Don't Worry Colour-Blind Gamers, Splatoon Has Got Your Back

I think that's a great feature. I'm not color blinded myself, but I know some friends who'll be really pleased with these news.

Excellent inclusion. Don't think many thought about that including myself. Truly a team which believes in gaming for all. You go guys!

I have a friend who's very interested in the game. But after seeing some of the intense battles in the trailers he said he won't be able to play it because he's color-blind. The is very good news.

Gaming for the sensory impaired could make for an interesting feature Nintendo Life.

So I wasn't aware of color blindness until the testing of Gemology (not yet released) and I absolutely cannot beleive how big of a problem it is! What's interesting is that I'm being serious, in Gemology the player needs to combine gems of similar colors to get a gem as large as they can. While the colors are fairly distinct its pretty amazing to me to see how big of a struggle this can be. Looking back I now wish we had incorporated a shape element as well, unfortunately that moment had already come and gone.

WOW !!! that is awesome! game of the year already. seriously this is so good

I'm color blind and I didn't even think about being unable to play the game, it just didn't cross my mind. Is good to know it won't be a problem!!

This is actually really awesome.

How thoughful of them! ^_^

A fault!

I saw the color in the pic and immediately thought we'll have black and white ink...darn. xD

i'm not like DOG color blind but i do have somewhat of a hard time telling some yellows from greens so i may use this.

This article and comment section makes me feel that color blindness is common

Well that's nice! I'm not color blind myself, but this should be good for those who are.

I'm glad to see Nintendo doing this. Now they just need to keep left handed gamers in mind.

@Megumi Errr, white ink would be... well... let's just say, even less advisable than red ink if they're going for family-friendly.

kinda reminds me of the day as a kid when my mother brought me home a copy of Dr. Mario... and we had our NES hooked up to a black and white tv.

@ricklongo Ugh, you people...-.-

@daveh30 lol how the hell did you play dr.mario that way?

colourblind does NOT mean that you can not see any colours. it just means that it can be hard to distinguish between certain colours like green and yellow. "color vision deficiency" is a better name for it

@Megumi Um...

@6ch6ris6 with great difficulty. If memory serves correctly, it was shortly after that we were finally allowed to move the NES to the colour tv.

Nice.

I have a huge problem distinguishing between green, red and brown. I also struggle with very dark blue and purple, as well as light green and yellow.

I really struggle myself between dark blues/purples, and additionally oranges/reds. Until now I hadn't really thought about how that could've been a major problem with Splatoon. good to know they're catering for us colourblind people Also a great comments section to work out where in the world people are from based on how they spell colour, ha!

@Galactrix Wow, that's actually kinda cool.

@NintendoFan64 Some people once got into an argument with me over whether colours in a small image looked the same or not. I took a dropping tool and they still tried to argue with me lol. I guess it's possible they all had some degree of colour-blindness instead of bias blindness heh. Anyway, supposedly 1 in 12 males have some degree of color-blindness. My color vision is perfect though, I took an online test so it must be true. I bet I can see infrared.

http://www.xrite.com/online-color-test-challenge

After reading Galactrix's comment I decided to alternate my spelling.

I'm not color blind, but I think this feature is really cool. Splatoon for everyone!

It's good to know Nintendo is starting to think about struggles other people have! I'm not color blind myself nor are my friends but I'm sure someone out there will be happy to hear this.

As a color blind gamer, I've encountered way too many games that are just impossible for me to play. So glad Splatoon is addressing this issue.

@Stitches I have the same issue with those colors. I'm red-green color-blind. So perhaps you are as well! I can never tell the difference between red and green shells in Mario Kart. Do you have the same issue?!

If voice chat was enabled, we'd all have plenty of opportunity to discover just how non-"color"-blind some people are...

How is this inclusive "to a fault"? This is a great addition.

As a "color impaired" individual, I really wish more games did this. I've straight up had to pass on games because I couldn't tell the colors apart well enough to play well. Zuma's Revenge was one I was particularly bummed to pass over.

I hadn't thought about color problems in Splatoon because all I've seen of it had quite distinct and vibrant colors, but it's good to know that there is an accommodation for the chromatically challenged.

@Megumi Already too many risky combinations with this game, I feel white ink would tip the scales.

While a lot of the new info yesterday was pretty negative from my point of view, this is a great move, and a pleasant surprise. Is this the first time Nintendo have done it?

I bet a lot more people are colour blind than realise it. Sometimes I hear people's idea of what being colour blind is and just shake my head. For me, I've often struggled with the green/red power indicators on handhelds, so with modern tech just putting battery percentages in, things are much better. It's pretty easy to tell the difference between red and green on a traffic light though. It's a very subtle thing.

As a disabled gamer myself (although not colour blind) it's fantastic to see companies making their games accessible to disabled people. This is not done enough.

I'm 100% colorblind so this is welcome news. That's one more customer for splatoon. Thanks Nintendo.

Great news, but this should be a standard in the gaming industry, not something that is hailed as unique and occasional. Unfortunately console games tend to have these options a lot less frequently.

@Geonjaha I actually disagree. Not every game has to cater to colour-blind or otherwise disabled people. No matter what there'll always be people who have difficulty playing your game. Regardless of that pushing "standards" in my experience is just annoying and limiting. If I made a game that used colour to solve a puzzle I wouldn't want to have to completely redo it for people who can't see the colours. If I made a game where you need audio clues to time your attacks on a boss properly I wouldn't want to redo it for people who can't hear. There are a lot of other examples I can make but I'll leave it. You're never gonna make a video game inclusive enough for Hellen Keller.

If a game like Splatoon can easily include this feature, and decides to incorporate it, good. If a game can easily include this feature and doesn't incorporate it, oh well. All the people saying "why didn't you do this", "why wasn't this included" are just super annoying. I guess I might have done that before but I'm gonna try not to anymore because it's super annoying.

@SomeBitTripFan Amen Brother. Skyward Sword and Kid Icarus Uprising were great but the lack of options for left-handed people was baffling

Agreed with @Geonjaha. Games that rely on colour SHOULD always have the option. That assures more sales and goodwill for them. And it is really not that hard. Use symbols, shapes, patterns, etc.

I found no issues since colors are so bright but still great to see. Splatoon's awesomeness continues.

Good guy Nintendo.

@Fee It'll take half an hour for a colour-blind scheme. Refusing to do it is like refusing to cross the road to grab a $50 note.

Props to them. This really should be a standard in gaming just like remapping controls is.

@MadAdam81 Lol. I like how you alternated. You say "50$" American, then say "note" which is English.

@Fee I'm Australian - we steal half from the UK an half from the US.

Pretty impressed with this feature. It will definitely help many people, and may even help people who aren't completely colorblind, but have trouble with certain colors.

The color-based puzzle game Peggle had a neat option for colorblind people and I actually used it because it helped me distinguish between similar colors a lot more quickly.

@w_rabbit

It depends. If I see the colours green and red individually then yes I struggle. However, if I see them side-by-side then usually I can distinguish them instantly (it depends on the shade).

I am very happy to hear them taking that into account. Not colorblind myself but as a person with other visual impairments yea it is always great to be included.

@Stitches Yep, definitely sounds like red-green color blind!

Finally, somebody helps us colorblind folks out!

I remember Speedball 2 having options for it (Only other time I specifically remember).

Yes, I am color-blind. This is great news. It really bugged me that I couldn't play Bust-a-Move to save my life. I have a mild case of red-green color blindness. But I can even mistake orange and yellow, or blue and purple, or pink and grey. Thanks for the consideration, Nintendo!

Plot twist: Were all colour-blind.

Thank you Nintendo for actually caring about color blind people even though I'm not.

@CrimSkies97 Watch yourself there, I have perfect colour vision.

@Stitches et al.

I'm color-blind as schnitzel. (Red-green color deficient, sorryyyyy.)

Monster Manor on the Street Pass suite is the WORST. Can't tell orange from green, green from red, nor yellow from yellow-green.

A lot more guys have this issue than one might think. Good move, Nintendo.

This is an awesome feature, although all I could think about was the 'dead squirrel' viral game gear commercial where some kid hits himself in the head with a dead squirrel to see color on the game boy.

I tried to find a gif, I really did.

Good to hear, I am collorblind myself!

@Fee I took the test and apparently I have perfect colour distinguishing abilities. Bring that picture on.

@wolvandbats All right I will try to find it and post it later.

@wolvandbats http://serebii.net/xy/pss.jpg
A little later anyway heh. That should be it. They were complaining about how X and Y probably wouldn't let them change eye color because in that image everyone with the same skin tone had the same eye color. I pointed out that they don't all have the same eye color and they were like "uh yeah, they do." =/ They didn't...and what do you know X and Y does in fact let you change eye color.

Anyway if you want to see what I saw just find two dark skinned characters with different eye colors.