Aphantasia, No Visual Imagination, and Video Games - Access-Ability 

I had the same sort of realisation a while ago "Wait, when you say picture this thing, you can just... picture it?!" and a lot of what you've said sticks true for me. A game series that was really, really good for me as someone with this inability to remember things was Etrian Odyssey. This series was an old school dungeon crawler that let me make a map as detailed as I wanted on the bottom screen of the 3DS so I could remember EVERYTHING. I knew exactly everything about my surroundings because goddamn it, I was the one that put that little block there. The exercise of drawing these spaces just made it so much easier to remember exactly where I was, my destination and made the exploring itself fun as all hell rather than a chore.

I can visualize stuff and spaces all the time...but that doesn’t mean I can *recall* that info, especially when I’m doing literally anything else. Like...playing a video game. You’re absolutely right that the sorts of helpful features you like absolutely help other people too! :3 (My “thing” is names. I can recall faces. I can recall names. I cannot reliably make those things match properly. The more characters there are in a game, the closer they are in appearance, and the less distinct their names and appearance from each other, the less likely I’ll be able to follow what’s going on without something to track it.)

As someone with partial aphantasia, I identify a lot with the map struggles. I have the experience in games and in real life of taking a route to get somewhere, and then realizing I’m suddenly in some place that I’m very familiar with, but I had no idea it was coming. Or I’ll get the feeling I am somewhere far from where I am, because of certain visual similarities between the places. I often think about designing a world where places connect through strange paths that seem normal, but transport you to previously known destinations using non-Euclidean geometry. That way, the world would truly be connected in the ways that the real world sometimes seems to me to be connected.

A thought I had about my Aphantasia and video games, but not necessarily about accessibility, was the reason I found myself liking Visual Novels so much. I like reading, but always lost out on picturing what characters and locations would look like, and VNs alleviate this problem almost entirely. I'm actively looking at the POV character at nearly all times, I can see a representation of their world, a lot of the time I can hear what they're supposed to sound like, and, that helps me get invested in the characters in a way I really can't while reading a regular book.

Okay actually thank you for this video because I have aphantasia and never considered the ways it affects the ways I communicate information to others when I play, I do the same kind of listical instructions for mapping out directions in a game and when I say it verbally my friends can get overwhelmed with the amount of information that I often consider to be an automatic part of navigation. Edit: It's kind of baffling honestly how even folks with these conditions can be unaware of the ways that they adapt their behavior to adjust to certain needs. It really speaks to the importance of the work you're doing in helping people view the medium of games through this lens.

One game that lets you see characters' faces whenever you want is Pyre. When a character's name gets mentioned in the story's text, you can hover over their name to see a picture of their face and a description of them. I imagine that feature would be useful for those mystery VNs that you mentioned. PS. I really enjoy games with Danganronpa and Ace Attorney too

Great video! I would like to mention that some of the improvements you suggest (glossary of characters) would also help people with another type of disability - face blindness, the inability to recognize faces (which I suffer from). I would be grateful if you could make a video about that too sometime in the future, to raise awareness of it.

For an example of what Laura means when she says "Aphantasia is a spectrum" I'll give my own experiences. It should be noted aphantasia falls under a category of conditions where a person cannot imagine something involving senses. For example, I cannot imagine smells or tastes unless I am actively smelling or tasting something other than my general mouth and nose stuff and even then it's limited. When piecing together a meal for example I rely on word descriptors for foods instead of what they taste like because I cannot recall what things taste like generally. In regards to sight, even when I'm doing well mentally I struggle a bit playing Minecraft with my girlfriend because it's been an entirely new experience for me and there's no minimap. Minecraft not having a basic minimap in the top right is almost certainly a design choice based on it being 3d, but it'd still be great if there was an official map instead of mods. Once I've actually gone through an area a few times I can recall it pretty well but it can take a lot out of me because I have to put a decent bit of effort into it until I've seen it enough times that it's stuck in my head. Once I found the console I started using the position coordinates it gave to navigate a little easier since I knew the coordinates for home base and knew where I was and which direction I was heading. Switch over to something like Tetris which I've played thousands of hours in and I can literally play it in my head. It's not perfect since I can't do its pseudorandom block generation, but it works for entertainment. If I'm good enough mentally where I can expend the energy on it. If I'm tired or otherwise not in a good place, my mind's eye really goes down quickly. And it is so much appreciated when games have the ability to pull up a map or other visual details because then I don't have to expend the energy on recalling them and can instead work on the actual game. If I have to keep recalling things with my mind's eye, I eventually, well, burn out and have to play something different or play the game in a different way that doesn't require me to visualize stuff. Having information (visual, auditory, any other senses) readily accessible in game is so helpful even for someone who can imagine it because us simply bringing up a character's bio to see their face is going to be so much easier and accurate than bringing it up mentally if we're even able to do that.

I actually didn't know other people can actually see things in their mind.

Carrion really pushed it by not having a map honestly. Myself and many other people i watch online had a really hard time navigating that game. I can't imagine how hard it must be to people with aphantasia

I don't have Aphantasia, not by a longshot. But I do have issues with short term memory and connecting different pathways, so good maps in games are essential. I adore Hollow Knight, despite it being difficult for me, and frequently need to check the map to ensure I'm going in the right direction. I only remove the Wayward Compass charm when I'm either right next to a boss, or somewhere that I've been enough times to remember. I know that the Grub nest is almost a straight line in a westward direction, going down from Dirtmouth. So even if it's for a different reason, I feel you on needing a good map in games to avoid getting lost ^^'.

Very interesting! So many benefit from having good, accessible maps :)

Subnautica was awful for me without a map. I had to play that whole game in creative mode because I kept getting lost and drowning every 20 minutes or so. Now, I just kind of fart about like a goldfish, finding cool spots to build bases only to realize it's actually super close to the one from yesterday.

That was a great video but I think even though I do have aphantasia, I still can't relate to much people with that condition because for me, I love evey single kind of game out there (except for FPS and MMO), be it a puzzle like Portal, metroid-vania giant map, sci-fi visual novels, casual and arcade like spelunky, survival horror as resident evil, indie like undertale, and the list goes on.. But the main reason I think I'm even more different is because I have a great memory, and I use it to compensate for my lack of visual imagination, specially in games with a giant map with a hundred and ten collectibles, even though I can't remember the exact layout, I can remember special points of interest, like in the south there's this giant snowy mountain, and around it there's four teleporters, and around each teleporter there's a puzzle chamber, it's not perfect, but it's really better than nothing

Awww lovely to see your girlfrien Laura, like the blue pink hair contrast!

I still remember recording the Blockhead puzzles in Okami because once those dots vanished my brain had no trace of them ever existing because even my repeating back an order can't work on something entirely visual. Lack of maps or landmarks too I will genuinely not recognise somewhere unless I'm standing on it both in game and real life, annnnd the being completely face blind thing where people think you're taking the piss when you genuinely can't tell it's them because they changed their hair or see them in the wrong context. It's less of a problem compared to my dexterity issues in the gaming sense but when it pops up it's freaking annoying. Good sound design I have found helps though even if it's less common now for being different enough to pin point where you are and where to go.

This was a really cool video Laura. I never knew about aphantasia before today. This series is great because you're sharing so much knowledge. Thank you. 😃 And yeah, having character/item/etc glossaries and maps in games as a default would be fantastic. 😃

I definitely have aphantasia, I have my whole life. I've read that some people with it can still dream visually, but I don't. Dreaming for me is a lot like thinking during the day, except that it’s clearly a dream since I don't have control and it’s filled with weird things that my brain conjures up which I'd never think of logically. I can't sense anything in them, no sight, no smell, no sound, definitely no taste, and no touch either. Just verbal descriptions. Like most of the people I've read about, I can't sense or see the stories in books, but I also can't assign voices to characters in my head. I just think the dialogue like a normal thought.

Fair enough. A logbook is helpful after quitting for a while due to life. Refreshing the plot off the cliffs notes when free time returns.

I never knew this was a thing before. I'm the complete opposite, where my imagination can even be a bit _too_ vivid. Doesn't directly cause anywhere near as many problems with the way the world is set up now as aphantasia would, I imagine. More maps in games would still be very nice, though. I still have trouble finding my way around pretty often. Though, if we're going with objective markers, I always appreciate it when you get enough information to be able to find your objective without them. Nothing takes me out of the experience quite like getting no actual directions and then following a little floaty arrow. In other words, please for the love of god don't implement them like Skyrim did.

Very helpful video and I agree with most points as someone with aphantasia, I appreciate the awareness!

I think I'm right on the other end, with intense kaleidoscopes of imagery and other sensory associations but no words. Structuring my thoughts in language is a kind of translation exercise, and I often find myself thinking aloud without meaning to. I'm not sure what the medical term is. I find navigating games without a good map difficult, particularly early on, but that's more because it takes time for me to get a handle on the visual environment enough to make sense of what I'm 'seeing' without help.

I'm in the even smaller subset of Aphantasia where it affects all senses. Like it's impossible for me to describe what something smells or tastes like since I can't call up the memory of other smells to compare it to. Sound can be a real trip in games though. I still get songs "stuck in my head", but not actually hearing anything. It's more like having the math of the rhythm and pitch changes running through my head, and can only get it out in external ways like humming, whistling, tapping, etc. So if I need to remember a tune or voice more than a few seconds, I'll get roadblocked. Rhythm games though can sometimes be a breeze (when my fingers cooperate), since the screen lines up a lot with how my brain works.

Quick Time Events always pose me a particular nightmare if I'm using a controller. Since I can't remember which shape is on which button, particularly when I'm using a PS4 controller and the prompts are for the xbox, it'd be a LOT easier to just have the name of actions that the button does. Telling me to hit Triangle or... ..fuuck, it's yellow on the xbox right? Anyway, asking me to hit that requires me to process which button that is before being able to actually press anything. Telling me to "Enter" "Action" "Fire" "Punch" "Jump" or "Map" skips that step.

Not relevant to games, but i do wanna say I don't have aphantasia, but I do have a non-visual similar thing for my smell and taste, when me and my brother go out for a meal or get a take away, he always finds it weird that I order the same few items. He once asked me why and I said: "I don't remember the taste of the things I've eaten, so I'll order my favourites again". He thought I was an idiot until recently where the phenomenon was mentioned in passing in a Tom Scott video.

i don't have aphantasia but i have a really bad spatial memory (and a bad memory in general), when i played Carrion i also had to constantly refer to a map to be able to get around. all of these accessibility features you mentioned save me a lot of frustration in games that have them.

Recently found I had this and as both a gamer AND an artist.. it’s a trip. I just never understood people REALLY saw things (well) in their mind 😭 I struggled/struggle so hard with keeping anything in my mind. I get lost following friends in destiny 2 constantly even though I’m trying to eye the little mini map in top left😆

I have aphantasia but I usually do pretty well with orienting myself in games especially in kinda maze like situation (less so in open maps with roads to follow) because one thing I can imagine is like "directions", like the "feeling" of directionality. It's hard to explain but it's something I'm able to feel pretty well so I can do operations in my head that require moving in a direction or shifting things around despite not being able to visualize the thing I can picture it's position and direction well. Obviously this helps immensely with navigation. And yeah I got completely turned around and lost in carrion cause the map layout was really confusing and the teleporters stopped me from making any kind of mental connection between areas. Also you talked about tactical turned based games... been streaming a bit of fire emblem recently and I noticed I have to recheck ranges of attack and movement over and over again cause as soon as the indicator disapears I'm not able to keep it in my head and if I don't do it, often I'm 1tile off where I wanted to go which can be deadly in these games.

Ok super interesting topic BUT THAT "GIRLFRIEND GRAPH" IS SO ADORABLE??? (and a very cute picture dissolving in from it is just

I also struggle with knowing where I was in among us! Add to that difficulty telling the difference between player colors, and that sometimes I know I saw someone kill or vent but then can’t remember what color they were, and it’s a big problem lol.

It took so long for me to even realise, as you described, people actually can see images in their head. And a lot of what you say in this video helped me realise issues i have i wasn't even aware of. Great job Laura =)

I'm curious how common this is for this to be occurring for the other senses other than just visual. I can neither see, hear, smell or feel anything I think about. I do have an inner voice of sorts, but it's not audible. I can't say it's something that has negatively impacted my gaming though. Quite the opposite actually. I can't really stand gross things in games and movies which actually makes aphantasia useful. When the gross stuff are out of sight I don't really get haunted by the picture like I imagine (hah) non-aphants do, and can quickly move on when it is over.

I'm curious what navigation tools you think could help you for games that take place in fundamentally unmappable spaces - Manifold Garden (a game that's basically about navigating escher-like environments) or even Dandara (a game with a map, but which has an area which connects to itself in a more dream-like manner, so sometimes doubling back is how to progress).

Omg i just spent most of that video just saying out loud YES, SAME, ect lol Recalling faces yup just some main descriptor words Traversing maps, that's how I fucking get around the city i live in! Lol Carrion YES IT NEEDS A FUCKING MAP! I love that game but had to stop playing cuz of how confused and frustrated I was. Thanks for talking about aphantasia! I only learned about it 2 years ago when I was 25. Before then I didn't understand why everyone said they could picture things and I didn't understand why I couldn't recall memories as anything more than words and facts. Leading that aphantasia is a thing helped me feel so much more secure.

I don't know if I have Aphantasia, but I have a really poor working memory because of ADHD and autism, so most of these things are also really useful for me too. I also think in words, which, as an author is really helpful, because I think up sentences the way that I'd normally read them in a finished version of a book. To my brain, that's how sentences work, so that's how I write them. The downside is that I cannot visualise any of my characters, and I have to keep a list of what they look like next to me so that I can reference it from time to time (because most readers do love knowing what people look like and they will actively see them in their mind). The thing is, I still remember the layouts of houses, apartments, schools, towns, etc. from just about any story I've written in the last decade, but faces and details of what they would generally wear? No clue, and I wouldn't have been able to remember when I was actually writing the story either. One of the worst things for me when I play games is when a city in a game makes no sense in their layout (WoW is very bad at this), because it means I always have to look at the map, every time I'm in a place, even if I've been there over a hundred times in the last two weeks. When the game designers first create a city, with all the pretty things in it, and only after that start to fill out what goes where, that's not how cities work, and it's very frustrating when you just can't get around the place because there's just no way to make sense of it. I have a very specific list of things that I can remember and visualise, but in general, I can't visualise anything unless I've already seen it or have a good frame of reference, and even then, don't ask me about people and what they look like, that'll always be blank to me.

I have trouble only with visualising geo spatial directions and need maps with live guides in essentially every game I play. People make fun of the Skyrim spell Clairvoyance is a damn godsend.

I've also got aphantasia, and my coping skill is to rely on my strong visual memory. I can take mental "snapshots" of things I want to remember, and I've learned how to perform some simple transformations on those snapshots. I can translate, rotate, change color, and, for things like maps, I can trace a line on it. I can sort of stitch two images together, but unless I can physically see the stitched image with my eyes the stitch is merely a mental link between the two images. That's still good enough for navigating a game like Carrion, where I can follow these mental hyperlinks between my snapshots of each room to find my destination. It's not good enough for some puzzle games that expect me to stitch 4+ images into a whole. Any more complex transformations I can't do without extreme difficulty, and constructing a mental image without a reference is impossible. Weirdly, my visual memory works much better when my eyes are open than when they're closed. Where I struggle is with words. Words and pictures use completely different parts of my brain that really do not like each other. If you ask me to describe what's happening in my visual memory, the whole thing shuts down. Likewise, descriptions meant to conjure an image absolutely do not work that way for me. "Tess had curly brown hair," creates a link between the *words* "Tess" and "curly brown hair" but I can't create a picture of a face from that.

Based on the experiences mentioned in the video, I don't think I have Aphantasia, or maybe a mild form of it, but I still struggle to come up with an overview map in Carrion. I think in parts because we are supposed to rush from one area to another. The transportation points certainly make it worst. In Carrion case, I think it would have helped if there are static maps in certain rooms. Watching this, I felt like you have partially explained some of my conditions regarding conjuring image in my head. I started to wonder if I have a condition when I tried the Farnese Witch exercise from Berserk. I couldn't keep constructing the image of apple in my mind. I can remembering an image of an apple. But couldn't quite reconstructing it in my mind. I don't know if this is even relevant. But it's how my brain seems to work. I could build scenes in my head when I read books. But mostly they were the scene without color or certain details. I don't even know to really explain it.

I think I might have that, I didn't even realise it was a thing until there was a character in the show Space Force that mentioned having it. It just clicked for me after hearing that I looked into it and it fit my experiences. It was like when I finally realised I was trans, it was like things I didn't understand, or had tried to avoid thinking about suddenly made sense. Of course it's not had the impact realising I'm trans had. I had the same trouble with Carrion as well.

I find that a genre that I, pretty much can't play. Is "visual" novels I struggle with reading long strands of text, already. That being expected to imagine things like, what a room looks like, what the character is supposed to be doing, etc. Is hard (wait... I guess the only type of novels I can read, are graphic novels)

Idk if I have fully Aphantasia but I definitly am the worst when it is about finding ways

Very interesting watch. Talking with my Husband he definitely has the same struggles with games and uses his phone a lot of help with info he needs.

Huh. I have aphantasia and don't have the map trouble at all. I can't visualise a map in any concrete way, but I have a tremendous sense of spatial awareness even in virtual environments on a screen. Even without seeing in my mind I can just sort of feel how a place fits together. What really gets rough for me is trying to follow guides. Images or even video don't help very much because I can't connect what I see in those to the visuals I see while actively playing. This gets really rough with MMOs where the high end content requires following other people's guides, at least to break into it, because people don't have patience for you to learn totally from scratch on every fight, barely even being able to repurpose knowledge of mechanics from other fights because the different context makes it hard to recognise. Doesn't help that in addition to the aphantasia I have ADHD, anxiety, avoidant personality disorder, and other issues that don't begin with A contributing to my difficulties.

I’d be curious to learn what your experiences are like playing table top RPGs? Specifically when the DM describes a setting or NPC. Also what do you use for reference when you’re DM’ing and have to create these narrative visual components?

I don't directly have aphantasia (In the most extreme sense at least), but on those '1-6 imagine an apple' tests I always wind up with somewhere around 1-2 out of 6. To me, I can mostly imagine colors and shapes, maybe fine details of an image, but large images always end up blurry. It's like my visual imagination is a magnifying glass. This has interesting side effects since I personally have a phenomenal pathfinding skills in the game, I think precisely because my visual imagination is limited. I kind of can see the forest for the trees in a sense, because I can't see the forest, only the path. This has actually led me to become really interested in games WITHOUT quest markers and such, because I personally see them as a hindrance. When the game can give me navigational guides that don't rely on following a marker on a compass or that little dotted line, I feel invigorated. What's your opinion on verbal guidance like this? I think the best of both worlds would be to have all possible options, of course, but what is your take on memorizing things that way?

What are the top 20 accessibility features you want to see in games?

Gamer Languag: I can only picture up pictures that I have experienced with my own eyes, called "Memory Data" and a combination of "Recall Memory Act Comand". (if i use "focus comand" than i can create a frozen 3D 3 pearson pespectiv image). And yes it is very difficult to imagine things in your head that do not actually exist in your head. quote: "it cant exist, if you haven't seen it yet" So, this is what I do: I use stuff that i am able to use to remember, where i am in the world (and Informasion that actuely exist) to creat a map in my head that is formed as I continue to explore the Unknown world I am located in. (I see it in 3 person using "perspetiv taking skill" but I don't know if it require "imagination skill" to activate, becuse it uses memoris to forme the 3Dmap. if the game is in 2D then it is little bit harder to use "perspectiv taking skill" But of course it will be complicated and difficult when you enter a cave system that are massive, long and have different enteranses, but at the same time do not care where you are. (don't be afraid to comment!!)

I have a very very weak mental visual imagination i can see stuff but i have to spend time thinking of it more then others and it is never very big or advanced. i feel this has done 2 things. 1.I wanted to learn to draw and learned really quick it's not really something you can do without visual imagination. 2. I like fighting games but "reading" or seeing what they are going to do is just something i can't do and i feel like it hurts my play a good amount.

I cannot play games AT ALL without constant access to maps and specific objective markers. I do not have Aphantasia but I am neurodiverse. So can confirm, maps are very x useful

I've recently noticed I seem to have the opposite problem. Say when I read a text, I don't see words, I see an image that I think the words describe. So if I'd have to analyse the words that were written I just couldn't because I can't see past the meaning and still read the words...

Aphantasia isnt a disability its just neurodiversity.

i dont know if its just me. but i need games that have good stories to have insentive to play the game. like i have a burnout when i play minecraft and terraria for too long. and zelda games make me glued to my tv.

i don't think i have this fully, but i do think in part (not good visual imagination and shit memory + the inability to comprehend a list (if you tell me A, B and C i'll only remember C and that there was an A right after you said it) make a lot of these things apply to me too). explains why i prefer riding on tomtom or the like over on map (and how the fuck other people can do it, if you can simply keep the image of the route in your head obviously you could navigate on that) and why some people like the idea of navigating in a game (i can find my way around skyrim, but that's because i have that map effective memorised, but otherwise i'm easily lost in whatever game i'm in, but if other people can visualise a route on a description and navigate by that i can understand how that would be very immersive).

I have Aphantasia too! I really struggle whenever I'm tasked to imagine something I'm unfamiliar with. Also I can't recall smells, sounds and physical sensations. I'm dealing with it by having a wast memory bank which I can combine and transform to make something new.

What are your thoughts on games that are intentionally difficult or obtuse or disorientating? I sometimes find these types of games difficult too but I'm still interested by games that purposefully try and discomfort you

I also have string of words aphantasia! Occasionally I’ll get a colour smear. “Firetruck” is just a smear of red mentally lol

i don't think the ability to orientate in space is related to aphantasia, i can't visualize anything, but i'm good at remembering which way is what, and remembering places, i just can't visualize them if i'm not seeing them (both in games and real life), minimaps still help tho

I'm an aphant and I never had such troubles. I don't think your difficulties are caused by your aphantasia.

i almost always look up maps for games online before i play them and have one open on my computer while i'm playing. people have accused me of cheating with that, but i literally can not do it without them.

I have a degree of aphantasia, possibly? if I have little maps and have to connect them I have trouble knowing how each connect with ease, but if I have an overall map it clicks. Its also an issue when driving irl.

Laura confirmed as the true 1%

I can have a vaguely cinematic experience listening to an audio play, and I can remember faces that are important to me, but describing them is difficult. My sense of direction and map reading are total shit, though. I have to remember every turn, or guess and hope I see familiar surroundings if I've been there before. When going somewhere new I usually need to constantly check google maps. The Yakuza Like a Dragon minimap thing is literally how I use google maps irl. I've quit a bunch games out of frustration with where I'm supposed to go and I often need to have a map next to the game to be able to get it. I remember being so frustrated playing World of Warcraft before they implemented more obvious map directions. I too imagine better navigational accessibility would benefit most players regardless of ability.

Wow you look great in this. I can barely see the 5oclock stubble!

I personally have aphantasia. Gonna be really honest when i say this. But the only times i have any issue at all is puzzles where i have to remember a sequence of colors in succession. And i dont know how much of that is the lack of me being able to have a visual representation or not in my mind. Or i just have a shitty memory. I do smoke a lot of pot.... But ya. In my day to day life it effects nearly nothing i do.

Is having Aphantasia like being an NPC?

So... a weird boon would be that you couldn't be that easily accused of thinking of someone else when having s€x, isn't it? O.o

What about dreaming?

Could you please add trigger warnings for car crashes in future videos.

1 simple fix get good