The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition - Obsidian's first-person sci-fi RPG set in a corporate space colony

[DalekFlay]

Did anyone ever run out of Magpicks? I'm pretty sure I never went below double digits.

The entire item "economy" is totally fucked and a big issue with the game. You quickly get hundreds of everything and never have to worry one bit about opening a door, hitting the health button, spending ammo, etc.

 

[Infinitron]

Incloosive! But kinda interesting: https://ablegamers.org/accessing-a-colorful-dystopia/

ACCESSING A COLORFUL DYSTOPIA
You know what’s great about inclusive design? It doesn’t have to make a big spectacle of itself in order for you to recognize it, enjoy it, and utilize it. A solid character creator means the player can express attributes they most want to be represented by, the ability to take whatever path through a story best fits the role you’re playing, and the world having clear visual designs to all of its supernatural elements. Luckily, The Outer Worlds from Obsidian Entertainment contains all of this. You can be almost anyone, handle things how you want, and you can fairly clearly see what’s happening along the way!

Shortly after The Outer Worlds’s October 2019 release, Obsidian studio design director – Josh Sawyer – tweeted a statement explaining why The Outer Worlds lacked a Colorblind Mode option: it didn’t need one. The information received from colors in The Outer Worlds is redundant to other information, including icons, physical shapes, and text information presented to the player.

As an example, this is a screenshot straight from my level 23 character’s weapon inventory. Each weapon item has a little symbol in the lower left of its box, indicating the type of damage that the weapon is dealing. The symbols have a pretty distinct shape and their brightness levels are in contrast against the darker background. That difference in physical shape not only seems like a natural fit in indicating the damage type, but it means that the colors there aren’t necessary to identify what’s what. Let’s look at the same screenshot in greyscale.

Depending on your view of this article, the picture view may be a bit small to really indicate the distinctness in the symbols, but I can attest to their physical distinctness at full resolution. I’d also like to point out some of the other information that’s there, such as the Unique items with their glow effect in the background, or the special Science weapons that have a faint atomic symbol. This is very good, especially compared to other games with such loot tiers indicated only by a color outline. Even the ammunition boxes also have non-color information, including the text of being Light, Heavy, or Energy, as well as the box pictures having different shapes and levels of brightness.

Spoiler

This kind design inclusivity doesn’t just come out of nowhere. Josh Sawyer called out game director and chocolate-lover, Tim Cain, as having a nearly monochromatic form of colorblindness. I was able to land an interview with Tim to discuss his color blindness and how it affects his work. Tim explains that his form of color blindness runs in the family, where almost everyone is born with full color vision, but loses colors over time. In his 20s, he made a switch from glasses to contacts and missed a single color bubble test. Since then, he’s done worse on the color tests every year, starting with his greens and reds, followed by blues. According to Tim, the sky is usually a steely-grey color, regardless of the weather. On the plus side, the nature of his color blindness has actually increased his night-vision ability, though it doesn’t help him fight crime or anything.

Despite a lack of overnight crime-fighting, Tim is a legend in the games industry, having lead and worked on some of the greatest RPGs of our time, including Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. Notably, Tim is one of the original people behind the Fallout series, having directly steered much of Fallout 1 and 2’s design. I was able to get my fanboying out of the way early in our interview, as I can cite Fallout for being the game that really opened 10 year old me up to the possibilities of what a gaming experience could be. Tim was quick to call out that I was definitely too young to play those games – and he’s correct – but I think I turned out alright.

Even when Tim was with Interplay Entertainment in the 1990s, he was pushing for inclusivity in designs. He recalled a game that had a copy-protection system that utilized a code wheel where you needed to refer to a color on the wheel to confirm a code to validate the game. Tim could not tell what some of the colors were and one of his managers even thought that Tim was messing around, not being able to understand that the colors just don’t work for Tim.

Tim referred to a few things that highlight on his color blindness in his day-to-day life. When buying something with his credit card at a store, it’s normal to be told to “press the green button to confirm”, but that can be tough if you can’t discern the green from the other button colors. He prefers buying clothes online, because the items are often listed with the color being written out on the product pages, whereas your typical clothing rack doesn’t have such information. Tim has also become a self-described “reverse vampire”, going into work much earlier than his colleagues because he isn’t as comfortable driving at night because it’s harder for him to tell the positions of things like traffic lights when it’s dark out.

In game design, Tim has some tips to be more inclusive in the design. If a game element is going to use colors to identify differences, then the color change should come with a texture change as well. When working with a UI designer, do a greyscale mock-up to ensure the necessary information is still clearly visible. Tim said that at Obsidian, they’ve been talking about replacing the need for many accessibility settings by just having the design be as inclusive as possible from the get-go, like having a big enough text size to avoid needing to add in text-size settings.

Tim would like to see more done for accessibility, both at Obsidian and across the industry. Now that the studio is under the Microsoft corporate umbrella, they are also able to take advantage of Microsoft’s Accessibility division resources to further their inclusive design efforts. Tim said that he would love to be able to tell his Xbox that he’s colorblind, instead of having to tell each game individually. Since The Outer Worlds was declared a commercial success by the game’s publisher – Take-Two Interactive – in their Q2 FY2020 investor call, then there may be more market viability for that kind of inclusive design philosophy and the hard work in pulling it off, which includes following some of the guidelines we offer through Accessible.Games.

Haven’t found your fortune in the Halcyon Colony in The Outer Worlds just yet? You can find it for Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PCs with a Nintendo Switch version currently in the works!

Do you have your own accessibility and games development story to share? Then let us know so we can get your perspective out there.

Thank you for reading and doing your part in making sure everyone can game!

 

[Quillon]

Shocked to see someone's using "inclusivity" out of sexual orientation/racial context

 

[ciox]

Weapons might look apart but food and munitions blend together since they are very similar looking branded boxes, some items are ridiculously similar like the tobacco and the light ammunition. Felt kinda rushed.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Explain why it doesn't have a colorblind option?
Honestly I don't think I've seen any game with that option.
Now I want the developers of every game ever to explain why they didn't include it.

 

[Quillon]

Explain why it doesn't have a colorblind option?
Honestly I don't think I've seen any game with that option.
Now I want the developers of every game ever to explain why they didn't include it.

wut?

it didn't needed one since apparently you can tell what's what regardless of color

also both pillows has it and I always turn it on; I like blue circles better than green ones

 

[FeelTheRads]

wut?

As in: why did he need to explain it?

 

[fantadomat]

A pretty good video,even if pretty long.

 

[RK47]

It's $1
After the pass ended, there's no reason to extend the sub.

 

[Quillon]

A pretty good video,even if pretty long.

hurr durr but he said he liked the game a lot what a retadred shit are you? hurr durr

 

[Orma]

Rest of the channel screams 'bethesda fanboy' so...

 

[Farewell young Prince into the night]

Imagine if in an alternate timeline, Tim Cain had stayed on to finish Fallout 2. The resulting masterclass crpg would have ushered in world peace, cured Fluent's testicular cancer, and freed Zep's yam plantation slaves by instead fueling his Zimbabwean mansion with sustainable, clean energy derived from the massive wealth of resulting incline.

Instead we get this mass-marketed filth, Fluent gets banned and Zep remains at large.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

I can't believe it Fluent was banned.. This forum is worthless now. Shame.

 

[Funposter]

 

[Merry Christmas!]

I can't believe it Fluent was banned.. This forum is worthless now. Shame.

sup bro?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Why was the real Fluent banned?

 

[Quillon]

Wonder if Cainarsky watched this and felt ashamed of themselves...

PS: that corporate ending stuff is the dumbest shit I've ever heard as far as RPG narrative conclusion go, bethesda games included. And here I was complaining about how the same thing happening didn't make any sense in the pickle rick ending... seems I haven't seen shit. Guess it would take at least 16 playthroughs to dig all this dumb shit out of this game.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

It took them 2 months to realize what we've been saying since day 0. Also, Fluent RIP?

 

[flyingjohn]

Wonder if Cainarsky watched this and felt ashamed of themselves...

PS: that corporate ending stuff is the dumbest shit I've ever heard as far as RPG narrative conclusion go, bethesda games included. And here I was complaining about how the same thing happening didn't make any sense in the pickle rick ending... seems I haven't seen shit. Guess it would take at least 16 playthroughs to dig all this dumb shit out of this game.

Nope Cainarsky is happy that he made something that sells.I remember him saying in a interview that he has not played bloodlines whatsoever thanks to the horrible crunch memories.
But,it doesn't mean you have to make the most boring mediocre game in order to sell.
Obsidian could have easily made a aa budget game with some nice ideas instead of a soulless fallout new vegas clone.

 

[Efe]

for those too lazy to look it up but still curious, fluent was banned for calling infinitron a jew lord.

 

[Popiel]

for those too lazy to look it up but still curious, fluent was banned for calling infinitron a jew lord.

But aren't you a Jew lord, Infinitron? Of Simon bar Kokhba's status at the very least?

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

for those too lazy to look it up but still curious, fluent was banned for calling infinitron a jew lord.

Isn't that like... a compliment?

 

[Merry Christmas!]

This is a new and improved Fluent. Imagine Gandalf going from the Grey to the White. I'm on a whole different level now.

 

[Popiel]

I'm on a whole different level now.

Joined:
Saturday

 

[Merry Christmas!]

Day my heart joimed, sometime in 2011.

I don't know why I love you but I do.