Accessibility: playing when colours are hard to tell apart

A puzzle made of colours has an obvious problem: some people cannot see some of them. Quiltoku has a set of accessibility marks built for exactly this. This guide explains how they work, what each setting does, and how to choose the one that suits you.

Turning it on

Accessibility marks are off by default. You can turn them on from the welcome card the first time you open the game, or at any time from Settings, in the Accessibility box. When the switch is on, the box shows the options that go with it, and a small preview of a board and a Double puzzle redraws as you change them, so you can see the result before you play.

Two ways to tell marks apart

Accessibility marks use two different cues, depending on the board, so that the cue is always easy to read at that size.

• Patterns on single boards up to 9×9. Each mark becomes a texture (stripes, dots, checks, weaves) drawn in one ink. Patterns do not depend on colour at all.
• Pips on Double boards and on bigger boards. A pip is a small dot placed at a position round the edge of the square, and every mark has its own position.

If you find patterns tiring to look at, there is a switch for that too: Pips instead of patterns makes small boards use pips as well.

How pips work

Think of the face of a clock. Each mark is given a place round the edge of its square, starting at twelve o'clock and going clockwise, and its pip sits there. You do not need to read the colour. You read where the dot is.

With more marks, the places get closer together. On six marks they sit 60 degrees apart, which is like the 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 on a clock. To keep neighbours easy to tell apart, the marks alternate between a single pip and a double pip, so two marks side by side differ in position and in count.

On the largest boards there are too many marks to give each its own place, so the game uses half as many places and tells the two halves apart by the pips: a single pip for the first half and a double pip for the second.

Choosing a look

Once the switch is on, Pips on offers three styles:

• Colour with pips. Your normal colours, with the pips added. A good choice if colours are mostly fine but a few pairs blur together.
• Grey with pips. The colours are replaced by shades of grey, chosen so that marks sitting next to each other on the clock are far apart in lightness. A good choice for strong colour-vision differences, because it removes colours that could mislead you.
• Pips only. Plain pale squares, with dark pips. The simplest and cleanest look, and the highest contrast.

Double boards

On a Double board there are two layers in each square, and you need to tell the outer layer from the inner one at a glance. Pip shades on Doubles lets you choose how:

• Same: both layers use the same kind of pip.
• Dark pip in donut hole: light pips on the outer ring and dark pips in the inner circle.
• Dark pip in donut: the reverse, with dark pips on the ring and light ones in the hole.

The dark and light shading is another cue that does not rely on colour. Many players find it the quickest way to keep the two layers apart.

Other things that help

• Shapes and patterns as marks. Even without accessibility marks, you can choose shapes or patterns instead of colours in Settings. See the marks guide.
• Theme. Light, dark or automatic, in Settings. Dark mode helps some players in low light.
• Fewer distractions. Celebration animations such as fireworks are skipped if your device asks for reduced motion.
• The palette stays put. The marks you place are always in a row under the board, within thumb reach on a phone.
• Language. The game is available in English and French, chosen in Settings.

Tell us what is missing

Accessibility is never finished. If something in the game is hard for you to see, read or tap, please write through the contact page and say what device you use and what the problem is.