Accommodations for the Visually Impaired

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This game is an excellent piece of work, for its writing, story, and sheer amount of content. The only real problems with the game concern how hard it can be to see, if your eyes are like mine.

Namely, the problem lies in the colored text used for character speech. The text is large enough, especially on larger screen sizes, but the tint of the text makes it hard fro my eyes to focus on it. It would be phenomenal to have a setting or frame where the text remains black, and maybe a nameplate could be placed at the top, sort of like how Sun and Moon works.

Alternatively, a high-contrast color scheme for text boxes would also be amazing. White or tinted text on a black background would likely be easier to program, and would actually be very gentle on some pairs of sensitive eyes.

If I think of any other problems or solutions, I’ll continue posting them here. Developers, if you have the time, please do respond to let me know if any of this is possible to put in the works.

Thanks in advance for your consideration and help!

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Hi, this is actually the first time that I can recall us getting feedback like this so I’d like to just make sure that we Developers are clear on what exactly are causing the biggest problems here.

Firstly, would you be willing to share the number representing your visual acuity? Also, do you have any complications involving light perception?

So is it just the non-black text that’s a problem? Are there no issues with reading the black text at all? Also what Font Style do you have selected in the Options menu, assuming you have installed the fonts? Is there any font style in particular that makes reading easier for you?

I like this idea quite a bit. If the background of text boxes were black, would you anticipate there being a problem distinguishing between the background and the frame, assuming the frame type is set to Frame 20 in the Options menu?

Also, on the subject of the Options menu, currently the text is set to red when selecting a setting and black when the setting is not selected. Would it be sufficient to just replace the black text with white when using a black background? Or is there another color that you would see being preferred over red for selecting a setting?

Do you have any issues reading any other text anywhere else in the game?

Please do. I’m not sure how much effort it would be for suze to add in your proposed nameplate idea but the rest of this shouldn’t be too difficult, I would think.

Thank you for the feedback!

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My visual acuity (last I checked, which was some time ago) is around 20/400. I also have nystagmus, which makes my eyes wiggle about sometimes and affects my focus, and strabismus, which prevents me from having stereoscopic vision (I can’t see 3D, such as in movies or on the 3DS). I can be light sensitive at times, but my big problem with light is that my eyes don’t adapt very quickly to new lighting environments.

The colored text is the biggest problem, but my eyes tend to get tuckered out pretty quick if I’m trying to read black on white, or dark-on-light, in general. I haven’t installed any new fonts, but I’ve tried Emerald, Ruby/Sapphire, and FireRed/LeafGreen. The size and shape of the text is fine for most of those. It’s almost entirely just the color.

As for the high contrast color scheme, it wouldn’t be much of a problem for me if the frame and background looked similar. Because of my vision, nearly everything for me is function over fashion. As long as I can read the text without needing a break after a few minutes, I’m more than happy.

For the Options menu, red text for selected options should be fine. However, one feature that could work really nicely is if selected options had a little white box around them on a black background.

As for other text in the game, I can’t quite say for sure, since I’ve just gotten to my starter Pokémon, so I don’t know a whole lot about the battle interface. I know that the Pokémon list page would be much gentler on my eyes if it was high-contrast, especially the Skills and EV/IV screen. As a rule, any time you can make it black background, white text, it will help. Always. I promise.

One more thing that I can ask for here (and it might exist already, but i should ask anyway, just in case) is for a font that uses bolder, cleaner lines, and doesn’t use the shadow effect. It was something I nearly overlooked until my girlfriend reminded me that I am, in fact, allowed to just ask for stuff that would be helpful, and not necessarily vital.

Anyway, I want to thank you for responding so quickly, readily, and enthusiastically. It makes me very happy when folks like you are eager to make the gaming world a more accessible place. :smiley:

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Ah yeah, I agree. I think this might actually help people like myself see what’s selected easier as well, haha.

The Pokémon summary pages were actually exactly what I had in mind when asking that question so I’m glad that you pinpointed those specifically. I think that the white text on black background rule addresses the others that I was considering as an afterthought as well.

You know, I was wondering how that shadow effect was affecting the text’s readability. This would probably be more difficult to address since I’m not really sure exactly what kind of work would need to go into revising the font styles in question but it should still be doable, for sure.

Not a problem, I’m happy to be of assistance. :slight_smile:

I hope you enjoy what we have in store after update 1.2 is released!

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Well, I’m glad my ideas might come in handy for others, too. I feel like these suggestions might end up being an attractive aesthetic choice for folks who want to get into the mood of playing the darker story.

Hopefully the shadow effect won’t be hard to fix, but we’ll see. In any case, you seem to be excited about helping, and your promise of 1.2 seems like the update might be somewhat close at hand. I look forward to it! Will my save keep between versions?

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Yep! As long as you don’t touch the files yourself, you shouldn’t have to worry about any kind of deleting or overwriting when 1.2 is released.

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Awesome! Can’t wait for the update!

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I love all of you. :smiley: Does that mean it’s ready?

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I don’t think 1.2 is ready just yet. They still need to fix bugs, test the game, etc

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Not quite. Right now suze is trying to implement a similar feature for the EV/IV menu. I think he’s also working on placing the box cursors in the Options menu and getting rid of the shadow effects in the fonts.

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I can’t believe this is actually happening! ^ ^ Can you guys just be the dev team for every other game I like, ever?