About 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some form of color vision deficiency. If your game uses color to encode information (red = attack, green = heal, etc.), some players literally can't read the game without extra work.
The Color Blindness Simulator previews your art the way someone with color vision deficiency would see it.
What this page helps you do
Upload an image of your card, board, or component.
Preview how the colors look under common forms of color blindness.
Decide whether your design needs adjustment.
Open the tool
Tools → Pre-production (or Designing) → Color Blindness Simulator.
Upload an image
Drag in or upload an image, a card, a board section, a component close-up. PNG and JPG work well.
Compare modes
The tool shows your image in:
Original: your art as-is.
Deuteranopia: most common form (red-green confusion).
Protanopia: also red-green, slightly different.
Tritanopia: rare; blue-yellow confusion.
Monochromacy: full color blindness, very rare; tests pure contrast.
Look for two things:
Can you still tell distinct elements apart? If your "red attack" and "green heal" cards look identical in deuteranopia mode, the design has a problem.
Is contrast still clean? Some color combinations look fine in normal vision but become muddy in simulation.
How to fix problems
If a check fails, common fixes:
Add a non-color cue: icon, shape, label. Sword icon on attack cards, cross icon on heal cards. Color stays as a fast-recognition cue; the icon is the actual semantic.
Change one color: sometimes shifting a hue is enough. Try blue instead of green for the "heal" element.
Increase contrast: light vs dark works for everyone, color doesn't.
Add patterns or borders: striped, dotted, chevron borders distinguish elements without relying on color.
Tips & common questions
Should I redesign my whole game around color blindness? Not "redesign around", just don't rely on color as the only signal. Most accessible designs use color + an icon, or color + a label. That's the standard now in indie game design.
Can I simulate colorblind versions of my whole rulebook? Today the tool runs on uploaded images one at a time. For a rulebook PDF, export each page as an image and check them.
My component looks fine in protanopia but fails in tritanopia. Tritanopia is rare; protanopia + deuteranopia cover ~99% of cases. Prioritize deuteranopia and protanopia when you can't fix everything.
Are there resources to learn more about accessible game design? Yes, search "tabletop game color blindness" online. The community has written a lot. Examples worth studying: any Z-Man Games title, any Stonemaier Games title, they tend to use color + icon redundancy.