Deaf Game Review – RAD

Game reviewed on PS4

RAD is a rad new game from Double Fine in which you play as one of many possible children sent out by your village elder to save the world, with your fancy new body modified courtesy of the elder. Your new body allows the radiation to work in your favor, giving you a whole host of mutations that weaponize your body. Mutations are random and different for every run through the game, so you never know what weird benefits you’ll end up having. It’s a great quick-fix sort of game that I had a lot of fun with.

Making RAD even more rad is the nice Deaf/hoh accessibility (and general assist options) included in the game.

The assists allow players to customize how they want to experience the game and get a little help where they might need it.

There’s also the option to choose larger text for subtitles and subtitles are always on because the voice acting in RAD is minimal. Another nice feature is a slider for text speed.

The larger size text presents in a little bit of a buggy manner though, with the line spacing kind of a mess:

This minor issue aside, the subtitles are easily legible thanks to the box they’re presented on and there are speaker labels with an image of whoever is speaking.

RAD is a very visual game with everything important being conveyed in a visual manner, from damage:

To enemy health levels:

Not pictured are the helpful icons that indicate you can pick up an item.

All in all, RAD is a readily accessible game for Deaf/hoh players and a fun roguelike quick-fix game. Definitely worth checking out if you, too, want to be able to maybe poop out miniature you’s to aid you in a fight (and any number of very strange mutations).