Great stuff. Very informative. It's good to see it doesn't take that much more to make a game accommodating. I hope more developers keep these sorts of things in mind in the future.
jestyr
· 11 months ago
An interesting take on gaming that many of us never even think about.
Cedar
· 11 months ago
I wonder how much actual time and effort (read extra development cost) valve actually had to put into adding those setting options, my guess is its negligible especially when compared to the positive attention it gains them.
Thanks for sharing!
Wasabi
· 11 months ago
It may have been more research cost actually.
The development may have been (and I am throwing a large assumption out here) just changing certain color hues to other values. Change 'red' to 'green' and maybe increase saturation or whatever.
But knowing which colors to tweak and the other highlights that they did was probably the larger challenge. How is a non-color blind person supposed to know? Even if it is explained and even if there are test methods it is a challenge for them to get it right. And for the color blind people how are they supposed to know when something is 'missing' or otherwise hidden in the depths of colors unless the non-color blind person tells them that they could be missing something. Catch 22. That is why I would think the additional cost would be in research (and testing) as opposed to development.
Great post. Very interesting read. Having developed applications myself (not games) I have encountered this very issue. I'm not color blind so its a bit hard for me to fully understand what I need to prepare for and testing is another issue because I have to know how to explain what I see in order for my color blind tester to provide feedback on. Reading this post I think helps because I can see some methods I hadn't thought of using before.
Laurie Cheers
· 11 months ago
FYI, Perfect Dark Zero featured colour-blindness options: normally enemies were colour-coded red and friends green, but you could change them to red and blue, or various other combinations.
antilight
· 11 months ago
Thanks for writing this great article. I'm fully colorblind, (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achromatopsia if you really want to know more) and it can sometimes be a hassle to play certain games. I usually have to just accept that I will lack certain information when playing some games. I wish more developers would take it into consideration, but you are correct, we are an easily dismissible minority.
I never knew about the colorblind mode in the source engine, I'm going to try it out right now. I wish I had know about it a few years ago :) The newer games, TF2 and L4D, both seem a little bit easier in default mode than previous products though.
RobotCaleb
· 11 months ago
antilight, thanks for reading. One of the reasons that I imagine you find L4D and TF2 a bit easier is the fact that they really put a lot of effort into silhouettes. They made sure that each class in TF2 was immediately identifiable by their shape. That's one of the reasons the game went through so many revisions and took so long. With L4D that's the reason that they changed from the old character models to the new ones we now see.
If you really only see grays then the color blind options in L4D may help you for the same reason it helps me. Higher contrast. You should notice things (not the environment, but the character silhouettes and health stuff as I demonstrated) pop out more. Unfortunately, I don't think those options are in all Source games. :(
Harry
· 11 months ago
Great article. I'm colorblind (red green like you) and it was great to see instances where a developer had actually made game play less frustrating!
B
· 11 months ago
Totally share your frustration with Puzzle Bobble - although I think perhaps my colour blindness is less severe... It's not all bad being color blind though, on the plus side we make better snipers because we can see through camouflage better :)
RobotCaleb
· 11 months ago
I've heard it said that it's because we're better at recognizing things by their shape rather than their color. It makes total sense to me. Unfortunately, many things in the military have arbitrary color assignations. I tried for several months to get in to be a SERE Specialist, but was unable to because of the requirement for them to have good color vision for parachuting duty. Why? Because the go/no-go lights are red and green. Seems like a simple thing to fix...
Justin
· 11 months ago
Just to make sure, the contrasting photos you're using aren't the kind that are designed to show people without color blindness what it's like to have the condition.
I ask because the silhouettes for left 4 dead are much easier for me to see in color blind mode than regular mode, although I have done perfectly on several color blindness tests. In particular, the silhouette through the wall is almost invisible, as the crosshairs are pretty bad too. I'd probably play in color blind mode if I played the game.
RobotCaleb
· 11 months ago
Right. I don't think I actually said as much in the article, but I didn't intend to show people that have perfect color vision what it's like to see through my eyes. Rather, I was showing to the world (color blind and not) how people with my color vision problems are unable to function because of what is, to you and others that differentiate colors properly, not really a big deal.
I don't doubt that that you are able to make out the high contrast changes better than the low contrast. It's not a perfect solution, however. I probably should have noted that I don't notice the change between the smoker's crosshair from white to pale blue as easily as I notice a change from white to red. Even if I am unable to see the crosshair against the background I certainly do notice that it is no longer there. The white to blue transition doesn't pop out at me nearly as much. The opposite stands for the blue choice for the players' health level. The green (or orange?) to blue transition is much easier for me to notice.
Thanks for asking about that.
Tarlbot
· 11 months ago
"Pop" - for the Wii has a color blind mode that I use - the four colors they picked look pretty much the same if I don't use the Color blind (shapes) mode instead of the normal colored bubbles mode.
Not being able to to see Red HUD over black is a giant barrier to many games. Basically I don't even try FPS because I assume I can't play them.
RobotCaleb
· 11 months ago
Do give Left 4 Dead a go, then. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Thanks for the heads-up on Pop. I'll have to check that out.
colorblind gamer
· 11 months ago
I am sending this link to everyone who has ever asked what is it like to be colorblind. This describes my gaming dilemmas perfectly.
mrpommer
· 11 months ago
Frenzic is another game that has introduced a good "colour blind" mode. I wonder if all the games with this mode makes up 8% of the games out there?
All Comments
Thanks for sharing!
The development may have been (and I am throwing a large assumption out here) just changing certain color hues to other values. Change 'red' to 'green' and maybe increase saturation or whatever.
But knowing which colors to tweak and the other highlights that they did was probably the larger challenge. How is a non-color blind person supposed to know? Even if it is explained and even if there are test methods it is a challenge for them to get it right. And for the color blind people how are they supposed to know when something is 'missing' or otherwise hidden in the depths of colors unless the non-color blind person tells them that they could be missing something. Catch 22. That is why I would think the additional cost would be in research (and testing) as opposed to development.
Great post. Very interesting read. Having developed applications myself (not games) I have encountered this very issue. I'm not color blind so its a bit hard for me to fully understand what I need to prepare for and testing is another issue because I have to know how to explain what I see in order for my color blind tester to provide feedback on. Reading this post I think helps because I can see some methods I hadn't thought of using before.
I never knew about the colorblind mode in the source engine, I'm going to try it out right now. I wish I had know about it a few years ago :) The newer games, TF2 and L4D, both seem a little bit easier in default mode than previous products though.
If you really only see grays then the color blind options in L4D may help you for the same reason it helps me. Higher contrast. You should notice things (not the environment, but the character silhouettes and health stuff as I demonstrated) pop out more. Unfortunately, I don't think those options are in all Source games. :(
Unfortunately, many things in the military have arbitrary color assignations. I tried for several months to get in to be a SERE Specialist, but was unable to because of the requirement for them to have good color vision for parachuting duty. Why? Because the go/no-go lights are red and green. Seems like a simple thing to fix...
I ask because the silhouettes for left 4 dead are much easier for me to see in color blind mode than regular mode, although I have done perfectly on several color blindness tests. In particular, the silhouette through the wall is almost invisible, as the crosshairs are pretty bad too. I'd probably play in color blind mode if I played the game.
I don't doubt that that you are able to make out the high contrast changes better than the low contrast. It's not a perfect solution, however. I probably should have noted that I don't notice the change between the smoker's crosshair from white to pale blue as easily as I notice a change from white to red. Even if I am unable to see the crosshair against the background I certainly do notice that it is no longer there. The white to blue transition doesn't pop out at me nearly as much. The opposite stands for the blue choice for the players' health level. The green (or orange?) to blue transition is much easier for me to notice.
Thanks for asking about that.
Not being able to to see Red HUD over black is a giant barrier to many games. Basically I don't even try FPS because I assume I can't play them.
Thanks for the heads-up on Pop. I'll have to check that out.
Version 1.2
Released on July 31st, 2007
* Added custom color settings for colorblind players
Right you are. It looks like it has a setting for various color blind types. That's pretty cool.