Kaleidoscopic Games - the history of colours in board games (Topic Discussion)
About this episode
The episode explores the history of colour use in board games and its implications for players with colour vision deficiencies.
Colour is one of the first things I notice when opening a new board game. Bright player pieces, colourful resources and beautiful illustrations immediately grab my attention. Colours tell me where to look and how the game is organised. Yet, like around 1% of men, I have protanomaly, a mild form of red-green colour vision deficiency. I often see pink or purple flowers as blue, and when driving in fog, I see a car's rear red lights much later than other people. So I appreciate it when I can rely on something other than colour to tell me what I am looking at. In this article, I want to explore a century's worth of board game history and look at how colour-vision considerations have changed over time. Read the full article here: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2026/07/21/kaleidoscopic-games-the-history-of-the-use-of-colours-in-board-games-topic-discussion/ Useful Links Splendor review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/07/25/splendor-saturday-review/ Meeple Like Us : https://www.meeplelikeus.co.uk/ Stonemaier Games ' accessibility guide: https://stonemaiergames.com/about/accessibility/ ColorADD : https://www.coloradd.net/en/ Bombyx : https://studiobombyx.com/en/ Sea Salt & Paper…
People in this episode
Host: Tabletop Games Blog
Topics covered
- history of board games
- colour vision
- accessibility in games
- design considerations
- board game aesthetics
Keywords
- board games
- colour vision deficiency
- game design
- accessibility
- colour history
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Meeple Like Us, Stonemaier Games, ColorADD, Bombyx, ColorSym
Books & works: Splendor, Sea Salt & Paper, Knarr, Pixies
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