Check Out Project Colour Park - Heading to Wii U eShop

This kind of thing (what would we call it – an endless rhythm runner, perhaps?) isn't really my type of game, but as with any Wii U eShop exclusive, I'll endeavour to keep an open mind until I've checked it out for myself.

Looks fairly unique but not my type of game. I have spending issues as it is without buying this and most likely hating it.

It looks kinda fun, but how do you play it? I didn't see any playerinput in the Video, but it could just be me being a bit carless observing it ^^"

I wouldn't call this the most unique offering on the eshop but does look good. Loved the games Indies have brought to Wii U

It looks nice, but I dearly hope the soundtrack will have more power than that generic piano practice...

@Josaku A lot of people have commented that it's not obvious how you actually play. Making a video to illustrate at the moment, which should hopefully get posted up on youtube later this week

@Kaze_Memaryu The music doesn't really fit with the rest of the visuals at the moment. We're getting more music composed for the game, and also in the process of creating some completely different looking levels that'll have a different vibe again to the ones made so far

I thought the music seemed pretty good and fit well. Look forward to seeing more of this.

@S3OL doesn't look unique at all to me. take one look at the IOS store and tell me you haven't seen this before. Look at this though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T37Pgu5CN98 best game i've played in the genre

@Captain-Falcon I see what you mean, this does look pretty great.

Tripped out stuff like this I can use more of - I've got enough adrenalin-pumping stuff. This could be a nice relaxing game with the right soundtrack.

I'm not colourblind, but I think a colourblind option would be nice.

@Sean_Aaron

I am colour blind and I approve of your comment.

The majority of color coded games do not have a colour blind mode so that sucks for us. One of the reasons I could never support De Blob.

This is always a cool concept, it does come down to the variety of music.

nah, met don't like

@Sean_Aaron & @sinalefa - As it happens, spent the last couple of days implementing colour-blind settings. There'll be colour customisation options as well, so you can fine-tune in case the pre-selected colours aren't quite right.

@JamesCoote from what I've seen of other games like Flower Works that are built for colour blind people out of the box the easiest way to address this (and hopefully someone like @sinalefa can confirm) is use of shape or patterns.

In your case you might want to keep the smooth ring aesthetic, in which case maybe having an option which uses a transition of bumps or patterns on the ring as you switch colours might be an idea?

Just a thought.

@Sean_Aaron It might be possible. The problem is, the closer you are to a colour match, the more points you get (or faster your speed boost in race mode). This is why we don't split the ring into discreet colour bands. Likewise, you can't be 80% between square and triangle. It's either one or the other.

Having patterns on the ring, they'd have to logically merge from one set to another. Would need to sit down and experiment to see if that was really workable. Another one someone suggested to me was having differing animations on the ring or in a glowing halo around the ring. So for example, one that has a striped pattern, with the stripes flat horizontal when you're way off, turning to dead vertical when you're spot on.

In fact, just thinking about it now, it may be possible to have arrows rotated at different angles coming towards you on the track. You then have to turn the ring to match the arrow position, or probably better, the ring remains fixed and you turn the square indicator at the top to match the angle / rotation of the arrow. The ring would probably have to be a smaller arc, so you could see it all at once. It's currently about 340 degrees. There is a gap at the bottom to stop people rotating the wii remote all the way around and crossing their arms over. Could be say 180 degrees or 225 degrees and probably still be visible / not cut off by the track below. The extra challenge would be that it's difficult to judge the arrow rotation/direction when you're on a rollercoaster track, travelling at all sorts of banking and loop-the-loop angles until right before you hit the object on the track.

What do you reckon? That'd only take a day to implement, so might try it anyway

I think it's an interesting idea and seems like a good compromise. I see what you're saying about the mechanics, but ultimately it comes down to how rewarding the gameplay is generally and whether or not the appeal will be completely lost without the same degree of challenge.

There was a recent PBS Game Show on YouTube that dealt with this kind of issue. I think too often game designers look at things from the "purist" point of view when it comes to difficulty and accessibility of their games. You really have to look at it from the perspective of: is my game still fun if it's easier when made more accessible by colour-blind people or would they be better off simply not playing it at all?

Good example is the remote-only mode in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. I played that game with my partner and she's crap at games, but likes them. She couldn't pull off the moves as precisely as I could with a Classic Controller, but she could play the game and enjoyed it, whereas without that easy control method she wouldn't have been able to play it at all and would have been bored and frustrated.

Not saying you don't understand that point, but I think it's something that often gets overlooked and given these kinds of easier control methods and options can widen a game audience it seems like it only makes sense from a business perspective too.

Even though we've only just "announced" the game, we've been trying throughout development to take peoples' feedback and incorporate it into the design. Although some things are a bit more inflexible at this stage, this change wouldn't have a big an impact on the "vision" of the game, even though in practical terms it changes the design.

The thinking anyway would be to keep this as an option. So you could play with or without arrows. With arrows makes the game easier, but there are a number of other settings that affect difficulty, and when you max those out, the difference from using arrows or colour or both becomes marginal, as the game gets virtually impossible at that point anyway.

The other point about the business angle is that something like 5% of males have at least some form of colour-blindness. That's 2.5%+ sales instantly down the drain if you ignore it. Plus it's a crappy attitude that'll win you no friends.

Interestingly, some (non-colour blind) people seem to really struggle with the game at the moment, so making it easier, and so even more accessible, like you say, can't be a bad thing in the other direction either

@Sean_Aaron @JamesCoote

I do agree that a part of the population should not be ignored. The other thing is that there are different kind or degrees of colour blindness, so shapes usually work the best. A game like Peggle put symbols on the hard to see pegs to distinguish them.

With that said, if a game is not colour blind friendly, there is a huge chance I won't even take the plunge, instead of taking the risk and see if maybe that particular game won't affect me. While seeing a colour blind mode will help us to feel included, thus encouraging a purchase because of goodwill.

I hope you can gather feedback from colour blind people (if I can help you in any way please let me know) to work the best solution.

@sinalefa I may well get in touch once this new arrow system has been implemented. Just a shame it's not possible to send out a test build, so going to have to rely on screenshots/video (and testing with people at events).