A practical guide to analyze and adapt board games for more inclusive play
Every player is different. Every game is different. So how can we make sure more people can enjoy playing without changing what makes a game fun?
With asmodee access+, we believe accessibility isn’t about creating different games for different people. It’s about making existing games that we already love more accessible.
We’re proud to share the Board Game Universality Index that turns this vision into a practical methodology. Developed in partnership with FM2J (France’s National Training Centre for Games and Toys) and La Boutique des Sciences, this research-based guide provides professionals with a structured way to analyze, adapt and facilitate board games while preserving what matters most: the joy of play.
A clear methodology for accessible game adaptations
Teachers, therapists, caregivers, and play facilitators adapt games every day. They simplify rules, remove components, change the pace of play or introduce cooperative variants to better suit the people around the table. These adaptations are often creative, but they’re also largely intuitive.
The Board Game Universality Index was created to transform this everyday practice into a structured, evidence-informed methodology. Rather than relying solely on experience or trial and error, it offers a common framework to analyze a game, identify barriers to participation and design thoughtful adaptations that preserve both the game’s identity and the player’s autonomy.
Looking beyond disabilities
Accessibility is often associated with disability. But in reality, everyone can encounter barriers while playing.
- A child discovering modern board games
- An older adult experiencing age-related changes
- A patient recovering from illness
- Someone playing in a noisy café or under poor lighting
The Universality Index encourages professionals to focus on players’ needs rather than labels, making it possible to adapt games to real situations instead of predefined categories.
This inclusive approach reflects a simple idea: good accessibility benefits everyone.
A practical framework
The Board Game Universality Index offers a methodology that evaluates every game through five complementary criteria:
- Rule intuitiveness: Can players understand how to play without lengthy explanations?
- Material diversity: How complex is the game’s physical material?
- Difficulty and variants: Can the challenge evolve according to players’ abilities?
- Player configurations: How flexible is the game regarding the number of players?
- Play environments: Can the game easily be played in different settings?
Together, these five criteria provide an overall picture of a game’s natural accessibility while highlighting where adaptations can have the greatest impact. Often, small changes can make a significant difference, for example:
- Introducing progressive difficulty levels
- Simplifying rule explanations
- Enlarging or modifying components
- Creating cooperative variants
- Adapting the physical play environment
Because every group of players is unique, rather than offering universal solutions, this practical guide encourages continuous observation, experimentation and refinement.
Not every game is universally accessible, and that’s okay
Perfect accessibility does not exist. Some games deliberately challenge observation, memory, dexterity or speed. These mechanics are part of what makes them enjoyable.
The goal is therefore not to remove intentional challenge, but to eliminate unnecessary barriers that prevent players from engaging with the game.
Accessibility should support the game, not replace it. Accessibility isn’t about making games easier. It’s about making them playable by more people. If needed accessibility adaptations fundamentally change the game’s identity or remove the core mechanic that makes it enjoyable, it may be worth choosing a different game instead.
