Willy

@Kypetzl

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one more cute disaster… it’s hard here in paradise

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Willy @Kypetzl3/26/2023, 8:01 PM

Michael Klamerus @Michael-Klamerus

Natalie @nex33/26/2023, 8:12 AM

I dearly wish game devs understood

that there is no amount of different color schemes that will make a game accessible to colorblind people. The only consistent solution is to ensure that all relevant gameplay elements can be distinguished by something other than color—pattern, shape, a symbol, an extra border, whatever. If you don't do that, I can't play your game properly.

(This rant brought to you by God of War: Ragnarok, which features color-coded circles for dangerous attacks. Red is unblockable/unparryable, yellow will stagger you if you block but is parryable. It would have been so easy to make one of these a hexagon or something but no.)

#accessibility #God of war: Ragnarok

scampie!!@Scampie3/26/2023, 6:20 PM

https://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/ is a great resource for designers btw! There's many examples of what sorts of accessibility issues you can run into, as well as examples of good practice at handling these issues.

A lot of accessibility stuff, especially the basics, is actually pretty simple to deal with if you put some forethought into it. It's when these issues are just an afterthought that it becomes annoying.

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in reply to @nex3's post:

Jack @MrNuclearMonster3/26/2023, 8:33 AM

💯 it’s infuriating with even mild red/green color issues to try and sort through whatever options (or none) we’re given.

Abbis @AbbisPromethia3/26/2023, 4:52 PM

FFXIV has had... mixed results with this. On the one hand, you have color-based mechanics where things are distinguished by symbols. For example, a mechanic with blue, orange, purple, and green icons that's also distinguishable by alpha, beta, gamma and delta respectively. On the other hand, they slip when things are just for aesthetics and not tied to a mechanic, particularly when they put orange aoes on an orange floor

Blackberry Mochi @Blackberry-Mochi3/27/2023, 5:50 PM

With an orange background and an orange boss with extremely saturated orange lighting (Phoinix is such a thing)

Unlimited Trees @UnlimitedTrees3/26/2023, 5:18 PM

Interesting . . . .VeryInteresting ... i hav not thought about this b4 but it makes sense .. someday when i get around 2 makin accessibility stuff i will have this in mind ..

Ghast @ghast3/27/2023, 12:11 AM

This is insightful to hear - I've tried used 'accessible palettes' (e.g. https://davidmathlogic.com/colorblind/) and tweaked colors under colorblind filters, hoping it would solve this issue, but never had confirmation whether those techniques actually work. Good to know it does not! From what I gather, to make a game truly colorblind friendly, you kind of have to design it that way from the very beginning, not just tweak stuff at the end or after people complain. Which is where most (non-colorblind) devs seem to wind up. Hence the lazy non-solutions like palette swaps.

Natalie @nex33/27/2023, 12:47 AM

Typically when I see "colorblind palettes" they still end up having colors I struggle to distinguish, and I'm not even that severely colorblind. If a palette is 100% the only option, the best way to do it is to provide a full RGB color picker for each color. But patterns, shapes, and symbols is a far preferable solution.

Ghast @ghast3/27/2023, 1:17 AM

That makes sense. I'm not even colorblind and I have trouble distinguishing colors in colorblind palettes sometimes too (especially in gameplay scenarios). There's a big difference between what's possible to distinguish, and what's natural, comfortable, and actually pleasant to distinguish, which is what you need in games, yeah. Thanks for the additional info.