The chessboard pattern of the toyland is tiring for the eyes and can be a health hazard

[LC-Zorg]

This is a serious problem. For me, this graphic is very tiring and I cannot imagine even a short game with it - I literally want to turn the game off after a few seconds. I'm strongly convinced that I will not be alone in this opinion. I have not found any clear confirmation of this, but I also assume that such a graphic can be harmful to the eyesight.

However, the really serious problem is that such a graphic with a chessboard pattern and a fairly high contrast can cause an epileptic seizure.

Here is some basic information on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy
Approving this graphic in this form as a basic one will require a clear message about the possible harmfulness to health. Otherwise, it may even expose the responsible persons to legal consequences.

If it has to be a chessboard, the contrast between the squares should be much much lower. It would also help to increase the scale of the chessboard so that entire adjacent tiles have a different shade. In the original graphics, the light squares are also slightly smaller, which somewhat softens the effect of the regular pattern.

What to replace it with? I don't know, I have no idea, apart from tiles that resemble Lego blocks, or tiles that look like tiles.

[zephyris]

I appreciate the concern, but the harmfulness risk is overstated based on scientific literature. Photosensitive epilepsy is dominantly linked with video (ie. periodic changes), and is rarely triggered by still images.

I dug into the literature, and found only one relevant study (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5438467/) about static images with relation to epilepsy. This study outlines risk factors and mitigations (Table 1) which we are generally already meeting:

• Larger size of repetitive region is a risk factor. In-game, the region of highly repetitive graphics is broken up by hills, trees, towns, etc.
• High contrast is a risk factor. The contrast is low, the value (HSV) range is only ~25 (where 100 is black-white), in comparison to black and white patterns in the study.
• A single repeat orientation is a risk factor. This is broken by having the checkerboard pattern, giving multiple pattern directions.
• Luminance range is a risk factor, chromatic is not. This could be a way to tweak the graphics.
• Spatial frequency has a risk range. Important to note that just increasing/decreasing tile scale doesn't help, because screen size is out of the game's control. By breaking up the repeat with tile gridlines in addition to the checkerboard, this is reduced.
• Sinusoid is a risk factor, sharp contrast change is less so. Here, the sharp checkerboard edges reduce the sinusoidal nature.
• Less noise is a risk factor. Here, noise is added to add tile texture, already mitigating this risk.

[zephyris]

While I don't think a change to default toyland terrain is necessary or justified, I would consider an alternate terrain set. Within the original theme of checkerboard and vibrant, these are ideas I have had:

Pseudo-random checkerboard:

Hue rather than brightness checkerboard:

Saturation rather than brightness checkerboard:

Mini-gridline.

Any final design would need refinement, but these are the underlying patterns/shapes.

[Rau771]

I appreciate the concern, but the harmfulness risk is overstated based on scientific literature. Photosensitive epilepsy is dominantly linked with video (ie. periodic changes), and is rarely triggered by still images.

Being static on paper, in-game such thing quickly became dynamic, as you trying to watch the vehicle or when you moving the map.

[zephyris]

The relatively static isometric game world is equivalent to a static image. Tracking a moving vehicle or moving the map is the same as moving a piece of paper with a pattern on it, or moving your view past a static image.

I've suggested some alternate designs - focused discussion on that would be more useful.

[PeterN]

Any chance of seeing a larger area (in a game) instead of just the single tile? Not too keen on 2 or 3 myself.

[zephyris]

I can work on in-game previews of leading ideas. Working up the full set of sloped tiles would really be needed for a preview, and that's a lot of work even just for 1x zoom.

[J-PIE-314]

Number four looks great.
How would it look with gridlines?