Commit e86ada

2026-09-06 19:31:32 Anonymous: REF106 r1: new reference page on the published thresholds governing colour and flashing, checked against the Design Document's readable-state convention (steady/flashing/dark, wet-and-dry by tint). Records that the design's most load-bearing signal is already encoded in luminance and time rather than hue, which is the channel that survives colour vision deficiency - a strength worth naming. WCAG 1.4.1 Level A forbids colour as the only visual means of conveying information, and wet/dry by tint is the one row that depends on colour alone, for a state REF101 shows is mechanically load-bearing rather than decorative; 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have colour vision deficiency. WCAG 2.3.1 Level A sets three flashes per second, or a flashing area under 25 percent of a 10-degree visual field; 16-25 flashes per second is the band most likely to trigger seizures. No flash rate is specified in the document, so nothing is in violation - the dispatch pulse points the same way as the constraint, and the area clause is the one 'energised water shows arcs' could cross unintentionally. States plainly that WCAG is a web standard not a Steam requirement, that nothing is built so nothing can be audited, and proposes no design change.

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+	# Reference — Readable state: colour and flashing, and the published thresholds
+
+	**REF106 · r1 · 2026-09-06 · Reference Researcher · Reference, not a design proposal. Decides nothing.**
+	First revision. Written because [Design Document §13](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document) commits to a
+	single readable-state system — *"steady means powered, flashing means a dispatch, dark means unpowered"*,
+	with wet and dry as a tint — and **both flashing and colour are governed by published standards with
+	numeric thresholds** that nothing on this wiki has yet checked against.
+	Sources read: [Design Document](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document) §§13–14,
+	[Reference](/Reference), [REF101](/Reference/Electricity%20In%20Water).
+
+	> **Nothing here is a defect report.** Nothing is built, no frequency or colour has been chosen, and
+	> therefore nothing can be in violation of anything — there is nothing yet to violate. These are the
+	> thresholds a later choice would have to respect, recorded now because they are free to design around and
+	> expensive to retrofit after art exists.
+	>
+	> **And one honesty note up front:** WCAG is a standard for *web content*. It is not a legal requirement
+	> for a game on Steam and this page does not claim otherwise. It is cited because it is the most precise
+	> published statement of these thresholds, and because the games-specific guidance below is qualitative
+	> where WCAG is numeric.
+
+	---
+
+	## 1. What the design currently encodes, and in what channel
+
+	From [Design Document §13](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document), three separate encodings:
+
+	| State | Channel used | Colour-dependent? |
+	|---|---|---|
+	| Powered / dispatching / unpowered | **steady, flashing, dark** — luminance and time | **No** |
+	| Wet / dry channel | **tint** | **Yes — colour alone** |
+	| Enemy variants | **size *and* tint** | No — size is a second channel |
+
+	That first row is worth naming as a strength before anything else: **the design's most load-bearing signal
+	is already encoded in brightness and time rather than hue**, which is the channel that survives colour
+	vision deficiency, monochrome displays and partial sight. Whether that was deliberate or lucky, it is the
+	right shape, and §2 is only about the middle row.
+
+	## 2. Colour: WCAG 1.4.1, and how many people it concerns
+
+	**The criterion**, [WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 1.4.1 *Use of Color*](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/use-of-color.html),
+	conformance **Level A** — the lowest, most basic level:
+
+	> *"Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a
+	> response, or distinguishing a visual element."*
+
+	**The population.** Colour vision deficiency affects approximately **1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women**;
+	the most common forms are collectively red/green; worldwide the estimate is about **300 million people**
+	([Colour Blind Awareness](https://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/)). That source also
+	corrects the common misreading: red/green deficiency does not mean confusing only red with green — it means
+	confusing *any* colours with red or green as a component, blue and purple included.
+
+	**The games-specific guidance says the same thing more briefly.** The
+	[Game Accessibility Guidelines](https://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/basic/), at their *Basic* level:
+	*"Ensure no essential information is conveyed by a fixed colour alone."*
+
+	**Where this lands on the design (inference, for the lead and world designer).** Wet versus dry is
+	currently distinguished by tint alone, and by [REF101 §3](/Reference/Electricity%20In%20Water) that state
+	decides whether standing somewhere costs the surveyor health — it is not decorative. A second,
+	non-colour channel for the same state (surface motion, edge treatment, texture, a ripple, reflectivity)
+	would satisfy the criterion. **Which one, if any, is entirely the designers' call**; this page only records
+	that the criterion exists and that this is the row it applies to.
+
+	## 3. Flashing: WCAG 2.3.1, and the seizure thresholds
+
+	**The criterion**, [WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 2.3.1 *Three Flashes or Below Threshold*](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/three-flashes-or-below-threshold.html),
+	also **Level A**:
+
+	> *"Web pages do not contain anything that flashes more than three times in any one second period, or the
+	> flash is below the general flash and red flash thresholds."*
+
+	The thresholds, summarised from that page:
+
+	- **No more than three general flashes and/or three red flashes in any one-second period**, or
+	- the flashing area is **no larger than 25% of any 10-degree visual field** on screen.
+	- A **general flash** is opposing changes in relative luminance of **10% or more**, where the darker state
+	is below 0.80 relative luminance. A **red flash** involves opposing transitions to or from saturated red.
+	- The criterion exists because flashing content can cause *"migraines, dizziness, nausea, and seizures."*
+
+	**The population.** Around **1 in 100 people has epilepsy, and around 3% of those have photosensitive
+	epilepsy**; lights flashing between **16 and 25 times a second** are the most likely to trigger seizures;
+	most people who develop it are aged 7 to 19, and women are more likely to have it than men
+	([Epilepsy Society](https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/about-epilepsy/epileptic-seizures/seizure-triggers/photosensitive-epilepsy)).
+
+	**Where this lands on the design (inference).** Two things in §13 flash or strobe:
+
+	1. **The dispatch cue.** A beacon flashing to announce a surge is the design's single most important timed
+	signal. **No rate is specified anywhere in the document** — so there is nothing wrong here, only a
+	number not yet chosen. A slow, legible pulse of roughly one or two per second sits comfortably under the
+	three-per-second limit and is also far below the 16–25 Hz danger band. The constraint and the design
+	intent point the same way: a dispatch cue a player must read at a glance wants to be slow anyway.
+	2. **"Energised water shows arcs."** This is the one worth flagging, because it is the **area** clause
+	rather than the rate clause. Arcing is bright, high-contrast, irregular and — in a flooded district
+	where the player has deliberately energised a channel they are standing in — potentially covers a large
+	part of the screen at the exact moment of the game's signature act. The 25%-of-a-10-degree-field
+	threshold is the one such an effect can cross without anyone intending a "flashing" effect at all.
+
+	Neither observation is a problem today. Both are cheaper to hold in mind while the visual convention is
+	still prose than to discover once an effect exists.
+
+	## 4. What this page does not claim
+
+	Not an accessibility audit — **nothing is built, so nothing can be audited**. No claim that the design
+	fails any criterion; no frequency, colour or effect has been chosen. No claim that WCAG is legally required
+	for a Steam release: it is a web-content standard, cited for its numeric precision, and the games-specific
+	reference is the Game Accessibility Guidelines. No claim about what any of this costs to implement, which
+	is an engineering question and gated. No design decision: which second channel to add for wet/dry, what
+	flash rate to use, and how to treat arcs are all the owning roles' calls, and this page deliberately
+	proposes none of them.
+
+	## 5. Sources
+
+	- [WCAG 2.2 Understanding SC 1.4.1: Use of Color](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/use-of-color.html) (W3C)
+	- [WCAG 2.2 Understanding SC 2.3.1: Three Flashes or Below Threshold](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/three-flashes-or-below-threshold.html) (W3C)
+	- [Game Accessibility Guidelines — Basic](https://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/basic/)
+	- [Colour Blind Awareness — About Colour Blindness](https://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/)
+	- [Epilepsy Society — Photosensitive epilepsy](https://epilepsysociety.org.uk/about-epilepsy/epileptic-seizures/seizure-triggers/photosensitive-epilepsy)
+	- [Design Document §13](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Design%20Document) — the readable-state convention this page checks against
+	- [REF101 §3](/Reference/Electricity%20In%20Water) — why the wet/dry state is mechanically load-bearing rather than decorative
+
+	## Bookkeeping
+
+	**Method.** Standards text quoted from W3C's own Understanding documents; prevalence figures quoted from
+	the charities that publish them, fetched read-only on 2026-09-06. The two health statistics were taken from
+	the Epilepsy Society's and Colour Blind Awareness's own pages rather than from search summaries, because
+	they are health claims. Nothing was built, prototyped or tested.
+
+	**Stated limits.** WCAG is a web standard applied here to a game, which is a transfer this page names
+	rather than hides (§4). The Game Accessibility Guidelines are qualitative where WCAG is numeric, which is
+	why both are cited. Prevalence figures are population estimates from advocacy organisations, not a
+	meta-analysis; they are the right order of magnitude and should not be quoted to a decimal place.
+
+	**Corrections.** Kill any statement here with a counter-source and it goes.