Category: Reviews

Life on the farm. We received a complementary prototype copy of Agropolis from Buttonshy Games for this preview. Some game elements may change in the final version. Final color correction is not complete, so all comments related to color refer exclusively to the pre-published prototype. During the day I work as a traffic engineer and … Continue reading Colorblind Preview: Agropolis

Eternal Blue. Forever Green. In Cascadia, players place habitat tiles and wildlife tokens to create their own corner of the Pacific Northwest. Each ecosystem is scored based on each animal's spatial preferences and the size of contiguous habitats. Cascadia is a quick-to-learn, quick-to-play tile layer that elicits the question, "One more game"? Board games with … Continue reading Colorblind Preview: Cascadia

"I am your density." -George McFly Summer 1987: Most of my paper route earnings disappeared 33 cents at a time for packs of Topps baseball cards, which was my entry into the dopamine hit of card packs. Would I score a Mark McGwire? Bo Jackson? Or another Pat Tabler. Winter 2001: Now all grown up, … Continue reading Colorblind Review – Star Wars: Destiny

An elegant solution. Board game apps tend to be hit-and-miss when it comes to accessibility features, so when I encounter a color vision issue I often just uninstall and move on. Lost Cities started out problematic for me. The card colors are subtle, and the faded card-placement spots above them even more so. In particular, … Continue reading Colorblind App Review: Lost Cities

  Spiceless in Seattle. Century: Spice Road looks like my kind of game, I've heard great things about it, and I love cardamom! But without a major redesign of all game elements, colorblind gamers like me simply cannot play it. I can't confidently name any color in the image above. Some are darker than others. … Continue reading Colorblind Review – Century: Spice Road

"So it's not just a clever name." - Wayne Campbell, Wayne's World The gold standard of colorblind accessibility is double coding, which provides color-vision-deficient users additional information beyond colors. It is a valuable strategy to help us navigate any experience, including roadways, restaurant menus, and tabletop games. A Portuguese company, ColorADD, has gone so far … Continue reading Colorblind Review: Fantastic Factories

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty... Pastel colors can sometimes blend together in my colorblind brain as a strange combination of Easter-egg-Pepto-pink-or-green-or-blue-ness. Real-world quilts and their gamified counterparts tend to make heavy use of pastel colors, which can make it difficult for me to give quilt-themed games a chance. I inhaled deeply before trying out a prototype … Continue reading Colorblind Review: Calico

As I walked from Fantasyland toward Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Disney set the stage, subtly changing the sights and sounds of my environment, taking me far, far away from Snow White and Peter Pan. It was a truly immersive experience. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is the centerpiece of this new land and a fantastic theme … Continue reading Colorblind Review – Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run

It's becoming a common experience. I hear about the new, hot game on Twitter or my local friendly game store. I watch a video review or play along. I see a lot of pretty colors, few of which I can identify. I get nervous I will not be able to play the game without help. … Continue reading Colorblind Review: Tiny Towns

I started my first play-through of Wingspan ready to struggle with its wide-ranging palette of orange, red, brown and green. The big pile of pastel eggs didn't ease my concerns, as I readied myself to confuse white, pink-ish, and maybe-blue for the next 40 to 70 minutes. The natural environment - home of every named … Continue reading Colorblind Review: Wingspan