Colorblind Twitch streamer mindblown after using anti-colorblind glasses in Smash Melee

Calum Patterson
Smash Melee colorblind streamer

Twitch streamer iBDW, real name Cody, was left in disbelief after he viewed one of Smash Melee’s in-game stages through anti-colorblind glasses, getting his first look at purple and pink. His clip quickly went viral online.

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Most new games support a range of colorblind settings now, which will adjust the in-game colors to give an accurate representation of the game to colorblind players.

However, given Smash Melee came out in 2001, it doesn’t have such a setting, and so colorblind Melee players will simply see the game differently. Unless of course, they try out some anti-colorblind glasses.

Fountain of Dreams stage in Smash
The fountain of dreams stage is a particularly colorful one.

During his stream on January 25, iBDW did exactly this, not expecting much of a result – but was well and truly surprised.

His chat suggested that he try out the Fountain of Dreams stage (also known simply as FOD), which is a particularly colorful level, and one that will look markedly different to a colorblind player.

Before he opened it up, iBDW commented “I feel like I can see FOD though, I don’t think FOD is anything different to me, not that I know of.” But, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Visibly startled by the new look, iBDW was blown away. “Wait… is that what purple and pink look like?! Wait, that’s not blue?!”

The clip has racked up over 60,000 views, but iBDW went on to express his amazement at the true colors of the level.

After his stream, he called the experience “truly life-altering,” and said he’d have a full video up about it on YouTube: “Still can’t believe what I saw today.”

He also included the glasses used, so that other colorblind people can try it out for themselves – called Enchroma.

With so many stages in Smash, not to mention countless other games that iBDW has played without ever seeing the originally intended colors, he has a lot of time ahead of him to spend checking out everything else with the glasses.

Thankfully, most modern games have filters built-in, but many classics do not. You can catch iBDW streaming on Twitch.