
Do you see something in this picture? Because I don't see a
god damn thing.
Okay, so I just bitched about this in the MGS thread, but I feel this issue deserves more exposure.
10% or more of the population of Earth have this disorder called colorblindness. I didn't make this thread to bitch about my genetic inability to see certain colors, but to bitch about the game companies that make red/green color schemes in their games
with the knowledge that there are literally
hundreds of millions of people with color deficiencies.
Now before I go any further, there are companies out there that are
fucking awesome and specifically program modes into their games to help colorblind people. These people are kings among men. For instance:
Peggle. Brilliant mindless fun, right? Well, if you can't see which pegs are red or green, then you're just spewing random balls hoping that the one you aimed for isn't going to boff up your strategy. But PopCap did something great:
Amazing. Not only are the colors more vibrant, you can easily tell at a glance which pegs are which because they have symbols on them.
Metal Gear Solid is what inspired this thread, so let's go there:
How many enemies/instant kill deathtraps are there in this picture? Hell if I know!
The above picture is more vivid than what appears on my television. Now I know MGS3 is an old game, but it's a perfect example of the kind of thing that really gets on my tits. There are instant death traps scattered throughout this game, and your progress is gone if you trigger one. They're sort of difficult to see if you
aren't colorblind, since the whole point is that they blend into the woods around you. But as a colorblind person, you just get to stumble through the woods and hope you don't die randomly.
Add to this that the whole
point of this game is to be camouflaged with the woods and you have a recipe for colorblind disaster. Something that should be a fun challenge becomes ridiculous. Solid Snake is now a brown colorblind mutant in a sea of brown trees, brown enemies and brown deathtraps. Now I'm not asking for a big fuchsia arrow pointing down with the word, "DEATHTRAP!" on it every time one appears, but maybe a shit-licking color other than green or brown would be nice every once in a while. How about a colorblind option in the menu for thin blue stripes across enemies? How about a black outline around the instant deathtraps? How about
anything other than brown motherfucking blobs everywhere? If I crawl Solid Snake into the ass of another brown soldier I swear I'm gonna choke a turd.
Now, in an action/stealth game like Metal Gear Solid, they had a small excuse: realism. Puzzle games don't have jack shit. How many puzzle games have come out in the past decade with a colorblind help option that weren't put out by PopCap? Three? Four? There's no crap-eating excuse for this turd-burgling bullshit anymore. If another "award-winning", "editor's choice" puzzle game comes out without a colorblind option I'm going to hunt the lead designer through a jungle, sneak up behind him and donkeypunch him in the back of the head before stabbing him repeatedly. If I don't crawl into his ass or a deathtrap first.
List of games with colorblind relevance (made with the colorblind in mind!):
If you want me to add games to the OP, do the following:
!Cyan (game name)
!Yellow (game name)
!Red (game name)
Along with a description of why it belongs there in that category, if applicable.
I might still catch your post asking to put a game in the OP if you don't follow the above format, and if that happens I won't be a little bitch and make you repost it, but pleeeease try to use this so it will catch my eye. It will make things easier for me and for you.
Cyan = Even footing for everyone, whether that means a colorblind help mode or no colorblind mode necessary due to intentional game design
Yellow = Somewhat helpful, but possibly still troublesome in some way
Red = Avoid, this game is specifically or potentially difficult for colorblind people
Most PopCap games are easily playable by the colorblind, so I'm only going to list those that specifically have the colorblind mode.
THE LIST
Alpha Centauri
Astropop
Atomica
Audiosurf
Bad Company 2
Battlefield 2142
Bioshock 2 (hacking patch)
Borderlands
Bust A Move
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty: World At War
Catan
Chuzzle
Civilization 3
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3
DEFCON
Dragon Age: Origins
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Earth Defense Force 2017
The Fifa series
Flowerz
Final Fantasy X (Fuuuuuuuuuck the butterfly minigame)
Guitar Hero 3 (some fretboards)
Harvest: Massive Encounter
Heroes of Might and Magic DS
Hexic
Left 4 Dead (PC only)
The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis
Lost Cities
Madworld
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Meteos
Monster Hunter Tri
Overlord 1
Peggle
Peggle Nights
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark Zero -- (but don't play this game regardless)
Puzzle Fighter HD
Puzzle Pirates
Puzzle Quest
Rise of Legends
Shadow Complex
Table Tennis
Team Fortress 2 (PC only)
Tropico 3
The Void
Trism
Ticket to Ride
Touhou 12 (fan-made patch)
World of Warcraft
Zuma's Revenge
Posts
I feel your pain!
I can't see anything no matter how I adjust things on my HDTV. I can't see the crocs either, but mercifully they only show up in a few screens and once you know they are there, they generally stay in the same place. Not so with the brown blob guards who always see me coming before I even know they exist.
Gamertag(SSF4/MW2)StokedAidzzzSC2 ID Stoked.655
Uploaded SC2 Replays
Were not blind people just have trouble with some colors.
Gamertag(SSF4/MW2)StokedAidzzzSC2 ID Stoked.655
Uploaded SC2 Replays
Damn I am a mutant. My eyes are so bad.
Also, I imagine Mirror's Edge would be another game that would be difficult to play.
IIRC ZUN added an option for this in one of the updates, but the results weren't as good for some people as the fan patch.
Who said that
Show yourself
The right one and the left one look exactly the same except for the different colors to me, it might be blurry if I wasn't wearing my glasses though...
It also sucks as an artist, because I have to ask my wife if certain colours look right when I paint something.:?
And you get a dog!
I'm trying MGS3 again after throwing things at the dog while pretending he is Hideo Kojima. I haven't succumbed to any more traps yet but that's because I'm crawling every god damn where and checking every foot of forest floor like some obsessive compulsive retard. This is ridiculous. I just want to get done with it so I can move onto MGS4.
Let's Play Metal Gear Solid 3
Hahahaha
I was in kind of a foul mood until this
Well played
I remember some years ago, back when I still lived in California, one of my friends would randomly screw up when we played Bust-a-Move. One day he said, "I hate having to look at the symbols" or something to that effect, and when I asked him why he has to look at them he told me he's colorblind. But the game offered a means for colorblind folks to play by having symbols inside the spheres, which was great I thought.
My favorite example of terrible color use comes from Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Granted, Ubisoft is obviously shit in general, but in the previous game your visibility was measured by a simple meter; the higher it goes, the easier you are to see. Double Agent replaced that lovely meter with a little light that would change hue as you got more visible. The end result was I never had any fucking clue if people would see me or not. Made that fucking game way harder than it should have been.
The Void is really interesting, but completely unplayable. Oh well, wasted that money.
Playing local multiplayer on the Fifa series, each player is marked by a small colored triangle. Who is which color? Fucked if I know. I don't know how many times I've been watching someone with the ball run in a really retarded direction, only to be told that that idiot is me.
I hate Sword of the Stars, because so much shit in that depends on various meters which are light shades of red and green. Can't see dick.
The infuriating thing with this shit is it would be so easy to fix if companies gave it a moment of thought. In Fifa, instead of colors, how about a number corresponding to which player it is? Player 1 gets a 1 over his head. Stop using red and green as the sole signifier of good and bad. The Void I guess wouldn't change easily, but for simple UI shit there is no excuse at all for fucking colorblind people in the ass.
Oh so much lime
Also I'm technically blind in one eye
Basically josh I can sympathize
I actually ignore the colors in Tetris. For some reason the shapes stand out to me way more. Especially 'cause the colors change stage to stage. Though I'm talking about the NES version, I don't think many other versions change colors as you progress. In fact, the GB and NES versions are the only two Tetris games I've played.
My solution was equipping Night Vision Goggles at all times. It increased the contrast between critical items and the background items, as all of the critical items (soldiers, item boxes, claymores, etc.) glowed brightly and their silhouettes are easy to distinguish. While I prefer to play Peace Walker indoors, I also like to play it on my commute (which generally is sunny and bright in California). It's annoying to not have other items, but at least it's playable.
After all that... I wonder if Night Vision Goggles would help you out in your situation? The first time you can receive them is in the cave system before The Pain, I think.
The End is a master of camouflage!
He always said Dr Robotnicks mean bean machine was a right cunt to play with me.
Nintendos old puzzle game was good about it though, the one with yoshi in. Tetris attack i think its called. They had shapes on the blocks as well as colours.
edit: this thing
Youtube Channel!
Th...they're different colors?
Most mammals are dichromatic, meaning they can distinguish only two colors. This is owing to our ancient history, when we were mostly nocturnal 100 or so million years ago. To a nocturnal animal the ability to distinguish colors is not necessary. Those of us mammals (mostly the primates, including humans) who CAN see colors have since regained this ability by evolving trichromatic eyes in the last couple dozen or so million years. The ability to see color is incredibly useful in distinguishing various fruits and plants in the jungle, so it's easy to see why we would regain this ability.
Lizards, on the other hand, are trichromatic and can distinguish colors. Which means, since we share a common ancestor with lizards, that we have alternately evolved, lost, and then evolved again the ability to see more than two colors.
The more you know!
So a small consolation to our colorblind gamers is that you are merely, owing to a mutation, joining the ranks of the vast majority of our mammalian brethren!
Which probably doesn't make you feel better, but there it is.
my friend is colorblind, but i just have to tell him when things are pink when he thinks they are red