Do you enjoy snapping pictures from your iPhone camera? Do you wish you could turn that into a game? Look no further than Destroy all Color. Touch at least three blocks of the same color to get them off the screen. Clear all the blocks off the board in the given time and you beat the level. This innovative puzzle game pushes the boundaries for iPhone games, yet falls short in the realm of accessibility.

The gameplay is extremely simple to catch onto, and immensely fun. Color blocks appear on the screen, and you have to match the colors to colors that show up through the camera lens. You have until the block fills with color to change the color or the block will fill with the color your currently pointing at, for better or worse. You can always hurry up the process and capture color instantly with the press of a button. Touch at least three blocks of the same color to get them off the screen. Clear all the blocks off the board in the given time and you beat the level.

While most levels give ample time to find color and place the blocks, other levels and game modes will speed up the process. The endless mode is particularly hard, because there is almost no time to place the blocks. Ironically, most of my games in endless mode lasted only a minute or two and spiraled out of control quickly.

As the name suggests, the game requires different colors to play. You choose the colors you want based on your environment, although this can often be a hassle. Depending on the lighting wherever you are, colors appear differently when you move around the camera. It certainly helps to play in a well lit environment. Because you choose the colors you want to play with, it is possible for the game to be colorblind friendly, although it depends what colors are around you. The maximum number of colors used is five at a time, so it is possible to play with orange, blue, white, black, and gray, assuming those colors are surrounding you at the time.

Various powerups hinder or help you along the way. A bomb destroys everything in given radius anywhere you select on screen, and a laser wipes out an entire row of color blocks, but a mirror reflects the camera image, making it harder to move around and find the right color. Another powerup speeds up the time it takes to fill up a block, making in nearly impossible to choose the proper color. This can prevent mobility impaired gamers from beating certain levels and oftentimes made me fail a level.

Another problem with the game is that the camera is so precise that it is hard to focus on the exact color you need. For example, even if the majority of a picture is blue, if it just so happens that the pixel you are focused on is red, then the entire block will turn red. I frequently found that it required much precision to point the camera at the exact spot I wanted.

Of course, it is possible to play the game by putting five distinct colors on a computer screen and merely aiming at them, but that takes the fun away from the game. The point is to find color within your environment. Destroy all Color certainly has me searching for color in the world around me in a way I never have before, but the game itself poses problems for many gamers.

At a Glance:

Visual: The game requires the use of colors that you select through your phone’s camera, and therefore, it is extremely difficult, but not impossible, for colorblind gamers to play. It is theoretically possible to play with five colorblind friendly colors and shades, although highly unlikely. The menu and text is usually easy to see, although the level select screens use small font sizes to display the number of stars needed to unlock the level. It is also sometimes hard to see where the cursor is, and which block is filling up with color. Recommended score: 3/10.

Hearing: The game requires no sound to play. Recommended score: 10/10.

Mobility: Destroy all Color poses major challenges for gamers with cognitive impairments. The game is very fast paced at times and requires you to search the room for the desired color without much time. The Endless mode is also unplayable to gamers with slow reflexes. The boxes fill up too fast to find the right color among five options. The game also requires precision in order to point the camera at the desired color. The game is playable one handed. Recommended score: 3/10.

Overall: Destroy all Color innovates a genre, although not in an accessible way. While the player controls the colors used in each level, it can be hard to find accessible colors to use, and mobility impaired gamers will find the precision and speed a barrier to play.