Accessibility features may not be at the forefront of every player’s mind, but the same can’t be said for developers. Sometimes, every second of gameplay must be considered with certain disabilities in mind.
Nowhere is this more apparent than with colorblindness. If a developer likeUbisoftwants to make their game accessible to those with poorer eyesight, they’ll need a way to see what they see.
Enter Ubisoft Chroma. A tool they made for use in their own games, it’s designed to give devs an easy look at what some people might see when looking at their final game - one that has minimal performance impact when running. And now, they’ve released this tool for anyone to use.
Some parts of a game’s design, especially UI elements that need to be clearly visible at a moment’s notice, are oftendesigned with colorblindness in mind.
If forgotten, a colorblind person may have trouble identifying friends and foes, or checking how many bombs they’ve got left in their quick-access bar.It’s rough for them sometimes.
With simple changes, it’s often easy to make a game accessible to most or all forms of colorblindness. But without a way to see exactly what some forms of colorblindness may obscure, finding exact solutions can be a challenge. Chroma is that way.
With an estimated 300 million people around the world affected by colorblindness, Chroma allows developers to accurately replicate their experience and create accessible content to meet their needs.
Ubisoft revealed this information in anofficial blog post, where they linked thegithub page for the projectdirectly.
“Chroma is a testament to the team’s innovation and dedication,” says Jawad Shakil, Ubisoft’s Product Manager. “Their work is already making a difference in how we design games with accessibility in mind.”
Open-sourcing Chroma is a proud step forward, allowing everyone to benefit from this innovation.
How Ubisoft Chroma Works
Ubisoft Chroma is designed to be incredibly simple. As far as the developer is concerned, it’s not too different from putting a lens over your eye that filters the full spectrum of color into what a given kind of colorblindness might see.
According to the project’s list of features (thanks,Boingboing), Ubisoft Chroma gives devs access to all types of colorblindness, displaying everything on a single monitor without impacting the actual game’s performance.
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The publisher is “accelerating its transformation” with this new reorganization and investment.
Because it’s just a filter, Chroma works on all kinds of games. If you want to know how a colorblind person might experience your game, you may see it for yourself, no questions asked.
Ubisoft Chroma is freely available and fully open-source, so if developers feel the need to adjust things to their liking, they can.
