Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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The plight of the blind gamer (theoutline.com)
submitted by KillerLag
Terry_Pie 2 points 5y ago
Thanks for sharing this article. It's right on, and it was only last week I was talking about this issue over on /r/civ.
I love the Civilization series. I've got all the main releases bar Civ 1 (which I used to have, but I think is gone now), plus Alpha Centauri and Civ: Beyond Earth. Firaxis have just announced the first expansion to Civ VI, which will add a stack of content that sounds really good. Unfortunately, graphically, Civ VI is a disaster for people with vision impairment/legally blind. The text is tiny and colour contrast is abysmal. This makes the game a real chore to play, compared to Civ V where the only issue I have is the poor colour contrast on the minimap and of city names/unit icons of some of the later civs to be added.
It's frustrating that with a game where I can take all the time in the world to make decisions, the design choices making doing so frustrating.
With games where things are happening in real time, that's a bit different and for me I doubt it'd matter what the developer did, it'd still be frustrating. (For example, I decided to try Skyrim again - I'd left it because it didn't engage me that much - I loaded my save and I was in Whiterun. The dim light and poor colour contrast mean I've no way to navigate myself out. It had been five years since I loaded the save, so perhaps not overly surprising!) But there are still steps that can be taken to maximise the accessibility.
I love the Civilization series. I've got all the main releases bar Civ 1 (which I used to have, but I think is gone now), plus Alpha Centauri and Civ: Beyond Earth. Firaxis have just announced the first expansion to Civ VI, which will add a stack of content that sounds really good. Unfortunately, graphically, Civ VI is a disaster for people with vision impairment/legally blind. The text is tiny and colour contrast is abysmal. This makes the game a real chore to play, compared to Civ V where the only issue I have is the poor colour contrast on the minimap and of city names/unit icons of some of the later civs to be added.
It's frustrating that with a game where I can take all the time in the world to make decisions, the design choices making doing so frustrating.
With games where things are happening in real time, that's a bit different and for me I doubt it'd matter what the developer did, it'd still be frustrating. (For example, I decided to try Skyrim again - I'd left it because it didn't engage me that much - I loaded my save and I was in Whiterun. The dim light and poor colour contrast mean I've no way to navigate myself out. It had been five years since I loaded the save, so perhaps not overly surprising!) But there are still steps that can be taken to maximise the accessibility.
KillerLag [OP] 3 points 5y ago
Agreed. I believe there are some FPS games that have a colourblind mode now, but not too much else.
Terry_Pie 1 points 5y ago
Yes, I noted the article spoke of colourblind mode in World of Warcraft. I'd be interested to see what difference that makes. I have activated colourblind mode on at least one game before, but I couldn't tell what difference it actually made so I didn't leave it activated.
KillerLag [OP] 1 points 5y ago
For some games, it gave enemies a reddish aura and your friends a different colour aura (I forget if green or something else). Might be sublte, though.
Terry_Pie 2 points 5y ago
I might boot up Counter-Strike: Global Offensive sometime and check it out, I think it has a colour blind feature.
The best equaliser for the vision impaired ever implemented in a shooter was IRNV in Battlefield 3. I usually had pretty bad K:D ratios in BF3, but when I finally unlocked IRNV it was amazing. Using it I really felt like I was on equal footing with those playing fully sighted. Unfortunately it was deemed to give too much of an advantage to everyone, so they changed it and it was no where near as useful from then on. I almost emailed EA about that at the time, expressing my disappointment, but I decided not to bother.
The best equaliser for the vision impaired ever implemented in a shooter was IRNV in Battlefield 3. I usually had pretty bad K:D ratios in BF3, but when I finally unlocked IRNV it was amazing. Using it I really felt like I was on equal footing with those playing fully sighted. Unfortunately it was deemed to give too much of an advantage to everyone, so they changed it and it was no where near as useful from then on. I almost emailed EA about that at the time, expressing my disappointment, but I decided not to bother.
Harmoniously 2 points 5y ago
Thank you for addressing this, my 12 yr old son has albinism and struggles to keep up with his friends and brothers with gaming. Hes tried nearly everything but only feels comfortable with a few computer games.
KillerLag [OP] 3 points 5y ago
It isn't my article, I just came across it. Yeah, with the graphics for many games now, even mild vision loss can be problematic. Some games have tried to add accessibility features, but how well those work are... debatable.
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