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Splatoon will include "Color Lock" Feature to help Color-Blind Gamers

J

Javier

Member
Searched and found nothing. Ink me if old.

http://nintendoeverything.com/splatoons-color-lock-feature-should-help-color-blind-gamers/

Splatoon will come with a “Color Lock” option that lets players choose from a few pre-set color patterns. It’s unclear what these options are currently, but the manual says it’s “for the aid of players who have difficulty distinguishing certain colors.” Good on Nintendo for including this feature!
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WVueg8N.jpg


This wasn't mentioned in the Direct, but the manual for the demo that was released after it mentions this option. Since the demo will only be playable at specific times, people haven't been able to test the feature yet.

But still, very nice of Nintendo to include this. I know a few people who would be happy when hearing this.
 
L

luffxan

Member
Never considered it but wow this would be a horrendous game to play while color blind. Good on Nintendo for recognizing that
 
A

Adam_Roman

Member
A lot of games have color blind modes that most people don't even know about. Left 4 Dead has one that changes UI elements from red to a sort of cyan color. I actually used that because I just thought it looked nicer.
 
E

Extollere

Sucks at poetry
Can't see red and green for shit. I basically can't play almost any falling block puzzle game. Hope more devs include this option.
 
DJ_Lae

DJ_Lae

Member
Extollere said:
Can't see red and green for shit. I basically can't play almost any falling block puzzle game. Hope more devs include this option.
Click to expand...

I can't play puzzle games either. Hexic was the ultimate colourblind insult, as while there was a colourblind mode it didn't put symbols or anything identifying on the bombs. I fucked myself over a lot trying to move a bomb down to a cluster of yellow only to find out that the bomb was green and I didn't have enough moves to fix it.
 
C

charlequin

Banned
DJ_Lae said:
I can't play puzzle games either. Hexic was the ultimate colourblind insult, as while there was a colourblind mode it didn't put symbols or anything identifying on the bombs.
Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, are there games that you've found do a good job with this? I've had people ask me about how to do colorblind modes well but not being so myself I had very little to offer, lol.
 
DJ_Lae

DJ_Lae

Member
charlequin said:
Just out of curiosity, are there games that you've found do a good job with this? I've had people ask me about how to do colorblind modes well but not being so myself I had very little to offer, lol.
Click to expand...

Other than the bomb thing Hexic did a good job, putting symbols on the coloured gems. Perfect Dark Zero was also helpful, I think it had three or four different colour combinations you could choose from for teams (and maybe HUD elements, it's been a while).

Most of the time it isn't an issue for me, or it's something that isn't an enormous deal. I'd imagine playing Space Giraffe might be a little easier for me, for example, because I'm used to ignoring colours a lot of the time.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Very cool. I do wish more games offered modes like this, puzzle games especially; I have a lot of half-completed puzzlers in my library because once the green/grey/brown/pink/purple shades come out, I'm hosed. It can have a big impact on a decent number of players.

charlequin said:
Just out of curiosity, are there games that you've found do a good job with this? I've had people ask me about how to do colorblind modes well but not being so myself I had very little to offer, lol.
Click to expand...
Destiny just added a colorblind setting for three variants of colorblindess. It's been a revelation to me (I'm r/g). (The colors of the items in the standard and simulated picture look the same to me.)
 
L

LewieP

Member
The earliest examples of this that I noticed were in a lot of the older Popcap games, and then there was the fairly high profile case of Bioshock 2's hacking minigame being extremely difficult for some users because of the colour choice,s but they patched it to add a colourblind mode.

I think anything that can improve accessibility for games is worth exploring, and even though this case wouldn't affect me, it's cool to see Nintendo taking this step.
 
T

Timeaisis

Member
Cool. I'm red green colorblind and appreciate these features.

Super Puzzle Fighter is an awesome game, but god damn those greens and yellows.
 
X

Xaltheron

Member
Always cool when companies consider us :)

I wish they'd do something similar for Mario Kart, not being able to tell the difference between red and green shells is a pain in the ass sometimes.
 
D

DaBoss

Member
I'm not color blind, but I've found that the colors better than the default. Particularly Black Ops has orange and baby blue for names and the mini-map instead of red/green.

The wording here seems to indicate you can lock what colors you want it to be. I'm guessing that means I can lock it to blue for my team and orange for the enemies? I would actually use that sort option just to not forget what color I am easily lol.
 
Q

Quadraphonic

Member
GhaleonEB said:
Very cool. I do wish more games offered modes like this, puzzle games especially; I have a lot of half-completed puzzlers in my library because once the green/grey/brown/pink/purple shades come out, I'm hosed. It can have a big impact on a decent number of players.


Destiny just added a colorblind setting for three variants of colorblindess. It's been a revelation to me (I'm r/g). (The colors of the items in the standard and simulated picture look the same to me.)
Click to expand...

Surprised it took them that long. I know one of their programmers is super duper color-deficient. I walked over to his desk one day to ask a question about a game we were working on. I noticed his screen colors were ALL fucked up. Turns out he was testing over component and only had 2 of the 3 cables plugged in. One was loose. I plugged it in and it all looked hunky dory. He couldn't tell the difference.
 
V

Vital Tundra

Member
Good. It baffles me why so many games lack a configuration for the color blind. I'm not myself but I know people whom are. Color blind modes should be mandatory in almost any game that uses colors for gameplay and other meaningful things.

Didn't borderlands lack color blind mode for a while despite being a color rarity based game?
 
A

An-Det

Member
That's fantastic, not nearly enough games have color blind settings. Most games I am fine with, but like others have said puzzle games are huge offenders for me, where later levels are a blur of color and damn near unplayable.
 
D

Dimentios

Member
Colorblind Mode is really that much important. For example, in the beginnings of Battlefield 3 there was no such mode and for colorblind people (Green/Red) Squad Members and Enemies had the "same" color. Do you understand how fucked up that was? Thankfully, they patched this shit.

It's not even rare. 8 percent of men and 0.4 percent of women "suffer" from that. There is NO reason, not to put in such a mode.

Sadly, believe it or not, sometimes I have problems to distinguish red and green shells in Mario Kart. :(

art-style-rotohex_20331.jpg
Click to expand...

Jesus!
It doesn't help that there is a glance effect on the triangles. <.<

Edit: Just found out, that the shells are pointing in different directions. Smart, Big-N.

wEGy2E3.jpg

nQypAel.jpg
Click to expand...
 
S

Slavik81

Member
charlequin said:
Just out of curiosity, are there games that you've found do a good job with this? I've had people ask me about how to do colorblind modes well but not being so myself I had very little to offer, lol.
Click to expand...
It's probably fairly easy to simulate various sorts of colour-blindness with post-processing shaders. Then you could see for yourself.
 
S

skLaFarebear

Member
The R/G in splatoon is fine for me since I can't tell the difference between dark green and red and Splatoon uses a lighter shade of green, but then we get to yellow and light green and I can't tell the difference for shit, so I'm glad this is an option.
 
SerTapTap

SerTapTap

Member
Cool stuff. I'm not colorblind but it's great to see these sort of accessibility features, this game could have been a nightmare without it if the colors matchups weren't pre-designed to be distinguishable.
 
M

McNum

Member
Nice on Nintendo. Even if they picked some fairly high contrast colors to oppose each other, it's still awesome that they're doing this. I'm curious if I might have to ban the red ink in my game or not. It doesn't show as well on surfaces to me. I wonder how detailed we can get with this. Can I just ban one color or will it have to be a pair?

Ideally, I'd like to be able to adjust the ink colors manually, but I'll take what I can get if I need it.

More games should have colorblind modes. I remember how much easier FTL became to play after they added the colorblind mode. Heck, the hazard striping on air-less rooms that got added to the standard colors was a colorblind mode invention. Good for everyone!
 
R

Roo

Member
Xaltheron said:
Always cool when companies consider us :)

I wish they'd do something similar for Mario Kart, not being able to tell the difference between red and green shells is a pain in the ass sometimes.
Click to expand...

Ehh.. it's not much but both have different sounds

Green shell
Red Shell

You have to train your earn to differentiate and recognize each one.
 
Dice//

Dice//

Banned
NateDrake said:
More games need color blind mode (I'm red/green color blind).
Click to expand...

If most/many gamers are male, and males are more often colour blind, I'm surprised this isn't a "thing" more frequently. Especially since red/green gets used for UIs a lot.
 
N

NateDrake

Member
ghibli99 said:
But rarely implemented. I wish more devs/pubs would take accessibility more seriously.
Click to expand...

A few years ago, I was working with someone to write a lengthy article on colorblindness and how it is mostly ignored by the gaming community. With so many games relying on color for radar or hidden objects, we thought it would make for a nice piece. We planned to interview publishers and developers, and then look into whether the studios had any colorblind folks working for them. Our editor didn't feel the topic would gain enough attention and scrapped the idea.

I think most pubs/devs know they should have such a basic option, and just don't bother with it.

Dice// said:
If most/many gamers are male, and males are more often colour blind, I'm surprised this isn't a "thing" more frequently. Especially since red/green gets used for UIs a lot.
Click to expand...
The most common form - red/green - only impacts 6% of males, so it would be a very small percentage of the male gaming community. I agree that it should be a bigger issue since UI are often color heavy and normally use red/green as indicators.
 
Dice//

Dice//

Banned
NateDrake said:
A few years ago, I was working with someone to write a lengthy article on colorblindness and how it is mostly ignored by the gaming community. With so many games relying on color for radar or hidden objects, we thought it would make for a nice piece. We planned to interview publishers and developers, and then look into whether the studios had any colorblind folks working for them. Our editor didn't feel the topic would gain enough attention and scrapped the idea.

I think most pubs/devs know they should have such a basic option, and just don't bother with it.


The most common form - red/green - only impacts 6% of males, so it would be a very small percentage of the male gaming community.
Click to expand...

I suppose I'm being a bit of a bleeding heart, but my buddy has it and it's annoying to him with a few games he's gotta play. If it's something that can be easily integrated into a game, it'd be nice to see more games have it is what I mean.
 
N

NateDrake

Member
Dice// said:
I suppose I'm being a bit of a bleeding heart, but my buddy has it and it's annoying to him with a few games he's gotta play. If it's something that can be easily integrated into a game, it'd be nice to see more games have it is what I mean.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I hated playing Enslaved because the path to follow would glow in red. I could never tell anything was glowing. Made the game a pain to play. There is no reason that CoD multiplayer or any game's multiplayer map/radar should be stuck to green/red icons. Make them customizable. Anything color-focused should be customizable or have a colorblind mode available. Being colorblind has certainly diminished the enjoyment of some games for me.
 
M

McNum

Member
stan423321 said:
In some cases, I'm honestly not sure how would I implement this. It's not as idiotically simple as it appears.
Click to expand...
A good rule of thumb is to never allow any information to be communicated solely through color. Have something change shape or use a redundant way of communicating it.

And don't use a red/yellow/green gradient for any important icons without anything else showing it. Looking at YOU, Rogue Squadron...
 
D

demosthenes

Member
charlequin said:
Just out of curiosity, are there games that you've found do a good job with this? I've had people ask me about how to do colorblind modes well but not being so myself I had very little to offer, lol.
Click to expand...

Bioshock 2 hacking mini game. Sc2 grid placement are the 2 I usually think of that help me the most.
 
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