That is to say, they say that up to 8% of the male population is color blind, and it probably stands to reason that a similar proportion of gamers are afflicted. Which is an interesting fact, as Joystiq has a nice piece on color blindness and gaming.

This is something that’s actually very close to my heart.

I was diagnosed as being color blind when I was about 6, when I failed all of the Ishihara plates in the opthalmologist’s office. Being an x-linked recessive gene, nearly all of my uncles had it (thanks mom!), but I wonder if they too had problems with Bust-A-Move. [As a further aside, as dictated by the occupational health department, I am no longer allowed to read urine strips either ... a stinky job that i do not miss, actually :) ]

Since colorblindess isn’t really “seeing in black and white”, but really distinguishing between colors that are close together on the colorwheel, especially if they are close in value (intensity), I have particular trouble with blue and purple; green and brown; red and green (of course); yellow and green.

This creates real difficulties when games hinge on distinguishing between these colors.

For example the seminal arcade game, Bust-a-Move.
Although you can distinguish between balls based only on their symbol inside (star, whatever), it can be tremendously difficult to do at higher levels when the game is fast and furious. The extra split second it took my brain to process the information — rather than color, because they looked the same! — made it notoriously difficult.

A very familiar refrain was “God *expletive* *expletive*! Why aren’t these *expletive* bubbles collapsing?”

Since colorblindness is an X-linked recessive trait it probably means an inordinate number of gamers are actually affected. I wonder why there hasn’t been a more concerted effort to be more sensitive to color blind gamers then?

Its not a political correctness thing, but a being-more-inclusive-sort of thing in my eyes (pun intended).

I mean, how frustrating is it when you’ve reached the 22nd stage, and you just can’t *expletive* finish it because you can’t tell the difference between the green and yellow balls?

If you read the “comments” section in the Joystiq article, there are dozens of commenters commiserating with the author (who describes Rockstar’s Table Tennis game to be a sisyphian challenge) about games where being able to distinguish colors is critical to completion of the game.

For example, in the Joystiq article, there is a picture of a ball with the number “45″ on it … but because of the color arrangement, I can’t see it. I only found out about it after one of the commenters picked it up!

Here are other examples that Joystiq fans have picked up on:

1. Battlefield 2: Special Forces — night vision
2. Hexic — color of pieces
3. Oblivion — skill “colors”
4. Civilization 3 — color of countries
5. Dark Cloud 2 — butterfly colors to defeat a boss
6. Halo 2/ Perfect Dark Zero — team colors
7. Super Puzzle Fighter — block colors
8. Heroes of Might and Magic V — color of the terrain
9. Metroid Prime — Color of blasts shot by boss
10. GTA: San Andreas — Color of gang areas
11. Godfather — Safehouse colors

I wonder if the gamers who are bothered by these phenomena just “tough it out” with the help of friends or family … or just drop the game altogether, and don’t bother telling anyone.

And I’m not sure what the answer is to this issue.

Will it take someone to champion it and drive it home to gaming companies? To design houses? To wherever they teach and train people who go on to gaming studios?

All I know is that there are a small but significant number of gamers who simply cannot play certain games unaided because of poor choices in game design. And I guess I’m one of them.

And that really sucks.