Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
PLAYERS WHO NEED MAGNIFICATION
Many vision-impaired players simply need everything to be a bit larger. Older play-
ers provide a good example; after about age 45, most people need reading
glasses—but even reading glasses aren't much help with tiny type. Tiny type is a
bad idea in any case, especially if players have to read it under time pressure.
You can meet the needs of these people in three ways. First, if possible, allow play-
ers to change the font size of text that appears in your game, the way web browsers
do. Second, support multiple monitor resolutions in your game. Let players who
really need to see things in larger scale set their monitors to 640 × 480. If you have
a complicated user interface, this may be rather tricky, but if it is, perhaps you
should revisit the design of your interface and see if you can do without some of
those screen elements. If you have a broad interface, consider making it deeper.
Finally, you can provide a magnifying glass feature that the player can move
around over the screen to magnify different areas. The device probably won't be
usable in action scenarios, but at least it's trivial to implement.
Strange Adventures in
Infinite Space
includes a magnifying glass and switchable menu sizes, both of which
are very helpful.
COLORBLIND PLAYERS
Color blindness is a sex-linked genetic disorder primarily affecting men. Total color
blindness is quite rare, but one milder form (
deuteranomaly
) affects about 6 percent
of the male population. Persons with this disorder have reduced sensitivity to dif-
ferent shades of green; they appear more like yellow. (So-called red-green color
blindness is actually a misnomer for several related conditions.)
This issue matters most in user interface design. If you create identical objects dis-
tinguishable only by their color, and you use similar shades of yellow and green,
you risk confusing the colorblind player. Vehicles or characters in a strategy game
whose appearance is identical except for their color would be an example. Also be
careful with indicators, such as colored lights, that turn yellow or green. Colorblind
drivers can tell the difference between yellow and green traffic lights because the
yellow and green lights are separate lights, so even if the driver can't see a differ-
ence, he can tell whether the signal is yellow or green by its position (the middle
light is always the yellow light). You can adopt this convention too: make more
than one light, with the yellow light in a predictable location. If you don't have
room and have to make do with a single light, use colors other than yellow and
green, such as black and white or black and green.
You can test the appearance of your art work to players with different forms of color
blindness at the Vischeck web site,
www.vischeck.com.
