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Gaming With a Headmouse?
seanbhoy writes "Do you have any information on games that can be played by myself? I am disabled from the neck down, and use a headmouse to access the Internet, etc. To get an idea of my disability, I have almost the same injuries that Christopher Reeve had. Can you point me in the direction of similar would-be gamers and computer users? Also do you have any information on games that may work with the headmouse I use?"
Yeah, seriously. Use VirtuNes or the like, and have the zapper set up thru the mouse. I work in a facility with people that have your situation. Using the same setup, I had some of the guys playing Operation Wolf and Lazer Invasion in no time. Good luck!
Note that this isn't an endorsement for either site - I don't know what kind of extra junk they install when you install their games, for example - but these type of games meant for the "casual gamer" usually work with minimal input, and the people who play them certainly seem to like them.
Not to be rude, but doesn't a headmouse work just like a normal mouse?
And if so, wouldn't games like Civilization be good?
http://use.perl.org
http://www.medschool.pitt.edu/
Good luck.
http://www.busyweather.com/
You're going to need something that will work mostly with a keyboard, I take it...
and you're not going to want a first person shooter - too much need for quick reaction times.
A turn-based game would do the trick. Start off small and addictive with that evil NetHack (nethack.org) and in ten or twelve years time when you're done work on the Total War series - Medieval and Rome are both bonza games and not necessarily reliant on twitchy relfexes... but start off with Shogun (www.totalwar.com).
Best of luck. Enjoy.
I am a leaf on the wind
One example of a headmouse: http://www.orin.com/access/headmouse/
Jaron _ at _ ElectricInkPen.com Penning the Web Electric
I have this odd feeling you are trolling. A quick google search found this amazing PS2 controller that would put an entirely different spin on the PS2.
Navy Seals. Damn.
"funny" posts here. I've already seen some that I would consider cruel and heartless.
Having a disability is not a funny thing.
Believe me...
If you're looking for hardware this claims to be game compatible and there's an article here which touches on disabled gaming.
If software, really you're probably going to be looking at non twitch turn based stuff. As I don't know which genres you're into or what sort of PC you have, I can't really recommend anything.
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
Not sure how helpful this will be, but it appears there's a community of folks with similar interests/needs centered around developer Glen Murphy's Freelook, at:
http://freelook.org/
It appears you can join the forum and post questions to a group which will probably have lots of good answers to your questions. By the way, the technology is pretty interesting: it appears to only require a cheap webcam and some sort of target, which can as simple a small white paper patch on the user's cap, or under poor lighting conditions, an LED or small light source.
There are hundreds of beautifully crafted text adventures these days, and Dasher is a text input system that addresses your exact condition. Basically, letters fly by and you "steer" the pointer to each letter's region. The genius here is that Dasher learns the things that you tend to input a lot, and makes those regions take up a large convenient part of the entry area, while pushing unusual sequences to the margins.
Over the past year, PDXLAN has had a few gamers show up to their event using a headmouse (or some form of a headmouse) and play many of the games played at that event.
:)
:D
I've seen Counter-Strike work
You may try asking a question on their site forums. Chances are they'll have a good answer for you, or know how to contact the people that do use headmice.
Best of luck
If I throw a stick, will you go away?
**Disclaimer: I've not researched this at all, consider this post merely a brainfart!**
You did not say what hardware/software you are using so I don't know if this is any use but if you're running Windows (and I assume that your hardware just emulates a standard mouse anyway), here's a few ideas.
Most RTS games can be played mouse only so you should be OK with anything Command-And-Conquer-esque. I'm not sure how quickly/accurately you can move a cursor but you can adjust the speed of most RTS games to suit. Turn-based strategy games would be good too, and you can play both types online.
There are loads of online games (cards/board games etc.) which you only need a mouse to play. If you have an onscreen keyboard you will be able to chat as well.
Most FPS games will likely be out of the question as you generally require a keyboard AND mouse to play. Having said that, the original Doom/Wolfenstein games can be played without a keyboard.
Also, try to find out if there's a disabled gamers group either online or near you. I would imagine there must be SOMEONE out there in a similar situation to you, so maybe they can be more helpful than me!
Good luck!
If ignorance is bliss, knock the smile off my face.
Its a truly challenging game, and it can be played online for fun. A mouse is all thats needed, and the ability to pay close attention to what people do. :)
;)
I like www.pokerroom.com, as its java based and the action in the "play money" area is actually pretty good. Don't get sucked in to putting your cash online though. Too many bots and cheaters.
SpamapS -- Undernet #Linuxhelp
I don't know much directly about how to assist you in your search for good games. I do know, though, that students involved with the Lemelson Center at Hampshire College would be the perfect folks to contact about working with you towards a solution. The Lemelson Center is focused on Assistive Technology design and fabrication, and the students at Hampshire are a great lot for innovative approaches to situations like yours. Check them out at http://lemelson.hampshire.edu/LCD.html
Good luck to you! I hope to see one of the students there working on your problem soon...
Astropop and Bejeweled 2 are the most worthwhile 40 bucks I have EVER spent on games (each is 20 dollars, but you can also get a free trial version or play online for free).
If you can press a single key (for pause) pretty reliably, neverwinter should work pretty well as it can be completely mouse controlled. But you will definately want to pause it a good bit if your response time/accuracy is limited. But this will depend on exactly your set up.
Similarly, if you like this style of rpgs I believe baldur's gate two should work well also, its turn based, and mouse controlled. I think you can also set it to autopause on turns.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
Which brings up, of course, nethack--the only computer game that actually *matters*.
.
I'd guess that you would want one of the graphical interfaces, but even the text version should be doable with just a little bit of help.
A text-based game with over twenty years of development behind it . .
hawk
If you like puzzles, board games, thinking stuff and all that, then check out Zillions of games which is a Windows engine that runs an enormous number of games and variants, all mouse and single-click driven with a pretty consistent interface.
Extra free games are added on a regular basis, and they've got a downloadable demo.
I'm assuming heavily mouse-based titles will be your games of choice, and probably not twitch-based ones. Therefore, most online multiplayer games (unless they're turn-based) will be right out.
That being said:
Activision's Total War series
Any game of the Civilization series
If someone codes a set of keypresses for you, games on emulated systems (Final Fantasy titles on NES/SNES/PSX for instance, or turn-based games on a GBA emulator like Advance Wars) would likely be doable.
Some of the older MAME titles - not fighting titles like Soul Calibur, but scrollers like R-Type - could be mapped to your headmouse incredibly easily.
You might be able to convince someone to code you a custom interface to use EQ, WoW, or FFXI if you're interested in them; most of the hotkeys are fairly straightforward and could be bound to a wheel-type mouse interface pretty easily.
Steer clear of FPS play, as you'd need (at least) fingers capable of WASD to do them.
If all else fails, there's always games like Go, Chess, and the like to be played out on Yahoo Games or elsewhere. Yeah, they're somewhat old school, but it's always possible to find a game.
Oh, and I did mention a lot of "someone would have to code up the interface", but for most of them it's just remapping joystick axes/hotkeys to certain mouse movements.
Happy gaming!
I use a headmouse sometimes to reduce hand-strain. (I can't even use a mouse with my main writing hand anymore, because of the unbearable pain.) My headmouse is one of the Naturalpoint models (http://www.naturalpoint.com/). Their TrackIR product is designed with gamers in mind. They list a number of games that work well with the headmouse on their website. Also, they have forums (http://forums.naturalpoint.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb .cgi) where you can find a lot of discussion of headmouse gaming.
I find that some games work better than others. I like using it for strategy games, for example. It's not so good for games like Star Wars Galaxies, where you have to push the mouse left and *leave* it there, to turn left. With a headmouse, this results in you tipping further and further left, until you can't go any further (or turning your avatar back right, if you want to straighten your head back up). D'oh! With pretty much all games, you will probably have to recenter it frequently, regardless of how well they get along with the headmouse.
Another thing that complements a headmouse is the wonderful Shoot program (http://clans.gameclubcentral.com/shoot/). It's a free voice recognition program intended for use with games. Because it's intended for use with a very small vocabulary, the performance is vastly superior to what you'd get from Dragon, and the overhead is much smaller, to boot. It's designed so you can assemble different profiles for all of your favorite games, and it works surprisingly well.
The last thing I recommend is to keep an eye on the Game Accessibility SIG (http://www.igda.org/accessibility/) of the IGDA. They're dedicated to spreading awareness of accessibility needs in mainstream games and sharing methods for making accessibility easy.
Good luck!
http://www.uwec.edu/ce/morse2000.htm
Switch Gaming: They sell hardware and have game reviews for PC, console, and emulated classics. Sounds like just what you're looking for.
otherwise, maybe some of the text based adventure games, or even something like the old Trade Wars on Telnet, or webified versions.
These are meant to be safe suggestions, as I imagine that things that require fancy key combos and timing might be frustrating
Tradewars 2002
Official Site
Trade Wars was/is an excellent strategy type game. (old style graphics, tho)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Look into Jagged Alliance 2 also, another turn based combat game. I don't think you need to really use the keyboard for anything except entering the initial activation code for your IMP merc, and that game is loads of fun.
The Fallout and Jagged Alliance 2 combat engines would be well suited because they are totally turn based by nature. However, by setting auto-pause on the BG/IWD games you can get the same effect. I suppose I should mention Fallout Tactics also which can be played in turn based mode just like Fallout1&2.
You could probably also play Neverwinter Nights just with a mouse, although playing online is 90% of the fun, and it would be hard to type/chat with other players with just a mouse. If you could manage to let them know its hard for you to type you could probably get in with some adventurers who would work with you.
I'm not even mentioning trivial games like card games, etc, because I tend to like action oriented games with guns, lasers, magic, etc, but I play a lot of turn based strategy games (most of them listed above) because I like the somewhat slower pace and how they give you time to think before each move.
My wife suggests a bunch of Flash games like on shockwave.com or gameblast.com. and from the amount of time she spends playing them I suppose that is the other side of the gaming coin. You'd have to be pretty good with your mouse to play some of these, because they are click fests, but OTOH the only controls are the mouse.
Other turn based games are Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic, Alpha Centauri, X-Com UFO Defense. Some of the older ones like X-Com run great using DOSBox and its not too hard to set up a shortcut or something to get them started.
I'd recommend setting up a way to at least invoke the [Esc] key with your head mouse so if you get stuck in a text entry box you can try and exit from it. I'm not sure what their capabilities are, but you need a couple keystrokes mapped like for Quicksave/Quickload, Enter, Esc, stuff like that.
Good luck and happy gaming!
Clickety Click
I've been skimming this thread and I didn't see many replies from other users with disabilities. I also use a type of headmouse because of a neuromuscular disability. I've had this type of setup since I was 16 (I'm 31 now and work as an attorney). I've always been a gamer and I tend to gravitate towards games that don't require twitch reflexes. I'm a big RPG fan and most of these are mouse-driven. Check out some of the classics like Baldur's Gate or Planescape. Planescape is especially brilliant. A more recent game I really enjoyed was Freedom Force, a rpg/strategy game that is also mouse-driven. Does your headmouse allow you to hook up separate switches for the left and right mouse buttons? These switches work really well if you have limited movement.
/. and the quality of the responses tends to run the gamut from troll to somewhat helpful. I hope other users with disabilities will see this and offer more ideas.
If you do play games that require a few keyboard commands, check out Game Commander. It allows you to program voice commands for games. It has a pretty customizable interface and you can even program macros.
If you have an on-screen keyboard, you can always go old-skool with text adventures from Infocom.
Stop by my blog if you have other questions. I've seen other disability-related questions posted on
Here's the strategy I would suggest:
Hit the sale rack at your software store of choice and and try out a few games of different genres. That way you won't waste a bunch of money on games you don't like, and you can nail down a genre that works well for you. Everyone here has been saying "forget FPS", but seriously- if you think you might like that kind of game, go pick one up off the sale rack for $5 and try it out. If it doesn't work for you, you've only lost $5, and that's assuming that you can't recycle it into a stocking stuffer for a friend down the road.
The main thing is that if you're trying to pick a genre, try some cheap ones before you go drop $50+ on the latest and greatest.
See you on the battlefield....
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
I recommend Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic.
A LOOONG single-player mode (Part 1: 20-25 hours, Part 2: 40-50 (!) hours)
And it can be played ENTIRELY by mouse.
I hope you have the headmouse (i forget the brand name) that has "DWELL click" where if you linger on something for a second it clicks.
Also the good thing about the game is that it AUTO-pauses when combat starts to you have time to plan out your moves.
Good luck, have fun, and I will pray
for Stem Cell research to discover a way
that you can recover full functionality!
Take Care
Check out Battle for Wesnoth: http://www.wesnoth.org/home/
It's a turn-based strategy game, it's the #1 game on the linux game tome(available for windows too) and it requires no use of a keyboard.
Try it. The game is very, very challenging, way beyond chess in it's complexity. It should be possible to play with a headmouse too with long enough time settings. Basically it's a game of territory where both players, black and white, place stones in the crossings of a 19x19 grid. For more information:
An interactive tutorial
Kiseido Go Server - An Internet go server with an easy to use GUI and lot's of helpful people online.
Sensei's libarary - A good resource site in form of a wiki.
Goproblems.com - A Nice selection of Life & Death problems.
Gobase.org - Rumblings in the go world.
Right on! Monkey Island 1 [worldofmi.com] and 2 [worldofmi.com] I'd suggest. Incredibly fun games. Wow, just mentioning these two makes me want to go and setup an old PC!
Android Software Engineer
I think you can play doom and quake with only the mouse. I dunno about switching weapons though, I suppose that depends on how many buttons/button equivalents you have. Sorry, I just don't know that much about this headmouse thing.
There's also minesweeper and solitaire, but those get boring. Windows XP has online Hearts, and that's actually pretty fun if you can find three people that won't just quit when they start racking up points. Also, xp comes with online checkers, which can be very fun if you're intelectual. Again, sometimes people like to quit that one when they get at a disadvantage. Now that I think about it, you can probably play most of the zone.com games with only a mouse, and they have a lot, including chess which is really hard against some of the guys that get on there. I heard a rumor a while back about bobby fischer competing there but I dunno if it's true... probably not. Of course, none of these are true 3d games. But yeah, I'd probably go after the games provided by free online services like zone.com and yahoo because they are simple and I can't recall one that I've played that wasn't controllable entirely by the mouse. yahoo even has pool, which is really fun.
I think it's pretty cool that you'd have the balls to post this question at a place like slashdot. Most of these guys are total f*ckwads.
The colour iPod would be a *perfect* device to run Dasher on -- we have a one-dimensional mode that means the scroll wheel would be giving us entirely enough movement information. The problem for us is that it's a completely closed development environment, though.
Last time I checked, there wasn't a Linux port for the colour iPod. As soon as one shows up with reasonable C library/graphics toolkit support, I'll look into making a Dasher port to it.
- C.
Hi Sean,
i ndex_41.shtml
:)
s +for+people+with+disabilities&btnG=Google-s%C3%B8g ning&meta= :)
I found this website with games for handicapped or disabled.
http://www.arcess.com/
They have some games available to test before buying.
http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/cat_
^^ I found it through this url (There are plenty more games here)
Also you might find this url of use
http://www.disabilities-online.com/
and
http://e-bility.com/links/games.php
Hope you can use these and
Scatter Joy
Oh, I searched google for "computer games for people with disabilities"
http://www.google.dk/search?hl=en&q=computer+game
(So you can sift through the thousands of links, but still. Keep asking
There is a man by the name of Jerry E. Cromer Jr. He's a C4 Quadrapalegic. He, and his father, invented a pnuemantic control device for electronic equipment called a Quadpuck. Basically it's a series of contact and pnuematic switches. There are models for computers, gaming units (Such as Nintendo, Super Nintendo... etc.), home theater remote controls and many more.
Jerry E. Cromer, Jr.
119 McQueen St.
Sumter, SC 29150
It's been several years since I was employed by the man and I apologize for not being able to supply a website or email address. It appears he's changed providers.
I hope this helps.
... invented a pnuemantic control device for electronic equipment called a Quadpuck. Basically it's a series of contact and pnuematic switches.
Website is here
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.