Dev Log: Making a Neon Game Comfortable for Everyone

Neon Burrow is, by design, a loud-looking game. Glowing walls pulse, particles burst from every pickup, the screen shakes when the Pulse Core fires and colour carries a lot of meaning: red-orange Seekers, purple Blockers, yellow drones, green Mimics. That visual identity is central to the game, but it also creates real barriers for some players. This dev log walks through the accessibility features we built, why each one exists and what we still want to improve.

Principle: style should never be required

Our guiding rule was simple. Every piece of information the game communicates through flashy visuals or colour must also be available another way, and every intense effect must be optional. Players should be able to turn the spectacle down without losing anything they need to play well.

Reduced motion

Some players experience discomfort, dizziness or nausea from flashing and motion-heavy effects. Neon Burrow includes a Reduced Motion setting that tones down the most intense visual effects.

Crucially, the setting respects your operating system. Modern systems let users request reduced motion globally, and browsers expose that preference to web pages. When Neon Burrow starts for the first time, it checks this preference. If your system asks for reduced motion, the game enables Reduced Motion and disables screen shake by default, before you ever see the first effect. You can still change either setting manually.

Screen shake as its own setting

Screen shake is separate from Reduced Motion because it affects people differently. Some players enjoy every other effect but find shaking disorienting, especially on a phone held close to the face. Others love the punch it adds to taking damage or activating the core. A dedicated toggle lets each player choose. Screen shake is also suppressed automatically when Reduced Motion is on.

Colour-assist labels

Colour carries a lot of meaning in Neon Burrow. Without help, a player with a colour vision deficiency might struggle to tell a Seeker from a Mimic or notice which floor tiles are dangerous.

The Colour-Assist Labels setting adds non-colour cues:

• Every enemy is drawn with a text label identifying its type, so you never need to rely on hue alone.
• Heat vent tiles show an exclamation marker, so dangerous floor stands out regardless of how the orange glow appears to you.

We were careful to design enemies so that they also differ in behaviour. Even without labels, a Blocker's back-and-forth patrol looks nothing like a Seeker's trail-following or a drone pack's pincer. Movement is a cue that works for everyone.

Sound as information

Audio carries important information too. The enemy alert sound, for instance, warns you that a hunter has noticed you within five tiles. For players who cannot hear it, the same moment is marked visually with a red exclamation mark above the enemy. Similarly, the countdown during extraction is shown as a large on-screen timer as well as an accelerating tick.

Music and sound effects have separate toggles. Many players turn the music off and keep sound effects on, which preserves every gameplay cue while reducing overall noise.

Flexible controls

Accessibility is also about input. Neon Burrow supports three input methods fully:

• Keyboard, with both WASD and the arrow keys active at once, so players can use whichever hand position is most comfortable.
• Gamepad, through the standard browser Gamepad API, for players who find controllers easier to hold for long periods.
• Touch, with an on-screen D-pad, swipe gestures and individual ability buttons.

Touch controls can be set to Auto, On or Off. Forcing them on helps players with touchscreen laptops; forcing them off helps players who connect a controller to a phone or tablet.

Turn buffering reduces the precision required for movement. You can press a direction slightly before an intersection and Pip will take the turn when it becomes available. This makes the game much more forgiving for players with slower reaction times or limited fine motor control.

Automatic pausing

The game pauses automatically whenever the browser tab is hidden or the window loses focus. This prevents lost runs due to interruptions, whether that is a notification, a phone call or simply needing a break. When the tab is hidden, audio is suspended too.

Short sessions and generous failure

Some accessibility is about design rather than settings. A single district takes only a few minutes, so the game never demands long periods of sustained concentration. And because scrap and data collected on a failed run are kept, every attempt makes progress. Upgrades such as Shield, which adds extra hit points, and Energy Capacity, which reduces the number of seeds you need, act as built-in difficulty adjustments that players can choose for themselves.

Readable layout on any screen

The game canvas resizes to fit any window, and the HUD reorganises itself for narrow portrait screens and wide landscape monitors. Text is drawn in high-contrast colours against the dark background, and important prompts such as the current objective are always visible in the HUD.

What we want to improve

Accessibility is never finished. Items on our list include:

• Remappable controls, so players can assign any ability to any key or button.
• A game speed option that slows the whole game for players who need more reaction time.
• Additional hazard markers, extending the colour-assist cues to more tile types.
• Adjustable volume sliders in addition to the current on/off toggles.

If you have suggestions, or if something in Neon Burrow is difficult for you to play, please reach out through our contact page. Accessibility feedback is some of the most valuable we receive, and it directly shapes our priorities.

Summary

Neon Burrow is meant to look bright and feel intense, but never at the cost of being playable. Reduced motion follows your system settings, screen shake is optional, colour is backed up by labels and behaviour, sound is backed up by visuals and every input method is fully supported. We hope those choices make the burrow a little more welcoming for everyone.