Last time I spoke about how we chose the patterns by considering both accessibility and thematic choice. For the colours, however, we had to focus on accessibility. Ideally any game with colour choices should have other things to differentiate them, such as shape or symbols. Unfortunately both of those were out for our cubes, they needed to be drawn from the bag, and screen printing symbols on was out due to their size and number. We had to just make sure our colours would be as colourblind friendly as possible.
We tested all the different colour cubes we could to get a general sense of what we could work with. We used a colour blind tester app to try and replicate the different experiences with each cube, which you can see below. We chose not to go with white for two reasons, it would be very similar to the light pink we wanted to use, and come of the symbols are in white which could lead to confusion during the game.
We were incredibly fortunate that Barbara had already had the forethought to consider accessibility when designing the game. We tried using an orange/light-brown colour in place of the light blue, but it just didn’t look as good so we reverted back to the light blue. We went with a strong navy instead of purple to slightly lighten the shade without making it to red. We’re happy with the final set being as accessible as possible, and have received really positive feedback from playtesters who have colour-blindness.
The last thing to mention with the colours, is considering the different combinations which are possible. During development we tried switching from having light/dark colours, to instead having all colours being able to be paired with each other. This would lead to the possibility of all colour combinations appearing, making avoiding tax on two cubes possible for each combination. However, as you can see from the photos below, the results weren’t good.
Dark on dark and light on light were impossible to distinguish without any form of highlighting, and looked hideous with. The highlighting also meant an additional colour, which is what we wanted to move away from. Instead, we simply made the overstock give clear details as to the possible colour combinations and stick with what we already knew worked well.
Next time, we’ll look some more into the overstock mechanic, and how it changes the nature of the drafting (for the more thoughtful and interactive).
If you’re interested in Damask, please check out our Gamefound Page here: https://gamefound.com/projects/draft/ic2bvhn5ukdlxfvumwwom4pzj8s?refcode=q0S4ahDQeE-Yt48v5NiOFw If you follow us on Gamefound we’ll also give you a free Damask promo pack to say thanks!
