizard, magically appears, which you and your sibling have a strangely calm reaction to, and he tells you that you can save your mother by raising your own dragon, for some sort of blood transfusion, I imagine. Thus begins the game of feeding your dragon so it matures and can save your mother, and running her cafe while she slumbers.

It’s also worth noting that Pappy’s wizard staff looks like he forked up some dog shit and just carries it around.

Anyway… Impressions of the game as a game aside, Little Dragon’s Cafe is easily one of the most Deaf accessible kid game we’ve played.

What makes it so accessible? First and foremost, the options menu. From here, before you begin your game, you can chose from four text display speeds. It’s not exactly necessary for this game because you also have to press a button to advance all dialogue, but it’s here anyway and more accessibility options are always welcome.

The text isn’t resizable but it is quite easy to read, in a nice legible font, and always against a solid, high contrast background. Speakers are also always identified.

Cooking in Little Dragon’s Cafe is a rhythm/timing game BUT… it never relies on sound. The button you need to push is always clearly indicated and when to push is indicated by a solid black circle.

Every single aspect of this game is presented in a very distinct visual fashion with visual cues and icons being very clear and easy to interpret, on top of the easily legible dialogue text. There is no voice acting and no sound cues, so nothing missing from a Deaf/HoH players experience in that respect either.

Little Dragon’s Cafe is very simple in its presentation and mechanics and widely accessible for Deaf/HoH kids (and not bad for adults either if you’re a fan of games like Star Dew Valley or Animal Crossing).