PaneSlide should be enjoyable for as many people as possible. This page lists the accessibility features in the game and the guides, how to turn them on, and their current limits. If something does not work well for you, please tell us using the contact page.
Seeing colour differently: Patterns
The whole game is about colour, so this matters most. Open Settings and turn on Patterns. Each glass colour then gets a texture as well as a colour:
- Cyan: diagonal stripes
- Magenta: dots
- Yellow: horizontal lines
The patterns appear on the panes and in the target picture, and they combine where panes overlap. So a cell with dots and diagonal stripes is cyan + magenta (blue), whatever the colour looks like to you. Every puzzle can be solved from patterns alone. The colour vision guide explains more about colour vision deficiency and which PaneSlide colours can be confusing.
Playing without touch or a mouse
PaneSlide can be played entirely from a keyboard:
- Tab or number keys 1 to 9 pick a pane; Enter moves to the next pane that can move.
- Arrow keys or W A S D slide the picked pane.
- Z undoes, H gives a hint, M toggles music, and Esc closes windows.
- The picked pane is clearly highlighted on the board.
Buttons and links work with Tab, Enter and Space as normal. The full list is in keyboard and mouse controls.
Screen readers
PaneSlide gives the board and its glass names that screen readers can announce:
- Each pane is announced with its colour, such as "Magenta glass", and whether it is locked in place, one-way (and which way it slides), or frosted.
- The board has a description of the rules.
- The target picture is labelled as a picture with its size.
- Short messages, such as the rules for a new mechanic and toasts like "Music on", are announced politely without interrupting.
- Stats tiles and buttons have text labels.
Current limits. The target picture is described by its size, not cell by cell, so reading the picture still needs sight or a helper. Puzzle-solving in PaneSlide is visual by nature. We would welcome feedback from screen reader users on what would help most.
Motion and animation
If your device is set to reduce motion (in your operating system's accessibility settings), PaneSlide turns off decorative animations and transitions, such as the celebration effects after a solve. Glass still moves to its new position, but without the flourishes.
Sound, music and vibration
All three have their own switches in Settings:
- Music: gentle background music at a low volume, with its own volume slider. It is on at first; tap the music button or press M to mute it.
- Sound: short sound effects for swipes and solves.
- Buzz: a light vibration on phones that support it.
You can play in complete silence, and nothing in the game depends on hearing a sound.
Time and pressure
- No timers. There is never a countdown, on levels or daily puzzles.
- No lives or energy. You can play as many levels as you like, whenever you like.
- Every solve earns at least one star, and you can replay any level later.
- Hints never cost stars in Levels mode, and you earn more by playing.
The game is designed to be calm. The puzzles and relaxation guide explains the thinking behind this.
Reading the guides
- Guides use plain language, short paragraphs and clear headings, with a table of contents on longer pages.
- Text can be zoomed with your browser up to large sizes without breaking the layout.
- On wide screens, guides use a comfortable line length of about 70 characters.
- PaneSlide uses a bright, high-contrast light theme, and it is tested with browser dark modes and "force dark" settings so text stays readable when those are on.
- Images have text alternatives.
Size and layout
- The game scales to small phones, large phones, tablets and desktops. On large screens the board is bigger.
- Buttons are large and well spaced for touch.
- Browser zoom works on desktop.
Tell us what would help
Accessibility is never finished. If a colour, control or page is hard for you to use, please contact us through the contact page and describe what happened and which device you used. We read every message.