Console Games And Color Blindness

Hinoki writes "Atlus' PlayStation 2 SRPG Disgaea seems to be taking off in the console gaming community. A friend of mine strongly recommended the game, so I decided to chase down a copy and bring it home, only to find that one of the key elements is color coded. Now, this is a problem for me, since I've got color-blindness, which means under the majority of circumstances.. I can't tell the difference between red and green. The geo-panels in Disgaea are more widely varied than simple red-green-yellow-blue.. there are subtle shades and different colors altogether. How big a problem is this for other gamers, and what, if anything can be done about it? Surely it can't be that hard to code in an option that changes a color to a given shape, for those of us that're color-impaired?"

At least..

It'd be cake to juse use a different shading pattern. Diamonds and checkers or something.

I share your plight

Although I don't think I could specifically tell you of a certain game off the top of my head, I've found numerous times that this occurs. Doing a quick google search and destroy, I only found one game (Bubble Ice Age [freefunfiles.com]) which has a color blind mode. It inserts different geometric shapes into the circles.

I think I should start up my own company were people can rent my time so I can check things out for the color blind... :)

Is there any sort of color blind accessability documentation out there?

Worth a shot

Have you tried wearing red-green analglyph 3-D glasses? The filters would make it so that one eye saw red as black, and the other saw green as black, even though you're colour blind. You'd then have a way to tell whether a given square is red: is it black in the left or right eye?

I hardly suggest you keep closing one eye to check, but perhaps your brain would be able to integrate the information about on which side the image is black, after time, into an intuitive feel. The brain is remarkably programmable.

GBA Zelda

In the Four Swords part of the GBA zelda game color is very important. All my brothers have some color deficiency but not me. Its nearly impossible to play that game with them because defeating the enemy bosses requires cooperation based on color. There are things like hit the red side of the monster if you are red or green side if you are green in order to damage it. This isn't too bad except that one of the monsters will only display a color of your partner and you have to tell him which of four to hit. The rest show up grey. Its bad enough that the color of the tunics is the only way to tell your character apart. Then they tie beating the game to something that 13% of males are handicapped in. One last color point to the game. You can play with up to three other people but can't pick which color you get. The first 2 colors used? Red and green.

New error meesage...

This site uses 1.6 million colors. Your current eyes only support 256 shades of gray. Please upgrade to a version 4 or greater eyeball before viewing this site.

-Adam

Bad UI designers! No biscuit!

I'm becoming more and more convinced that UI designers should be forced to work with black-and-white monitors/TVs on a regular basis, with inconvenient access (in a test lab or something) to color equipment.

We see this crap all the time, and it doesn't just affect the color-blind. How often do you see web sites with dark green on black or white on light blue? How about WMs that use grey text on slightly lighter or darker background? Sure, you can read it if you try, but the designers should know better.

That said, games are the one place where I'm willing to make an exception. A game isn't strictly useful, so it doesn't need to be universally accessable. Would you argue that changes are necessary to poker because blind people can't play?

Designing for CB in the first place

After watching my colorblind brother-in-law struggle through one of the Puzzle Bobble variants, (the bubbles were largely pastel red, green, and blue hues, and were often tricky to distinguish for non-color-blind players,) I decided to make the graphics for my game [jardinains.com] colorblind-friendly. Here are some suggestions for making a game colorblind-friendly:

• Shape matters. If you have things like powerups, try to make their shapes distinct, sharply defined, and easy to identify. As a test, set your monitor to grayscale; if you have trouble distinguishing between different shapes, you should try making them more distinctive.
• Avoid red/green pairings without tying them to spatial or geometric differences. While color can play a key role in a game, it's important to realize that a colorblind player won't be able to tell when that green light on the booby-trap turns red. You can still use red and green in this fashion, but be sure to add some other distinguishing trait, like flashing the light, changing the shape of the object, or highlighting the object. Again, setting your monitor to grayscale will speak volumes.
• Try using colors that are independent of colorblindness. You can use oranges, purples, and yellows to make an image look uniform to most eyeballs.
• Use brightness to highlight changes between red and green. If you absolutely -must- use red and green and can't follow the suggestions above, try making one color measurably lighter than the other. While there will still be some confusion, (is this red or green?) a colorblind person will at least be able to distinguish between the two.

It may seem like a lot of work, but it isn't as hard as it sounds, and your colorblind friends will thank you!

Statistics...

You may be surprised that 1 in 76 Americans are fully colorblind. 1 in 20, or fully 13.6 million people, are estimated to have red-green colorblindness. About 10% of Males: it does not typically affect females, since the gene responsible is tied to the Y chromosome.

That is a huge slice of the population, and I know there are some developers who don't pay attention, but a large number of them think about it at some point during product development, though it may not make as big a difference as it should.

People who are Red-Green colorblind can still do very well in life, but it makes many things more time consuming. It's not impossible to tell the difference between two colors - they are still a shade off in areas we can detect. It simply takes more time and staring to figure it out. Usually this is fine, but in games you don't get that kind of time.

I got the stats from here [wrongdiagnosis.com].

-Adam

Civ 3

Civilization 3 I know has a color-blind help option. It's a really great game, but definitely not in the same vein.

Also if you're color-blindness is red-green and you're looking for a tactical RPG, I'd highly recommend Final Fantasy Tactics as well (not the sequel, which is entirely too easy and plotless). All the text contrasts in the game are black against something else, which makes it easier (though damage is red so might be hard to read at some points).

Planetside

I for one gave up on a game due to my colorblindness. I played alot of planetsite and posted many times on there forums about the problem with the flags being a blue and puruple mixture. I really made it hard for me to figure out which base I should be attacking. My posts on the forums never attrached a developer just a bunch of flames about it. I dont know if I am the only one that had this problem but I saw a few other posts on there forum related to this. I gave up months ago so I am not sure if this is still a problem.

sometimes it's not so easy

Often, in an adventure game, the first part of a puzzle is realizing that there is a puzzle. Colors can be hidden in scenery in a much less contrived way than, e.g., geometric shapes, and I can't even think of a way to warn color-blind players about such a puzzle without spoiling it for everyone else.

Maybe the solution is to avoid relying on color altogether, but that would be a shame. Some of the more satisfying puzzles I've met have been color-based.

Get a real console

Get yourself a real console, kid. You know, one with a color/B&W switch.

Many puzzle piece-matching games have this problem

The arcade game Klax [klov.com] is pretty much unplayable for me, as is the Palm game Dinomite [astraware.com]. In both cases the programmer assumed various shades of yellow and green are more distinguishable than I find them to be. (I'm red-green colorblind).

The Palm Game Bounce Out [astraware.com]" solved the problem by having multiple color/pattern schemes as a preference item; selecting the "sports ball" option makes every item especially unique by pattern.

*sigh*

If Charles Darwin were alive today, he'd be rather pissed at all the holes the [insert cause here] bleeding hearts are putting in his whole Natural Selection thing.

Let's make games easy on the colorblind.

And when we're done that, let's make games easy on the really blind.

The quadraplegic.

The epileptic.

The incontinent.

The brain dead.

The stupid.

The blonde.

The redundant.

Death row inmates.

MBA's.

Lesbians.

Twins.

Exhibitionists.

Lesbian Twin Exhibitionists. (Please email me. Please?)

Immigrants.

Antibiotics.

Dust mites.

Lesbian dust mites.

Listen up now people, and listen good. Your malfunction is not my reason for being. I'm sorry it's yours to deal with, but if I take into account everything that could be wrong with you when I'm doing something, I'll either never get anything done, or the end product will basically be *useless* to anyone.

Geo Panel stats

For a Disgaea specific solution, look at the effects in play by pressing the triangle button. Figure out which triangle on the board corresponds to which effect, then play the game accordingly. Yeah it's kludgy, but it's probably the best workaround for this particular game.

I've had that problem

One solution I came up with for a few games that had a menu I couldn't read easily was to take the red lense from a pair of cardboard 3D glasses and use it as a monocle. That let me differentiate the colors enough to play the game. It isn't an ideal solution, but it is a simple one.

What Red-Green colorblind people see

Just to get an idea of what Red-Green colorblind people might see, take a look at the Color Deficient Vision page at Visibone: http://www.visibone.com/colorblind/ [visibone.com]. Compare the colorblind version of the web color chart to the regular vision version.

As a UI Designer, I always tell my developers that they need to use color + something else (shape, line weight, pattern, style) rather than color alone to distinguish things.

A problem in open source games

This is definately a problem in some games. Thankfully, most companies are pretty good at choosing easily distinguishable color combinations, as well as providing other visual cues such as different shapes and textures.

Where I've more frequently encountered problems is in homebrew games. I'd sent off a number of bug reports to notify them of the problem. Usually, they simply hadn't considered it and are happy to make some changes.

For example, I'm a big fan of Puzzle Bobble, a puzzle game where you have to form groups of like-colored balls. In the Windows version, each bobble has a different sort of little "face" in the middle, making them easy to tell apart. In Frozen Bubble, a linux clone, they all look the same, apart from color. Fortunately, they have added a color-blindness mode that adds different geometric shapes to the middle of each color bubble. Unfortunately, this must be specified via the command line. Why not simply make it the default? Anything to help players be able to more quickly distinguish the bubbles is helpful, regardless of whether you are colorblind or not. Having different patterns for the bubbles also makes the game look nicer, IMHO.

Here is a thought

This might not actually work, but why don't you try writing a nice letter/email/petition to the people who make the Action Replay [codejunkies.com] (it's kind of like Game Genie for PS2) and ask them to write some codes for Disagea and some other games to aid color-blind players? Changing color palettes seems like the kind of thing the Action Replay could be made to do with ease.

It is worth a shot, at least, perhaps, and it would be interesting to see their response..

I think you've all got it wrong!

And I'm not afraid to say it! lol. Seriously though, I'm colour blind also and had a heck of a time with games like Bubble Puzzle and the like. The way I got around it, without using a colour blind mode, was to ask my wife to help me. It made the game a social event, not always convienient mind you but more fun in the end.

Design, Design, Design

This is a good reason why everyone involved with designing software should have extensive training in UI design, and accessability. Sure you may say (heck the developer may even say it) that why should they care about altering thier design for a small percentage of the market, and maybe designers shouldn't have to.

But I find that interfaces designed for easy access to all are much better to the "non-disabled" users as well. How hard is it to say "hey maybe we should make it easier to diferentiate widget one from widget two?"

If the designer or developer is dead set on a layout that sucks they can do it... but over all one that is easy for the color-blind, is going to be easier on the color-sited. I am not color blind, but I have actually thought about this recently because I have a son now who may be color blind (simple genetic math :) and althought he is not old enough to test I have read a bit about it and everytime I see pointers on making thing color-blind accessable I say to myself "wow that would make it easier on everyone."

Most design choices that help the 'disabled' are simple, and don't adversly impact the non-disabled audience, I think it is a lack of training in what to look for that causes the problems, not a lack of desire to fix them.

Colorblind fix? Polarized shades.

I too am Red-Green colorblind. For those of you that don't have colorblindness, let me explain something to you before you all go to the shades of grey argument. I see *most* colors fine. Red and Green tend to blur to a shade of brown. If you want to make me screen, do a red background with green letters or vice versa.

One thing that I accidently stumbled upon to fix my problem is Polarized Sunglasses. I bought a pair as my old pair lost a side of the frame. They are basically blue blockers, which enhances 'green' to a more visible spectrum, and makes it EASY for me to differentiate between green and red. They're not dark, so even in the evenings, they're comfortable without having to strain to see properly. I'd highly recommend red/green colorblinded people to look into these at your local reputable Sunglass / Optomotrist store.

Another recommendation that I read above was using 3D glasses. The ones that they use for Disney World, and that Coke distributed a few years ago for the Superbowl show / ads had a cool effect that RED colors are pushed 'forward', and GREEN is pushed 'back.' If you can find the non-red/green glasses, I highly recommend them as well.

A good resource

Got screenshots?

Run 'em through Vischeck [vischeck.com], a colorblindness simulator. It shows you a simulation of what a colorblind individual sees for three different types of colorblindness. Vischeck also works on webpages.

COLOURS

I am color blind, and I have had a lot of problems in several games, such as WarCraft III. Also, whenever I played laser tag, there would be three teams, red, yellow, and green. I would always have to be red or else I would end up shooting my own teammates constantly. I am suprised more games don't have color-blindness options, considering most video game players are boys.

Makes no difference

Doesn't matter to me. I have monochromatic vision so I only see black, white and shades of gray. Makes it hard to play any game but especially if the clues are color coded (like blue keys in Doom).

Reminds me of "Sam & Max Hit the Road"

The great adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road has a 'film noir' (black and white) mode that can be toggled off. Nice gimmick-- but it quickly becomes useless because, argh!, one of the puzzles requires discerning colours (for those who've played the game, I'm referring to the puzzle with the coloured doors and underground magnets). Sure, it could be solved by trial and error, but there's already an element of trial-and-error tedium in pretty much having to try every door in turn.

Of course, one could make quite reasonably and accurately argue that games are not a requirement for daily living, and further argue that a more serious problem is unnecessary use of colour coding in application software. I recall being interviewed for an industrial job which involved using VNC software with a function menu in the form of a circle divided into coloured quadrants. Not only was this needlessly fancy, it probably caused problems for colour-vision-impaired users. Some sort of legacy interface, probably.

Companies need feedback from color-blind gamers

The original poster writes: "Surely it can't be that hard to code in an option that changes a color to a given shape, for those of us that're color-impaired?"

It may not be hard, but it could potentially add more time to the production of the game. Keep in mind that many games are already released without proper play-testing or bug-fixes; adding another feature which will go unnoticed and unappreciated by many users may not fit with many game companies' bottom lines.

I'm not condoning the game companies, and to be honest, I think that the lack of color-blind display options is mostly due to ignorance rather than genuine neglect. Thus, I think the appropriate resonse is for color-blind games to contact these companies, explain their concerns, and support those companies and games that do address their needs.

Another poster wrote about how he's annoyed at having to accomodate the needs of so many users. However, there are a lot of color-blind gamers out there, including a few friends of mine. If a game is unplayable for them, they won't buy it. This is true of board games as well as PC/Console games. Adding these sorts of features could result in more sales without causing any problems for other users, but until the game companies realize this, they won't add them.

One last reflection: isn't it somewhat noteworthy that most of the truly timeless gaming components -- dice, cards, and such -- rely on symbols as well as (or rather than) colors? Perhaps the history of gaming has a lesson there.

How about the hue knob?

I know it's not a perfect solution, but have you tried just sending the colors on your TV out of whack until you can tell the difference. If the game isn't completely color depended you could just do it when you need to.

I guess it could push other colors into the red or green range but it might just be a little tweak.

Even worse

than video games are board games. Imagine playing risk with someone who can't tell red from green. Or even something like El Grande [boardgamegeek.com]. They can't tell the difference between who's pieces are whos and it messes up everything.

Yes, I'm talking about you Colin.

Useful information on developing...

I threw together some sites I use at work when developing websites for clients.

Visibone [visibone.com] has some extremely useful color palettes and educational links.

Vischeck [vischeck.com] can convert individual images or entire websites to simulate one of three forms of color blindness.

I was going to throw in some more educational sites about color blindness, but I think you all can search Google [google.com] yourselves.

Uneducated designers

As several percent of the population are color-blind, it is very bad business to design a game so that color-blind people have difficulty playing them. If it really is so important to the visual designer to make the game look just such-and-such, at least they should make an option that allows one to change the colors so that they can be viewed by anybody. Maybe the designer should be educated about this ? At least the marketing _should_ care.

Other considerations.

I've heard that developers try to always make sure to use subtitles for the hearing impaired and make sure that all important text is read aloud for the (believe it or not) visually impaired.

That really sucks

In the 70's and 80's I was a lightman for various rock bands. Some musicians have perfect pitch, I have absolute hue. It's a gift.

Only once I had a Problem

I played videogames as far as I can remember, and from the atari to the gamecube (nes, genesis and playstation also, and lotsa computer games). I remember having a problem only once, on a playstation, in the game Alundra.

I get to this cave, in which a door stopped me. There were a lot of green tiles on the floor, I stepped on them and they maked a -click-. No color change. I was there for an hour, and then called my sister; she told me that the tiles changed from green to orange when you walked over them, so took the controller and in a minute flipped them all over.

Obviously, the door opened. I didn't buy Alundra 2.

Battle Isle had color blindness options

Battle Isle [mobygames.com], the first game to make console-style hex-based strategy games popular on the Amiga and PC already had options for color blind people. The default colors for the units were red and green, I believe. You could switch them to yellow and blue in the options menu, and it was even explained as a feature specifically for color blind people in the manual.

Makes you wonder why a very small and at the time not very well known company could afford to spend some resources on this while today's million-dollar game developers can't.

Re:You are a genetic abberation

There is a theory that the reason color blindness survived natural selection is that dangerous creatures which use camouflage (such as venomous snakes) are often more visible to those with color blindness.

Read this [slashdot.org] interesting post from someone who is color blind. One thing he notes is that it seems people think if you point out colors to a color blind person, eventually they'll figure it out. Sadly, it doesn't work that way; color blind means can't see the colors. You're obviously either a troll or someone who failed to get a joke past the mods... but I felt like replying anyway.