Grid Games

The Grid Games app contains five puzzle games: Sudoku, Leaf Sweeper, Squares, Pairs, and Where's WCAG? The app explores how traditional puzzle apps can provide an accessible experience as possible for all players. Particular attention has been paid to the screen reader experience when playing the games, and the source code for the app is publicly available for all software developers to review at https://github.com/gbarkerz/GridGames. Details for developers on how the game was built are at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/considerations-around-building-accessible-app-guy-barker, and a video showing the Microsoft .NET MAUI team discussing some of the accessibility-related code in the app is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbxE2p9o1fI. Details on how to play the Sudoku and Leaf Sweeper games are available in the app's help content. The Pairs Game is based on a traditional card matching game, where face-down cards are turned over in order to find pairs of cards. When the game is run, a 4 by 4 grid of blank squares appears, each square representing a card. When a card is tapped, an image is shown on the card. When another card is clicked, an image is also shown on that second card. If the two images are the same, then the cards are considered to be matched, and will not change again for the rest of the game. If the images do not match, then the cards are considered to be unmatched, and cards must be turned back over by tapping on any card. These steps are to be repeated until all matching images have been found, and a "Congratulations" window appears. The Squares Game is based on a square sliding puzzle, where squares in a grid of squares are rearranged by the player to form an ordered sequence in the grid. When the game is run, a 4 by 4 grid of squares appears, with fifteen of those squares occupied with a movable element, and one square being empty. When a square is tapped, if it is adjacent to the empty square, the tapped square moves into the empty square. The space where the tapped square was then becomes the empty square. The aim is to arrange all the squares in a sorted order, leaving the empty square in the bottom right corner of the grid. Once all the squares are ordered, a "Congratulations" window appears. When the game first runs, the setting to have numbers shown on squares is on, and the settings to have pictures shown on the squares is off. This means a number is shown in the top left corner of the squares. When the squares are sorted, the square showing number 1 is at the top left of the grid, and the numbers increase from left to right then top to bottom. When the game setting to have a picture shown on the squares is on, then a single picture is shown across all the squares. The sections of the picture will appear jumbled until the squares are arranged in their sorted order. The Where's WCAG? game help players remember the grouping of some of the Web Content Accessibility Standards (WCAG).