Color Blindness and Board Games

Michael Barnes wrote:

1. The cards need text or more explicit icons
2. The game could look incredible with period photographs (think Weegee) instead of hideous cartoon artwork

1) The new edition I don't think is that bad. Once you understand the terms used in the game like "Contract" "Double Contract"...etc. The short phrases do a fairly good job at explaining it. The group I was playing with was all pretty buzzed if not drunk and everyone was getting a hang of it about halfway through (and it was all non-gamers).

The family member cards do need some sort of symbol or family crest or something on them. I was going to be adding some myself infact just due to the colors and bad card layout.

2) I'd agree with this 100%. The game is great, but looks goofy. My great grandma's cousin looks nothing like the photos I've seen of him.

LvT

Colorblind people shouldn't be allowed to play boardgames. You ever tried playing Through the Desert with a CB? Christ!

We had a guy with this affliction in a group a few years back, and Liberte was the nightmare game for him ... he just had no chance of distinguishing most of the player colours or region colurs

I am slightly colorblind and have only had trouble with two games so far: Through the Desert and Railroad Tycoon. Wtih TtD, I could tell the difference if I looked closely at the pieces, but it made the game too much trouble. In RT, I cannot tell the difference between blue and purple no matter how long I look at the pieces. Someone else with the same problem made green paste-ups to replace the purple on the board and the purple cubes can be painted green. Why can't manufacturers just stick with good 'ole primary red, green, blue, yellow, black and white? Add primary orange and grey for eight.

Biologically, the gene for color reception is carried on the X sex chromosone. Women have two chances that one of their genes is good. Men are stuck with the one we get. (Thanks Mom!)

Mr Skeletor wrote:

Colorblind people shouldn't be allowed to play boardgames. You ever tried playing Through the Desert with a CB? Christ!

Kiss. My. Ass. If you need your pastel candy-looking camels rather than play a manly game of Go, you have my pity.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

Colorblind people shouldn't be allowed to play boardgames. You ever tried playing Through the Desert with a CB? Christ!

Color blind people, left handers, and australians are pretty much all on the "don't game with" list. (where's clearclaw to take this to another level?)

ubarose wrote:

MrZir wrote:

I am slightly colorblind and have only had trouble with two games so far: Through the Desert and Railroad Tycoon.

Everyone has trouble with the blue and purple cities in RRT. I put light blue glass blobs on all the blue cities so people can tell which is which. On the Europe expansion, they changed the blue so it doesn't look like the purple anymore. Instead it now looks like the black.

The player pieces in Tomb are VERY similar in color as well. Since there's only four it's not such a crisis, but just a really obvious printing error. Someone with R-G troubles would have to mark the pieces.

Sag.

hancock.tom wrote:

Color blind people, left handers, and australians are pretty much all on the "don't game with" list. (where's clearclaw to take this to another level?)

Two of those three can be corrected with training and/or "re-education." The rest of us have to wait for the DNA changing retrovirus.

Sagrilarus wrote:

The player pieces in Tomb are VERY similar in color as well.

You play with those ugly things? Substitute minis for the win!

hancock.tom wrote:

Color blind people, left handers, and australians are pretty much all on the "don't game with" list. (where's clearclaw to take this to another level?)

Heh, speaking of Australians, they are apparently the rudest workers in the world:

news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090115/lf_nm_life/us_jobs_manners

"...Australians also regularly talk loudly at work, take personal calls and ask too many personal questions, the survey showed."

Try teaching Tannhauser to someone who is colorblind sometime.

It's fun. No. Really.

Esp. If they decide to 'wing it' and cause the other players to cry cheat.

Esp. if for politeness and business reasons you can't just suggest they move along to something not designed to completely screw them.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote:

The player pieces in Tomb are VERY similar in color as well.

You play with those ugly things? Substitute minis for the win!

Agree here -- with both Descent and Runebound, there are mini heroes all over the place.


Frank -- never heard what you think of Tomb? I found it okay. I didn't hate it as much as Barnes because I think there is a cool idea lurking in there....