Colorblindness and Shooting Games

Vorpal · Post by **Vorpal** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:17 pm

Does anyone else struggle with this?

With many shooters I have a problem tracking bullet patterns because the bullets tend to just completely disappear in certain situations. For example, I am colorblind to many shades of green/yellow, so if a ship shoots a yellow bullet while the background is a foresty area, the bullet tends to disappear to me. Also I have a problem with shades of blue/purple, which makes DoDonPachi stage 3 and 6 extremely difficult.

So yeah, I was just wondering if anyone else had these kinds of issues, and if there were any measures you could take to overcome them?

320x240 · Post by **320x240** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:24 pm

I guess developers should include an option to change the color of bullets (and maybe other stuff). That is something I have never thought of myself, but now I'm going to include it in my own game (plug, plug...).

I'm thinking the option to choose between different color-sets could be a good idea, so that every shade of colorblindness is covered.

D · Post by D » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:38 pm

Hey Vorpal,

Maybe a good idea is to try aand see if you can manipulate color.
My tv has a special 'hue' setting.
Also most tv's have color pallettes: normal, warm and cool, but the difference is neglectable.
For rgb signals you could try dissable the B Blue from the rgb signal.
You will only get green and red values.

There must be something we can do for you.
perhaps you should just get the best image possible. get everything rgb or hdmi for higher end consoles.

Machinehead · Post by **Machinehead** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:45 pm

Well I just played to stage 3 of DoDonPachi...yeah I see what you mean lol. I got the same blindness as you Vorpal. If I focus closely on one cluster I can follow it, but end up getting hit by something the got blended in.
Really I dont have any suggestions on coping with it, but I wanna hear some.

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:33 pm

Yeah, 2% of males share that color blindness. I think D is right: unless there is an option to change bullet color, your best bet is to tinker with the hue setting on your monitor/tv. This blindness is all about hue, so don't bother messing with brightness, etc.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:49 pm

Machinehead wrote:Well I just played to stage 3 of DoDonPachi...yeah I see what you mean lol. I got the same blindness as you Vorpal. If I focus closely on one cluster I can follow it, but end up getting hit by something the got blended in.

Sounds like you are experiencing motion blindness rather than color blindness. Having both occur would be quite an obstacle to overcome playing shmups.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 9:04 pm

I'm colorblind but haven't really notice it affect my play.

-Bridget- · Post by **-Bridget-** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 9:23 pm

Im not colorblind, but I can sympathize in a few cases. Sometimes these games really do need an option to change bullet colors or something like that.

Dodonpachi: Dai-ou-jou, 2nd stage. I'll get to the boss, and that's when the problems start. You've got that watery/swampy blue-green background, and then the boss fires mostly those little blue lasers at you, and then Im usually using ship B, which is that bluish green color....

Right around here I tend to lose track of things. Either I'll not notice bullets coming at me, or maybe go far enough as to lose track of my ship for a split second. Which is more than enough to get blown up.

It's not a hard boss..... but I'll still get blown up here fairly often.

It's irritating!!!

More of these games definitely need that sort of option.... I've seen a fair number of PC ones do it.

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:22 am

I'm blue/green colourblind, but thankfully it's a combination that rarely shows up in the games I play.

I pity any Cave player who has troubles with purple/blue.

kengou · Post by **kengou** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 4:25 am

I feel colorblind when I play Raizing games...

Necronopticous · Post by **Necronopticous** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:17 am

I have pretty bad colorblindness, but it has never inhibited me as far as shmups go. My most notable gaming inhibitions, due to color blindness, are of the puzzle variety. Puzzle Fighter is a good example--can't play that game worth a damn.

unsane · Post by **unsane** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 5:15 am

I hope you like Raizing! Some of their games allow you to change bullet colors, see BULLET COLOR MODE:
Armed Police Batrider
Battle Bakraid

There may be others i don't know about, check under Secrets - INGAME SECRETS.

Arvandor · Post by **Arvandor** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:20 am

Yeah, Raizing games should be neat. In Battle Garegga even people without color blindness have troubles seeing the bullets -_^ The hard to see bullets are grey though, and all the others are white. So once you overcome the little grey bullet syndrome common to BG noobs, it shouldn't pose any further difficulties.

Psiko games not Dragon Blaze should be good too, since the bullets are fairly bright and contrast heavily against their backgrounds, no matter how color blind you are.

I'm not color blind, but I know your problem. The first TV I ever flipped for a tate screen ended up with some color issues near the top (I STILL can't find a degaussing wand, which I'm sure would fix it), but it blended anything vaguely resembling red (red, pink, etc) into a weird orangey-pink. The normally perfectly visible pink bullets in stage 2 and the last part of stage 3 in DDP were almost completely invisible when they were in that blotch near the top of the screen. It was indeed rather frustrating. I can't think of anything that would help besides switching games =/