ThatsMrOffDutyNinja

He can really rock the drums in Rock Band, too.

Adarael

"Hah, you guys suck. Even a color-blind person can beat you at Puzzle Fighter"

Good times, good times.

nkoan

osver

osver

valuepack

karmakid

thelken

One day, you'll be hit by a bus and will be paralyzed from the waist down and it will be glorious.

Samos42

Some stuff like Shadowrun (I was one of the guys who actually liked it) put me at such a disadvantage, not being able to see if they were freind or foe right away, or accidently killing a team mate and loses points just plain sucked.

I've said for years they ened to make games playable for colorblind people like myself. It's not a biggy that I can't tell mario from luigi because that doesnt effect my game at all, but puzzle/FPS games its a make-or-break situation.

Terminal-Frost

omen

Apreche

mcderek3000

Unfortunately any search for 'ICC profile color blind' returns hits for a color management app called 'Colorblind'...

Bakachan

RuneX

worsethannormal

worsethannormal

VergessenHeld

artofwar420

Actually wait I take that back I think my counsins grandfather said he was when we were talking about fish and fishing.

Witzbold

dowingba

trina

Plsk1n

gusiskirby

beefsack

Other than minor annoyances I cant say its rendered many games unplayable, but dam frustrating

@llllDrGONZOllll: lol, I remember askin a frind what the shirt said, and they were like.."ha ha ,jerk" they could see it, I couldnt.

Shoot2thrill

nin

For puzzle games, the easiest solution for helping out the vast majority of colorblind people (red-green colorblindness) is to A) have a symbol to differentiate red and green, or B) Yes either red OR green as one of the colors for the puzzle shapes, not both. Dr. Mario only used Red, Yellow, and Blue. No problems there. Use something like White, or a really light green and a really dark red, etc.

Again, no big deal, but that would help people who like to play puzzle games. I'll stick to my FPS games ^_^

latecustomer

Paragon

JoyOfJoys

Samos42

Paragon

Reminds me of this time I accidentally discovered the SAP audio stream for the blind while watching an episode of CSI. It had a narrator describing everything, it was like someone reading you a book, but with the dialogue still being spoken by all the actors, and all the regular sound effects. So I guess more of a cross between an audiobook and a radio drama...but I digress.

Bakachan

Tarthus

I can tell apart all of the standard colors you'd see in a crayon box, but once you start getting into yellow-green and those weird ones, I stick to reading the labels.

Tarthus

Just a thought...

pABSO

Yeah there's quite a few. I've only known 1 guy who was color blind, and his was the rare type where you really can't see any colors at all.

dead_red_eyes

That screenshot up above shows what color blindness looks like. The shot on the left is from the game which looks normal to us ... the shot on the right is what it looks like to color blind people.

dead_red_eyes

The article didn't say a whole lot, but the more articles like that get mainstream coverage, I think the more developers ought to notice it. Thanks. It's also good to have a reminder.

BTW, I think it was the GameBoy version of Puyo Puyo used light/dark Puyos, and different shapes, if subtlely. Looking at an ad for PuyoPuyo Sun for GBC they also seem to take slightly different shapes based on color.

fuchikoma

Check out TimLyons comments in this thread

TimLyons
TimLyons

dead_red_eyes

Evil Tortie's Mom

I myself personally have almost 0 color blind friends / family members so I find this quite fascinating.

Witzbold

Sqwerell

Guild_Navigator

Then 1 day, my friend came over and saw my playing Earthbound. He asked me why the water in a lake was all pink. I replied, "I dunno. It's Earthbound."

BIGmog

Sandbox_Emperor

In Super Puzzle Fighter HD I can't tell the difference between the green and Yellow jewels, which can cause a lot of trouble. The same goes for Hexic for the 360, except the colors I can't distinguish are the blues and purples. And battlefield 2142 is pretty much unplayable to me because the opposing forces camouflage look the same so it's no fun. And in Guitar Hero 3 I can't see the buttons on screen at times until it's too late. the fret board is so cluttered and ugly (on the wii/ps2 especially) that all the colors can blend and it turns into a soupy mess.

It's nice when games include a colorblind mode and it would actually encourage me to buy more of them. Peggle does it, but unfortunately that's not a game I have trouble seeing the colors.

Grocerspride

I don't know if this has already been suggested, but a solution to puzzle games being difficult for colour-blinded people could be an option to replace certain colours with simple patterns?

for example, going into the options menu of a Tetris game and switching out the colour red for a simple diagonal-lined pattern.

[www.adobetutorialz.com]

Sandbox_Emperor

Okay, one more bite. Dr. Mario, Puzzle Fighter and Bust-A-Move are some of the best puzzle games out there, IMO. Great to see you mention them, sad to see that you had to be such an asshat about it.

dead_red_eyes

What an ignorant post. I'd love to pick thru it, but seeing as you've been banned and all ... I'll just save my breath.

dead_red_eyes

King Seafoam

djHEAT

Who cares? They're missing out on just a few games. True, Puzzle Fighter, Dr. Mario and Bust-a-Move are some of my favorite games... but still... the vast majority of games are playable by the color blind.

I mean, what's next... whining about the fact that crippled people can't play DDR?

I mean, I have a handicapped brother that has a hard time with analog-stick movement... why aren't developers looking out for him.

People should just STFU and enjoy the games they CAN play.

RemyDuvalle

Anyway, I think, if nothing else, they should have someone colorblind act as a play tester. Maybe include people with other fairly common impairments.

Tiber

ShaggE

I think a large part of the problem is just the connotation that red means stop or enemy, whereas blue means go or friendly. And this is used in so many games. Designing a HUD where they can change colors like that is really easy to do, and IMO should always be done.

Something to consider is ~2% of females and ~8% of males have some type of color blindness. That's a lot of people you're just eliminating leaving out by not designing your game with that in mind.

darthmole12

So while you may not having trouble telling what team you're on I often do. (One time in TF2 I was chasing someone as pyro for the better part of a minute before realizing that he wasn't on fire because he was on my team. That was humiliating...)

Rubiximus

gcZanmato

ShaggE

Engineer_This

Parsifal

Anyway, one of the first times were were playing Halo 3 and he had questions about how to use the beam sword. Now I don't always remember about his problem so I said wait until the crosshair turns red then slash. He kind of paused for a second for me to realize what I just said.

So I think that devolpers do need to start thinking about at least working in options to accomidate to colorblind people. I have noticed some games have, but more could be done I believe.

MjrShake

Sean Noonan

Gam3r

But I do have to say, games cannot accommodate everyone. I know a guy who's in a wheelchair- he thinks the Wii is stupid because he doesn't want to swing a controller, he wants to swing an actual bat like he used to. It's sad in a way, but it's true. And games don't always help others either, like the blind or deaf. In Mario 64 DS there was a star that you could only get to due to sound. It's just how it is sometimes, because the majority overrides others and the fact that many of them can't play anyways or don't want to...it's not the same game sometimes when you change it up...

JGab

... I effing hate you...

latecustomer

Parsifal

Cchrist

What about multi team? Or custom games? Where teams can be any color from red to blue to pink to yellow to brown :P

lordargent

Witzbold

Bust a Move is one of the worst offenders to my color-blindness as well (but at least most versions include some hard to see shapes).

BudDudandSlash

Ha! I didn't even notice the pink-gray change at first, I had to look very close to see that one.

Like I said, overall, I don't think I'm that bad with colorblindness, but since I'm colorblind according to the tests I took just last year, there's no way for me to really know what the difference would be, I think.

thatguyjr

Witzbold

Wow, that's really cool that a developer asked for your opinion, and that he's taking the color blind into consideration. As I said in other posts, 10.5 million males (not counting the 0.4 female population afflicted with color blindness) in the USA are color blind. That's A LOT of people.

dead_red_eyes

Nice! I'm guessing that this early build was before you guys started focusing on different shapes? Scratch that ... I can kind of see the shapes inside the orbs ... stupid YouTube resolution!!! Best of luck on the game, I myself would love to take a shot at the XNA platform ... but I'm just a musician.

dead_red_eyes

Cchrist

Altima NEO

Again Witz, you take the words out of my mouth ... and make them sound like golden soaked words. Thank you sir.

dead_red_eyes

Witzbold

Cchrist

This is a start in a good direction, since once it becomes a "feature" and less of a "hassle" to think about more and more devs will try to add it in just to compete with eachother and not look "gimped".

If anything I do hope more devs will follow suit.

Witzbold

+ Watch video

TimLyons

I have noticed a few puzzle games have a colorblind feature where they add symbols to the items such as in Chuzzle.

my1184

I'm not colorblind he just needed extra input and didn't have anyone immediately available to help.

Hey...at least one developer is thinking about it.

thor79

In a perfect world, all puzzle games (or color based games) should have options to adjust the colors. Its an easy fix, theres no reason not to. The only problem is that devs are either lazy, or under pressure to ship too soon. Look at the Battlefield series, which was mentioned in the article. BF doesn't even support widescreen monitors, good luck getting EA to support color-blind accessibility.

cybereality

Since apparently the stuff is still "experimental" plus a bit region specific with what sort of medium is used for people I think it would be better for folks within their own regions to work on something that can "fit in" with the general population so that folks do not feel uncomfortable. Or something like that.

But yeah reading about such ideas from other places does help get the ball rolling though.

Witzbold

Truth be told, I think we're willing to compensate in this way because it's easy to do. It becomes a whole other matter if a suggestion takes time and money. That's when I have to fight. :)

Immutablyme

Interesting how an article about color blindness gets you thinking :)

Cchrist

Those "tags" can be the diff between getting BANNED or not.

That should make it a bit more clear why it might be important to be a bit careful when trying to convey sarcasm via text.

Witzbold

Odd parallel between your insistence that he simplify his wit for those unable to comprehend it and the earlier argument between whether games like Metroid Prime should sacrifice their visuals for people who's eyes cannot properly read them.

Mact

I agree the extra effort is excellent and does pay off now its getting it approved is a different story I say.

If your dev house doesnt have to worry about that then that is totally win sir and good on you for tackling such issues.

Witzbold

Cruithne

It was a rather interesting tv program to watch how game companies have helped in the creation of such things. Also like a "toned down" version of the taiko drum game which is made for older people.

There are such specialty products, like what you describe cept you just gotta search for it.

Witzbold

Yeah but not everyone catches sarcasm through written words. I got it, but others might not and then along comes the bashin'.

dead_red_eyes

Since they are so used to working with "visual novels" which text + voice helps move along stories in PC ero-games / non-erotic and such.

Now if you just take the voice part only and then give an accessable easy to understand control scheme you pretty much could make a game that is played within the persons head by going on sound alone.

Would be an interesting concept, just that as with most "experimental" titles not too sure how the sales would do.

Witzbold

If i ever become a game designer i'm seriously going to do something with this. I already have a bunch of ideas on the shelf. Now all i need is to get accepted into the game designer school i'm applying for.

Cchrist

As for why a developer should care about the colour blind (or any other minority): it costs nothing to do and the pay-off is the word of mouth from players who appreciate the extra effort.

Immutablyme

I thought you wanted to make games more accessible to the deaf.

Which oddly enough reminds me of this:
[www.nintendowiifanboy.com]

Mact

As someone who relies on all senses with pretty much everything I do it would be a huge blow to lose color perception as one of them. :x

Witzbold

Ah. Guess that makes sense.

...and I have issues just dealing with finding people in crowds.

Mact

Cruithne

If you have the talent to show sarcasm in text, there is no need for those.

Mact

黒天使

Yes I have sold a Epic(Purple) item in World of Warcraft thinking it was a Rare(Blue) item.

Nexious

Witzbold

Just that while they sell "ok" over here, somehow I dont see it doing the same overseas where folks are more used to full stimulation rather than just partial. Know what Im sayin?

Witzbold

And what the heck do you mean when you say, "But oh well, in this world why should we care about those who have a disability when there are plenty of other people who are screwed up without a disability."

People screwed up without a disability makes it sound like mental cases, and what do they have to do with video game developers? This is about how developers could accommodate for what is a large disability among people that can play video games. Same goes for deaf gamers as well, no reason there can't be subtitles in every game. As a matter of fact it should be an option in the 360 dashboard, I mean it is on DVDs, so why not standardize it for video games, be able to download them from a database and turn it off and on as you need to.

So here we are, two disabilities, hearing and vision, that could be easily solved by developers but is not. No need to be ignorant about it you know. This isn't like we're completely blind or physically incapable of playing games and we do make up a good part of the population. I have four colorblind friends and a few colorblind co-workers, it's a pretty common thing.

Absent Blue

good times heh

黒天使

Its like how blind people can sometimes hear and describe things better than a person with sight.

Witzbold

There's also white/black colors as well. As the blue outlines the white, and the red outlines the black. So I would think that maybe the majority of those afflicted with red-green color blindness (protanopia, deuteranopia, protanomaly, and deuteranomaly) would have no problem with the white and blue hues ... they would only have difficulty with discriminating red and green hues. So they should be able to catch the black ships & bullets & stuff, just not the red hue around the bullets.

dead_red_eyes

mizeriq

I'm confused.

How does not being able to distinguish things make a better hunter?

Mact

Good lookin out Mact!

dead_red_eyes

Where did you get those statistics from? The Howard Hughes Medical Institute released a report in 2006, and they put the number of males in the USA afflicted with colorblindness at 7% (that's 10.5 million men), and females are 0.4%.

dead_red_eyes

They're with my wit, somewhere I can't find them.

Cruithne

Roller

I'm starting to wonder if i have a bad sense of humor...

Cchrist

You may want to read this article:
[www.hhmi.org]

Colorblindedness is much more prevalent in males than females. Guess which gender dominates the gaming world making the issue more prevalent in gaming?

Also, as for your early 1% statisic, that article states that a full 7% of males in the United States have notable issues distinguishing red and green. That's 10 million men alone. Marginal? I think not.

Mact

Where's your sarcasm tags?

[sarcasm]
[/sarcasm]

dead_red_eyes

I think it's possible!

A game doesn't have to have visuals to be a game. All you really need is 4-6 loudspeakers and 4-6 buttons and you've got a game right there!

Cchrist

Hell it could very well be both.

Since on the side of the suits I can imagine them saying no due to production costs + dev time increase.

The devs well thats in the article so no need to say anything on that.

But yeah it is a problem, at least slowly more games have options like subtitles for the deaf and what not so its not too hard to imagine that "eventually" they can find a middle ground for those who are color blind.

Witzbold

dead_red_eyes

Color blindness affects a significant number of people, although exact proportions vary among groups. In Australia, for example, it occurs in about 8 percent of males and only about 0.4 percent of females. Isolated communities with a restricted gene pool sometimes produce high proportions of color blindness, including the less usual types. Examples include rural Finland, Hungary, and some of the Scottish islands. In the United States, about 7 percent of the male population - or about 10.5 million men - and 0.4 percent of the female population either cannot distinguish red from green, or see red and green differently (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 2006).

So as you can see, there's TONS of people that are colorblind. I'm was quite surprised at first that we have a good amount of color blind people here at Kotaku, but when you figure in that 7% of the male population is colorblind ... you're bound to run into someone sooner or later that has that affliction.

dead_red_eyes

Some shooters however have a habit of using a green reticle that changes to red when over an enemy, and depending on the environment that can be difficult to distinguish.

Absent Blue

Where did you get that statistic and what level of colorblindedness was accounted for?

Because the number of people who have commented here about personally having difficulty with colors or knowing someone who does kinda indicates that it is indeed an issue.

Mact

If only douchebags were a minority too.

Mact

Frank

I don't know, now that you've put forward this argument, why should any of us bother to donate to something like Child's Play?
Fuck em, they're sick, not my problem, right?
Let's all get togerther and gang up on the people are different.
Why should we take the time to understand and accomdate their differences?

Just one thing though.

When the Fox News and Jack Thompsons of the world start their next campaign to blame your hobby, because your an easy target, a minority, don't come crying here.
You deserve every fucking thing coming your way with your selfish attitude.

It's called Karma, suck it up.

Cruithne

He's not trolling. He's just having some fun ... and it's semi-relevant to the conversation.

dead_red_eyes

Cchrist

That sounds great! What platform are you guys shooting for?

dead_red_eyes

Witzbold

That being said however, I've never seen a game with sound describing subtitles. Still - because of the availability of subtitle options being very common on games currently, this should be a lesser concern compared to color blindness options.

Check your options menus before starting a game. It's very likely you'll find a subtitles option.

-Niric

Niric

Squirminator2k

Random1512

Bakachan

Is there a reason why they don't use, say, grass green or pea green? Could it be that it makes it easier for color blind people to tell red and green apart, but at the same time it makes us "color confusing" squint our eyes and suck at timed puzzles nevertheless?

One example of a game I'm having some trouble at recently is Puzzle Quest DS. While the little yellow and green spheres do have different runes on them, it takes definitely more time for me to identify them and I often miss on combinations.

Akaraxle

I bring that up, because one of the things their leader, an obnoxious prick going by the name of Headhunter, loved to do was claim that he had "some" color-blind members, and he would forcefully request to be allowed to play the same color (or red/blue side) for both rounds of a match.

But the odd thing was, he would only try this scam when an asymmetrical map had a distinct advantage for one side over the other, e.g. Darkness.

I don't know if any clans ever bought it, but it was funny that that choad would do freaking ANYTHING for a W. Good times!

VeeKaChu

I can see bright to mid blue but have trouble with darker blues so at a even at a relatively short distance I have trouble picking up enemies.

lorderiks

A colorblind person spots camo so much easier than a non-colorblind person. You're underestimating variable issues with this. Sure, you can spot a lizard on a log, even though the lizard's brown. A colorblind person could spot a camouflaged guy laying still on a dune about a mile away clearly, whereas, all a normal person would see is sand.

Lizards aren't people, and they camouflage differently than people. You're assuming the people you'd be looking at would be close, which is rarely the case for situations camo is actually supposed to be effective for.

thatguyjr

rich8606

Lezard

For the most part, pallet swaps wouldn't be hard for developers to do for colour blind players. In some cases it would increase the number of textures contained in a game, but in our post DVD/BD world this really isn't a problem (hell, they could put out accessibility patches for stuff like this).

Course the cynical joker in me wonders if this means that next we'll be hearing requests for Descriptive Video in games for the blind. "Okay, an L shaped piece is coming down now. You'll want to turn it clockwise twice. No, that's counterclockwise. Okay now move it to the left twice. You were too slow, now you can't get a four row score."

PeterBeck

I normally don't have much trouble with red and green. I've taken the test, which is a book of colorful circles like the shirt posted above, but with numbers, not words, and by far, the majority of the time, I saw the secondary number as the dominant number, barely able to make out the main number, or not even seeing the number at all, which makes me colorblind.

It was a little surprising, because I've never had a problem in games with colors, and a little surprising, because it reminded me of the trouble I had with a tiny cell phone display.

What's interesting from my perspective is this: We all see the two images up there, right? However, since I'm colorblind, I probably see the colors differently than most here. So is the image I see on the left similar to what non-colorblind people see on the right? Is the image on the right much more difficult for me to read the colors from than a normal person?

Like I said, I've never really felt colorblind, if that feeling could be had, so I always wonder what I'm missing out on.

thatguyjr

Of course color vision helps determine wheter a fruit is ripe or not.

As for determing camoflauge even a person with color vision can quickly detect camoflauged objects and creatures if they look more for shapes and imperfect blending. Chameleons I usually can find pretty easily in photos and in real life since they just jump out as wrong when they are on something. No color blindness hear.

As for being able to sense colorblindness cameoflauged creatures aren't something humans hunted to any extinct. Name me a camoflauged animal worthy of being eaten or skinned that humans hunt to any extinct. Humans are hunter-gatherers seeing color is more important because that way you can tell if fruit is ready to be eaten.

Yetanotheruninspiredscreename

Games like Puzzle Quest, they use different symbols as well as different colours to differentiate the pieces on the board.