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?"

Comments

I've got to ask

[digitalgimpus]

What is the perfered method of typing for someone with that disorder?

I'm assuming the postere typed their own question.

Re:I've got to ask

[stuffman64]

Probably with Dasher". Definately worth checking out, even if you are not disabled.

Can you click?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a way to click? If you can move your head relatively fast I would imagine that you'd be pretty good at any FPS since you pretty much aim by looking...

Headmouse

[nbert]

How precise are those btw? As you might have noticed many strategy (turn) based games don't require much speed and accuracy.

Bio Feedback?

[ebbyfish]

I don't know if this would work, but you may want to look at http://wilddivine.com/. It works on Bio feedback (no joystick), maybe they can help you out.

Frozen Bubble!

[Mr. Jaggers]

I think Frozen Bubble could be modified to be playable with left-right panning and a click type movement. It may already be possible. My wife *loves* that game; it has tetris-like addictivity. The developer is a nice guy too...

Re:World of Warcraft

[Southpaw018]

Agreed. If you can manipulate a web browser with your headmouse, you can play WoW...albeit slowly, but the game's an absolute blast. You're welcome in my guild if you'd like to join. I'll send you an email with further information.

Re:Quality Suggestions?

[Mantorp]

Very funny!

Back on topic. What about problem solving walking through environments a la MYST and the like? Or boardgames on Yahoo.

I'll try my best to help

[3770]

I didn't know what a head mouse was so I did a little research:

HeadMouse® Extreme replaces a standard computer mouse for people who cannot use their hands. It operates from the top of a computer monitor, laptop computer, or augmentative communication device, and measures the user's head movements. The wireless sensing technology employs infrared light to track a small disposable target that is placed on the user's forehead or glasses. HeadMouse Extreme provides a wide field-of-view and superior precision, supporting even graphics-intensive applications like drawing and computer aided design.

When used with mouse button software, such as Origin Instruments' Dragger(TM), mouse clicks are performed by positioning the pointer and dwelling for a selectable period of time. Alternately, selections can be performed using an adaptive switch, such as the Origin Instruments Sip/Puff Switch, or even through use of speech recognition software. HeadMouse Extreme also comes with a built-in infrared receiver that provides optional

Text copied from here

It does seem rather powerful, especially if it can be combined with voice recognition. Although voice recognition isn't perfect it could certainly be good enough to mimic the button pushes we make when playing a game.

It probably won't be as fast though. So you probably want a game that isn't twitch based. Lets review the categories.

1) MMORPG. Although this isn't twitch based I'm reluctant to recommend it. I don't mean to be insensitive, but I believe that you will meet a lot of insensitive impatient people who will only hurt your self esteem. I don't know the average age of an MMORPG player. All I know is that many act like 12 year olds. Maybe if you find trade skilling rewarding. You could be a very good trade skiller, I'm sure. In fact, if you enjoy trade skilling then you can build your character to the highest levels and people want to do business with you. This category is different than the two below, because there is social interatction here. And if you want more of that, then this might be your choice.

2) Turn based strategy. Civilisation... Oh the memories... I'd really have to recommend this genre. This is one of my all time game genres. And you can play it at any speed you like. You invest a lot of time in the strategy and you can ask a unit to do something which will take many turns. This means that later in the game it will do tons of stuff, that is really interesting to you, the player, but you won't actually be doing much pointing and clicking. Whatever else games you play, you should try to do this too. It is just too much fun to not do. To round it up, whether you win this or not _only_ depends on your thinking. Nothing else. You will be as good a player as a non handicapped person. It might take longer. But what the hey.

3) Real time strategy. This is another one of my favorite genres. Although this really can be as much twitching as a first person shooter, you can normally set the speed to anything you like. You might find that this really gets your adrenalin pump going. I know it does for me.

4) First person shooters. This might not work when you play with a random person from the Internet. But you could get a group going with the same type of problem as you. All that matters is that everyone is about similarly fast. This could be a lot of fun, _and_ it could also be super rewarding if you can organize and build a community and make friends. I currently play an MMORPG right now, and the part that is the most rewarding for me is to organize events and try to help people have fun. The game itself is secondary. You might want to look at games such as Ghost Recon which is more "suspense" and "one shot one kill" rather than the Quake "circle/strafe" "rocket jump" game play.

5) Someone else mentioned Myst. Myst and other puzzle games might be good for you. It isn't for me, but many like it. Maybe you are one of them.

And finally, good luck finding the game that is for you. I love it when I have a new game.

Here are some games

[Kentsusai]

Got a friend in a similar situation.

Here are some games
* LOTS of RPGs - (good ones that are involving http://www.agdinteractive.com/)
* Chess, shogi, other board games
* card games
* Plenty of net games available (like bejeweled)
* some arcade plane fighting games like galactica, Raiden I & II & II, starfox
* puzzle games like boulderdash, rockford

Also recommend installing software that allows you to "turbo-fire" your mouse. That way you can play games where you have click very fast! On top of that we installed stuff like sticky mouse buttons.

He can play old school games like DOOM and DOOM II, Wolf3D. Forward, backward, left, right, strafe button, fire, swap weapon. That's all he uses. You can do this with some new FPS (but your game play will be pretty limited)

We also installed a media player for him! Keeps him entertained.

Check out www.liberatedgames.com. They have a fair few commerical games which have been released to the public for free.
My favourites on that site which I think you will like include
Flight of the Amazon Queen (http://www.liberatedgames.com/game.php?game_id=31 )
Civ 2 (http://www.liberatedgames.com/game.php?game_id=50 ) [BTW check out FreeCiv and Wesnoth! TWO GOOD STRATEGY GAMES YOU CAN PLAY WITH JUST A MOUSE! Wesnoth has a great story line! Well developed game! Online gameplay!]
Beneath a Steel Sky (http://www.liberatedgames.com/game.php?game_id=30 )
Treasure Island Dizzy (http://www.liberatedgames.com/game.php?game_id=81 ) [This one is a platformer, but if you get the hang of your headmouse you can play this without a prob! My friend does :-] )

Re:Not really

[Oktober Sunset]

that only works with words that we can assume we know the meaning to, and also notice that the 'randomised' words in that text only have the letter displaced by one of 2 places, look at university, the n and i are still at the front, s i and t are at the end and v e and r are still in the middle, the letters are still grouped with the rest of the letters of that sylable. same with research, the letters are grouped so they make similar sylables to the correctly written word.

alultcay taht pceie of slnbiigbrcs is a nicloennssl cctoelolin of fuuenrclade, its ceaacltuld to bnaacle spsouped gnentiiuy wtih rluiudiocs bnfurefoy to mzmiaixe the orncnccure of hrtaliiy.

notice that piece isn't quite is readable, i dounbt anyone skipped through that without having to stop and rearange letter, that cos they are more randomised, don't reflect the sylables of the proper word, and they are more obscure words, so you don't know in advance what they are likely to be.