Visual and accessibility

Configure visual noise, overlay themes, hitbox style, audio presentation, HUD visibility, screenshake, and Madeline visuals.

Akron includes visual and audio settings for comfort, clarity, and presentation. Most of these settings are classified as Goldberry/Hardlist clear or Normal clear because they do not mutate gameplay or reveal hidden state. Strict submissions may still evaluate presentation changes case by case.

Visual noise and presentation

Area	Settings
Reduced visual noise	Suppress particles, trails, glitch effects, anxiety effects, and distortion.
Weather and environment	Hide snow, wind snow, waterfalls, tentacles, and heat distortion.
Visual tuning	Adjust lighting level, bloom level, and screen tint.
Stamina flash	Suppress the low-stamina screen flash.
Refill clarity	Highlight already-visible one-use refills with a configurable color overlay.
HUD visibility	Hide or reduce HUD surfaces.
Pause menu visibility	Hide the pause menu surface without changing pause state.
Death visuals	Suppress post-death particles and screen-wipe presentation.
Respawn animation	Shorten post-death respawn presentation.
Golden transparency	Reduce golden berry and follower opacity.
Hide player	Hide Madeline visually while keeping gameplay state unchanged.

Overlay themes

Akron ships with 11 built-in overlay themes and supports custom theme packs:

Preset	Description
Default	Dark background with red headers.
Monochrome	Grayscale palette for low-distraction viewing.
High Contrast	Black background with bright yellow headers.
Midnight	Deep blue palette with cool-toned text.
Crimson	Dark red palette with warm-toned text.
Terminal	Dark green palette inspired by terminal displays.
Symbiote	Dark purple palette with muted pink accents.
Carbon	Dark gray palette with orange accents.
Retro	Light beige palette with dark text.
Coniferous	Dark gray palette with green accents.
Wine	Dark burgundy palette with pale text.

Each theme controls window, header, header-hover, frame, text, muted-text, and disabled-text colors. You can also configure overlay opacity, scale, blur, and animation speed independently of the active theme. Open Interface > Theme and use Export .akr or Import Latest .akr to save or load a custom theme pack.

Hitbox style and colors

When hitbox viewing is active, Akron lets you customize hitbox appearance per entity category:

Setting	Effect
Player	Set color, trail visibility, trail length, and trail opacity.
Solids	Set fill opacity and outline color.
Hazards	Set a separate color from general solids.
Triggers	Set a dedicated trigger color.
Death markers	Set the death position and death-player marker colors.
General	Set line thickness and fill opacity.

Reset hitbox style to defaults from the hitbox popup controls.

Audio presentation

Akron can lower volume below Celeste’s normal slider range, adjust music and SFX volumes independently, change audio playback speed, or shift pitch. These are classified as presentation and accessibility settings as long as they do not change simulation timing.

Audio speed changes the playback speed of active audio. It does not change the game simulation tick rate.

Madeline visuals

Akron supports several categories of Madeline visual customization:

Setting	Effect
Madeline Colors	Override hair color per dash state (no-dash through five-dash) with an optional gradient animation.
Custom Trail	Set fixed-color or rainbow trails with configurable opacity, cut rate, and pulse effects.
Madeline Hair Length	Set the number of hair segments per dash state (no-dash through five-dash).
Madeline Effect Sync	Match dash particles, dash trails, death effects, feather color, and crown color to the active hair color.
Death Particles	Customize the death-burst particle color mode, flash and outline colors, lifetime, preset shape, or custom 8x8 pixel shape.
Trail Visibility	Choose Vanilla, Hidden, or Always show trail mode for Madeline’s trail through Always Show Trail, No Ghost Trail, or No Trails.

All of these change presentation without moving the player or changing collision.

Screenshake

Screenshake reduction is Goldberry/Hardlist clear. It is an accessibility comfort control that suppresses or reduces camera shake without changing gameplay state. You can configure a specific intensity or disable screenshake fully.

Set up a comfort configuration

1. Enable reduced visual noise

   In the Akron overlay, open the Level tab. Reduced Visual Noise suppresses particles, trails, glitch, anxiety, and distortion together. Configure snow, wind snow, waterfalls, tentacles, playback tutorial ghosts, and heat distortion separately.

2. Choose an overlay theme

   Open Interface > Theme and choose a preset. Adjust overlay opacity and scale to taste.

3. Reduce screenshake

   Enable Screenshake and set the intensity to your preferred level. Set intensity to 0 to fully disable camera shake.

4. Customize Madeline visuals

   Enable Madeline Colors, Madeline Hair Length, or Custom Trail to personalize Madeline’s appearance. Use Madeline Effect Sync to keep visual effects consistent with your chosen hair colors.

5. Save to a setup

   Use Manage .akr setups to save your visual configuration so you can restore it without reconfiguring each session.

Configuration advice

• Keep accessibility and presentation settings in a dedicated setup when they represent your default way to play.
• Keep camera inspection tools such as free camera, camera offset, and cursor zoom in dedicated map-inspection or testing setups.
• Do not assume that a Goldberry/Hardlist clear or Normal clear presentation feature is accepted by every strict external rule source.
• Use Clean vs cheat when preparing for a submitted run.