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Solutions for the Left (and Single) Handed Gamer?
1eyedhive asks: "After seeing some interest in the Programming
for the Single-Handed article a few weeks back, I became interested in applying some of these solutions to gaming. There are very few ambidextrous (let alone left-handed) apparatuses that provide the functionality required for decent FPS/RTS gaming. Any ideas on a solution, or at least a helpful fix that won't break the bank? A little background: I have hemiparisis (partial use of my right arm/hand/leg/foot), as such, I depend almost 100% on my left hand to do everything, from programming to gaming, I have enough use of my right hand to operate 2 arrow keys at a time, but the rest must fall on my left hand or feet (including the mouse)."
PC games are a hassle.
They assume a player has a keyboard and a mouse and sometimes make him switch between them way too much or use both at the same time.
Console games, on the other hand, are much simpler since the controller is the only input device most users have.
Console games played on a PC let you remap the keys to fit your hands. Yes, they can be much simpler than their PC (and more modern) counterparts, but don't overlook them just because of that.
I'm sure you can find many many console games in whatever genre you're looking for.
P.S. in the Atari days, most games (those using the joystick) could be played perfectly well with one hand - remember the sticks with the fire button on top?
The Belkin Nostromo is a keypad with throttle wheel and D-pad all designed to sit under your left hand.
Or, for a joystick, the Saitek Cyborg Evo is a completely ambidexterous joystick. With the use of thumbscrews, you can adjust a huge amount, even down to the tilt of the top buttons so they're tilted for left handed, not right handed orientation.
I hurt my left wrist, the so I had trouble using the keyboard to move in FPSes (A, S, D, and W). I could move left, or right, or forwards or backwards but not both at the same time because it hurt (no diagonals).
So my solution was this: I mapped my mouse wheel (when clicked) to move me forwards, so my left hand only had to handle left/right/backwards which I could do, and I could move my whole hand to do some things that required other keys (although I had a lot of keys mapped in that area for convience/speed).
So by doing something like this, you should be able to use your left hand to aim/move forwards, and your right hand to do the other stuff. You could even probably get/rig up foot pedals that you could use to serve as keys or do the strafing for you. And get a mouse with lots of buttons so you can map them to things so you can depend even MORE on your good hand. Just don't injure it, or you're in DEEP trouble.
PS: Note to those who want to try my idea: I am now ADDICTED to using the mouse wheel to move forwards, and have a VERY hard time using my left hand for all movement. Despite the fact that my wrist is fine now (not perfect, largely due to Half-Life :), I STILL use this setup, because I became so used to it. Maybe one day I'll break my habit and get my mouse wheel back to use for other things.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
There's a config around to let people play with one hand only when playing wolfenstein enemy territory. The config was made by a guy called Iffy, he has an excellent help and how-to wolfenstein site at http://planetwolfenstein.com/4newbies/