Lauren: 00:09 Hello and welcome back to Playability, where we hold conversations at the crossroads of Gameplay and accessibility. I'm your host. Lauren Woolsey, and I'm here today with AnnaMaria Jackson-Phelps, who's a important contributor to the board gaming community. In part to highlight one aspect of your presence in the gaming community, AnnaMaria, and in part a disclosure, AnnaMaria featured playability at the time of its launch in her blog series. Ladies at the Table, I think it was part six. Is that right? AnnaMaria: 00:37 Okay. I think so, yeah. Lauren: 00:39 That's a great series of posts I read through all of them. Do you want to highlight briefly for our listeners the other parts of your sort of presence in the community before we get started? AnnaMaria: 00:49 Sure! So, I do ladies at the Table, that's been going for almost a year now. It's one of the first things I started doing in board gaming was highlighting women who create media related to board games. I have a series featuring women designers and interview series. I've just started a recent food, gaming, and accessibility column with my son who's non-neurotypical and that's, that spent a lot of fun. Um, let's see. I go to a lot of cons. I talk to a lot of people about games. I've written accessibility articles for CGI and a couple of other places now at this point. So I'm a little bit of everywhere it seems like. Lauren: 01:26 That's perfect. That's perfect. So our focus today, for our listeners, is not going to be on a particular game as is common with a lot of our episodes. We're actually going to focus on a particular topic of accessibility and today we're going to talk about colorblindness and in general just accessibility behind that sort of aspect of thing, whether it's colorblind or you're in a situation where games would have benefited from thinking about that aspect. So as we start this conversation, the one question we do ask everybody on the podcast is what does accessibility mean to you? AnnaMaria: 02:02 Accessibility means that everyone can come to the table. For me that means despite ability, race, gender, whatever, we all. It's an equal playing field. Once everyone sits down to the table, I would say that's probably what that means. Lauren: 02:17 Fantastic. And with this particular topic, I remember reading your article in Casual Game Insider and can you remind us the rates at which colorblindness shows up in our society? AnnaMaria: 02:29 So one in 12 men are colorblind and one in 200 women are colorblind and a number of women also carry that gene and pass it onto their kids. So it affects quite a few more people than you'd think. There's three different types of it, so some people have it in varying degrees as well. And then there's other things like BVD [Binocular Vision Dysfunction], even macular degeneration, even age can start to cause colorblindness as people lose vision. Lauren: 02:55 Yeah. So if anyone's playing with a big enough group of people, chances you're playing with at least one player who would benefit from game designers and publishers having a better sense of how to build games with this in mind. [AnnaMaria: Absolutely.] Yeah, I know that with the game group that I play with every Tuesday, it took me, I think seven or eight months of playing regularly with them to realize that one of the players was colorblind because he was so good at dealing with it because he sort of has to to be able to play a lot of the games that are made. AnnaMaria: 03:24 That seems to come up a lot. Actually. We've got someone similarly in our board game group, in our RPG group, who just kind of off handedly mentioned after several game sessions that Oh, he actually doesn't see that particular color of dice because he can't because he's colorblind. So we had no idea [Lauren: right.] that it's just something he'd found work arounds for for years. Lauren: 03:43 Yeah. So one thing that's interesting to talk about is -- with the people that you've talked to as you were gathering sort of information for this and just along the way -- one aspect is how do we make games that have already been published, playable, if they wouldn't be otherwise, but another aspect is what advice we can give to publishers to do better. So I think we can sort of talk on both of those in this interview. Maybe we can start with the gamers that you've talked with and how they've managed to deal with this or aspects that have come up often enough that it's something that should be focused on. AnnaMaria: 04:19 Sure. So colorblindness hacks apparently have been a thing in board gaming as long as there have been board games, a number of the people that we talked about talked about using like series of dots to identify say different color trains in particular games or with the proliferation of little hacks on the Internet, there's actually places that now manufacturer stickers that have more clear symbology that you can use. AnnaMaria: 04:44 A big one that I had I didn't even think about, but Catan for some colorblind players is near impossible because the terrain all just blends into one big blob really. But there's a series of a black and white shaded stickers that you can buy and stick them right over your tiles and it makes it so much more clear. What's a field where your sheep are, where your mountains are and that sort of thing. So there are tons and tons of these interesting little hacks that people have been using for a while now to self mod these games to make it easier for friends to play. AnnaMaria: 05:17 I know someone mentioned recently Sagrada is very hard for people with certain types of color blindness. So [Lauren: I believe that. Yeah.] Yeah, between the clear colors of dice and how close some of the colors are, that one's one that's particularly hard for me in certain lights. So I'm just buying dice that weren't clear anymore. Actually helped a lot with that one. So you know, maybe the, the game is not exactly as intended at that point, but everyone at the table can play. Lauren: 05:44 Yeah. One thing that I think would be interesting is if designers who were working on games that have not yet been published, were to sort of look into the different hacks that players are already using so that they can incorporate those in the starting point design rather than have the gamers be the ones to fix the game afterwards. Did you come across any particular websites or sources that were a big one or was it sort of spread across lots of different things? AnnaMaria: 06:10 It was kind of spread across different things. Um, it seemed like a lot of people have the two or three hacks for the games that they liked to play. So you would find, oh, here were stickers for the original splendor before, before the gems were there [Lauren: before they fixed it.] Exactly. You know, so, but, but that was one that kind of ties into what you were just talking about. This hack came out and then that kind of informed the publisher, oh we need to do this the next time we print this game. So yeah, yeah. That went directly into, you know, going back and helping the people who produce the game, you know, understand their audience a little bit better and produce something that was more accessible. Lauren: 06:49 Definitely. And hopefully as time progresses and this becomes a bigger conversation that the board game community is able to have there doesn't have to be the second edition or third edition that is finally colorblind friendly. It can be right away. AnnaMaria: 07:04 Absolutely. Well, and you know, Internet once again, as we start to crowd source more things, more games and more design, you see people playtesting with hundreds of people across the globe instead of small groups locally and so they're getting to see these things. Check out your average kickstarter comment thread and you'll usually see someone say, you know, oh, I can't see that or this doesn't work for my type of ability, and most of the time the people who are working on that game will go, you know, hey, we didn't even think about that and we'll change it. AnnaMaria: 07:35 I know recently Deepwater listened to the folks that were talking on one of their kickstarters as they were bringing a game over and they ended up making a second set of chips to go with the game specifically intended for people who had low vision accessibility so that it was a little easier for them to play. So. And I thought that was pretty fantastic. Lauren: 07:57 Yeah, definitely. Yeah. It seems like the more people that you play test the game with in the design process, the more likely you are to be able to get the right kind of perspective to fix those, those issues. [AnnaMaria: Absolutely.] It also seems that, I think you mentioned this before, that there's like a whole range that falls into this kind of category and it doesn't have to be necessarily like a diagnosis, but in particular lighting things can become unplayable for basically anyone at the table. AnnaMaria: 08:25 I'm sure. You know, low lights, everybody has their basement game room, you know, so that's always a recipe for having low light issues. You know, we've got a gaming populace that starting to skew a little older than we did 10 years ago and you know, every adult over the age of 40 starts to lose a certain amount of their eyesight. So that causes some issues with vision, accessibility in color. Accessibility for sure. And you know, that might be another reason why we're looking a little bit more closely besides just being generally more informed, aware as a group of Gamers, you know. It's not just that more people are going, "hey, you know, you should think about us." It's more that the game community as a whole is going, you know, "hey, we should think about everyone." So. And I think that's fantastic. Lauren: 09:09 Right, without it being a particular person you're trying to fix it for, you're just having a universal design that will work for everyone and improve things for everybody. Whether you're colorblind or you're playing in your basement game room. [AnnaMaria: (Laughs) exactly.] Do you have any specific pieces of advice that you would give publishers or designers in terms of what they can do to make sure that things are friendly for, for these sorts of ideas? AnnaMaria: 09:39 Well, I think for starters, I mean we touched on this earlier, the bigger your playtest crowd, and that goes beyond accessibility, but just for everything, you know, the larger your sample for that, the better feedback you're going to get in general for all sorts of accessibility issues. AnnaMaria: 09:54 And just for the game in general, right, there are a number of tools online like Colblindor [https://www.color-blindness.com/] that actually, you know, kind of simulate things like color blindness, which would be great as just general overlays. I know that one person I contacted during my interview was just like take your graphics and make them black and white and if you can't see something, then there's a problem. I mean, and it was, it was just that simple. It's just like make all the color out of it. And if some suddenly the symbology is not good, then you need to work on that, you know. So, and, and I just thought that was brilliant because it was just such a simple. I mean, anybody anybody could do, you could do that on Microsoft paint. So (laughs) Lauren: 10:39 Yeah, it's a light bulb moment, well, yeah, that's easy enough. [AnnaMaria: right.] Why isn't everyone doing that? AnnaMaria: 10:44 Yeah, you know, looking out for hacks that other people do, I know these are the kinds of things that some of the games that have been the best about recognizing colorblind accessibility have taken hacks that have already been done and you know, incorporated some symbology or incorporated dots or tried to play Lauren: 11:01 Some kind of double-coding. AnnaMaria: 11:02 Exactly. Exactly. So that, that if you can't see it one way, maybe you could see it the other way. And I think that's another good one. So. Lauren: 11:10 Yeah, for sure. Have you ever come across maybe a designer, a publisher who sort of pushed back against something that would improve the game for color blindness because of thematic reasons or something like that. Like one example would probably be Sagrada, where I'm sure they stuck with those clear dice because you know, you're building a stain glass window. It makes sense, but it is really hard for, for those who are colorblind or just in low light conditions. Do you have any suggestions if they're sort of clinging to that, I guess reason? AnnaMaria: 11:42 I, you know, I mean, a theme's great. And there are a lot of people who pick up a game initially to play for a theme, but what's going to hook people is your game playing and your mechanics and whether or not they can play the game. And if I can't see what I'm playing, it's not coming off the shelf again, if I, you know. And usually since most of us are getting to the point where we demo things or play them at a store before we buy them, it's affecting your bottom line. So you know, make sure everyone can play. Lauren: 12:10 Yeah, exactly. If only we could tell every single publisher that then hopefully we could see a bigger change. It does seem though, I don't know if you agree or not, but it does seem like we've been doing much better with newer games that are coming out versus sort of the previous generation or the generation before, either on kickstarter or off of it. AnnaMaria: 12:29 Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think, you know, I think one informs the other rate when someone who is publishing a game sees that a kickstarter game made a switch, made a very simple switch, you know, added a symbol that also represented a color or something like that. And then they, you know, made a little bit more money. They had a lot more people talk about it, that word of mouth, that buzz, you know, that sort of thing that makes the next publisher in line go, you know what, I need to do that too. So, you know, it's this little snowball effect that ends up really helping out the community as a whole. Lauren: 13:01 Yeah, definitely. Well, hopefully that continues to build. It does seem like there's a lot of things that are just very simple changes that as long as someone along the process was like, Hey, what if we did this, then all of a sudden just everybody benefits. [AnnaMaria: Absolutely.] Awesome. I think we covered the main topics that I wanted to and I don't want this podcast to run too long. Anything else that you wanted to add for the topic? AnnaMaria: 13:25 Not in particular. Um, I was just thinking Meeple Like Us, if someone wants to go and look at an accessibility breakdown of games, um, he has a fantastic job of, of both, like visual and neurotypical and just all the different things that might go into a game. So that's a, that's a great resource [Lauren: absolutely.] For kind of looking at, hey, would this work for me, would I be able to see this game? Let's go over here and check it out first. So Lauren: 13:52 Yeah, exactly. So if you can't demo a game in person, then that's another resource that you have to see if it's something that would come back off your shelves more than once. AnnaMaria: 14:00 Absolutely. And to that, Geek and Sundry also had a really good article earlier this year, I think it was called like, "Like a Rainbow in the Dark" that listed a whole bunch of hacks you could use for color blind accessibility in games. And I thought that was pretty brilliant as well. Lauren: 14:15 Excellent. Awesome. Well, how can people find you if they want to connect with you and your work online? AnnaMaria: 14:20 So I'm at Girls Play Games (@girlsplay_games) on twitter, facebook, instagram. I love posting pictures of my dog and board games. Um, my two life loves. [Both laugh] And I, um, I also review at Board Game Quest as well. So if you want to see what I think of a game then you can head on over there. Lauren: 14:40 Perfect. Well thank you so much for coming on Playability! AnnaMaria: 14:43 Oh, thank you. [Lauren: Have a great evening.] You too! Lauren: 14:46 [Music starts through to end] For more information about the topics that we discussed in this episode and the links that we just mentioned, we'll have those in the About This Episode section on our website at playabilitypod.com. And if our listeners have any questions or comments that you would like to share with us, please email us at playabilitypod at gmail.com and find us on major social media platforms as @playabilitypod. Thanks again for listening. Play with a new perspective.