Colorblindness and video games

[BRIK]

I have a green cupboard in my room and everyone else says it's blue. Dunno if this is a problem or just plain opinion.

[Key-Glyph]

Fascinating! I'd never really thought about this in terms of video gaming.

If the non-colorblind want to get an idea of how our friends here see the world, check out what colorblind people see.

[AmishSamurai]

I know that Riot Games recently added alternate color schemes for colorblind people who play League of Legends. I thought that was pretty brilliant.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Wow I didn't know there was a thread about this! I have mentioned my colorblindness a few times on this board and how certain games are very challenging for me.

A couple of recent memories:
- In Tales of Symphonia and its sequel (Dawn of the New World) there is a puzzle where you have get different colored fans blowing in a certain order. Although I knew what the order was I couldn't differentiate the fans. I had to hop on GameFAQs and get someone to tell me the solution using cardinal directions ("hit the southwest fan first, then the northeast fan, etc...")
- In Skies of Arcadia your characters' weapons have elemental properties which can be switched during battle. This can be helpful as a fire sword is likely to be stronger against a water-based enemy, for example. Of course, when you switch elemental properties this is indicated by your weapon changing color (red for fire, yellow for lightning, etc). Since I can't see any of this I had to write down and then memorize the order in which the weapons change.
- Any game with a "press these switches in a certain order" is a pain of course. Secret of Mana and the GBC version of Link's Awakening come to mind.
- SHMUPS. Mother of god do I suck at these... NES ones aren't too bad, where the background is simply solid black with some white dots for stars. But with modern shmups everything just blends together: foreground, background, bullets, characters, etc. Everything is mess. This is why I try to only play shmups with infinite lives/continues where you character spawns exactly where you last died. Even an "easier" game like Otomedius Excellent takes me about 50 credits to complete.

There are tons more examples, I'm sure I'll think of some during the day...

[Ivo]

I have a green cupboard in my room and everyone else says it's blue. Dunno if this is a problem or just plain opinion.

It must be turquoise, which is a mix of blue an green and I think it depends a lot on the person what they call it.

Also thanks for the link Key_Glyph, that was interesting. I wonder how accurate it is though.

Ivo.

[weaponepsilon]

I've played games 'till my eyes bled. I never had issues...I think....

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Hmmm. My friend passed a colour blind test but he got all the colours wrong (I'm not colourblind and I confirmed with some other people the colours).

So that's weird.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I find those internet colorblind tests to be pretty accurate, but if you want to really get tested just ask your ophthalmologist or optometrist. My optometrist (my wife) uses this flipbook type thing to test people and it only takes a few minutes. I usually get about 4 or 5 out of 15 correct (a normal-visioned person will get all 15 correct).

[AppleQueso]

I've played games 'till my eyes bled. I never had issues...I think....

if your eyes are bleeding I'd say that's an issue...

[BoringSupreez]

If the non-colorblind want to get an idea of how our friends here see the world, check out what colorblind people see.

That would suck, being colorblind. I probably wouldn't mind so much if I actually was, though, not truly realizing what I was missing.

I bet that is all of mankind could see the ultraviolet spectrum in addition to the "normal" spectrum for just one day, we'd spend the rest of our lives discontent with our vision.