Melton, Victoria
Most mobile games are unplayable for somebody, for a reason nobody checked.
Niya Tech Labs works on four specific accessibility problems in mobile games: colour vision, one-handed reach, timing pressure, and motion. We publish the specifications we work to, so they can be argued with.
Scope
Four problems, chosen because they are measurable.
Accessibility work drifts into good intentions very easily. Each of these has a test that either passes or fails, which is the only reason they are the four we picked.
- §1 Colour vision
- No game state may be communicated by hue alone. Every state that matters must also differ in shape, position, or luminance contrast. The test is that a greyscale screenshot remains playable, and that the palette holds up under simulated deuteranopia, protanopia and tritanopia.
- §2 One-handed reach
- Every control needed during ordinary play must fall inside the thumb arc of a one-handed grip on a 6.7 inch device, for both hands. Anything outside that arc is for settings, not for play. Minimum target 44 by 44 points, with 8 points of clear space.
- §3 Timing pressure
- Any timed element has an off switch that does not cost you content. Not an easy mode with fewer levels, not a separate leaderboard: the same game, without the clock. Timing pressure is a difficulty choice, and treating it as inseparable from the design excludes people for no design reason.
- §4 Motion
- Screen shake, parallax, particle bursts and camera roll respond to the operating system reduced motion setting, and to an in-game control for people who want motion elsewhere but not here. Nothing decorative moves when either is set.
Colour, worked through
A palette that survives greyscale.
The most common accessibility failure in a casual game is a colour matching mechanic where the colours were chosen by taste. Here is what §1 produces instead: four hues placed on an even luminance ramp, so the set survives a colour vision deficiency and a phone in direct sun.
It also shows why §1 makes shape mandatory rather than encouraged. Four steps cannot all be 3:1 apart from each other. The whole usable luminance range is 21:1, and 3 cubed is 27, so the arithmetic rules it out before any design taste enters the room. The best an even four step ramp can do is 2.76:1 between neighbours. Ours reaches 2.33:1, and the shortfall is exactly the gap that shape has to cover.
Anchor
Darkest step, hex 00245A. Carries the primary game state and clears 13.87:1 against the page.
Relative luminance 0.020Deep
Second step, hex 046D4D. Separated from Anchor by luminance rather than hue, so greyscale keeps them apart.
Relative luminance 0.115 · 2.36:1 from AnchorMid
Third step, hex F37C0F. This is the step that collapses first when a palette is picked by eye rather than measured.
Relative luminance 0.335 · 2.33:1 from DeepLight
Top step, hex FEEDB2. At 1.08:1 against the page it can never carry text or an outline on its own, so it always ships with a shape difference.
Relative luminance 0.849 · 2.33:1 from MidPosition
Why a lab rather than a studio.
A studio ships games and hopes the accessibility work survives the schedule. It usually does not, because accessibility is the thing that is always finishable next sprint.
So the order is reversed here. The specifications come first and are published, the test harness comes second, and a title is only worth building once the harness can tell us whether it passes. That is slower and it is the only version of this we think is honest.
What exists today
- The four specifications above, in the form you are reading.
- A palette generator that produces luminance separated ramps and reports the worst case contrast in the set.
- A reach overlay that marks the thumb arc on a device screenshot for a stated hand size and grip.
What does not exist
- No published title. Nothing has been submitted to a store.
- No automated audit product, and none for sale.
- No certification, no accreditation, no partnership with an accessibility body, and no endorsement from one.
On WCAG
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are written for web content, and games sit awkwardly inside them. We use the contrast maths and the reduced motion position because both transfer cleanly. We do not claim WCAG conformance for a game, because a conformance claim for something the standard was not written for is a claim that sounds stronger than it is.
Company
The registrable facts.
All of it is on an Australian public register and none of it needs to be taken on trust.
- Legal name
- NIYA TECH LABS PTY LTD
- Entity type
- Australian proprietary company, limited by shares
- ACN
- 698 379 145
- ABN
- 26 698 379 145
- ABN status
- Active from 1 July 2026
- GST
- Not currently registered for GST
- State
- Victoria
- Verify at
- abr.business.gov.au, free and without an account
- Contact
- [email protected]
NIYA TECH LABS PTY LTD holds no ISO/IEC 27001 certification, no SOC 2 report, and no accessibility accreditation of any kind, and will not represent otherwise until one is genuinely held. Nothing on this site should be read as a certification claim.