Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Gaming With Only One Hand?
Hork_Monkey writes "I recently sustained a severe injury to one of my arms, and am lucky not to be an amputee. I'm an avid gamer (primarily PC, but also XBox) and looking for advice one how to adapt to the challenge now presented of enjoying one of my favorite pastimes. My google-fu has led me to some devices and tips, but I wanted to tap the collective while experimenting. I know there have to be some readers in similar positions who could provide some guidance. I'm figuring a few things out, and also hope to share what I find for others in a similar situation."
Well, Slashdot is a good authority in one-handed computer use.
First, sorry for your injury. I know little about electronic gaming with injuries and I wish you luck with it. But you may want to consider pen and paper and/or board gaming a a well. With the right group it can be great.
Silence is a state of mime.
Given PC gaming, pure keyboard play is difficult as is switching, unless you're playing something like Civ V. A lot of people who play MMOs have these supermice with 10 keys on them and that's probably going to be your best bet.
For example, http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/mmog-mice
Without knowing which arm has been disabled, it's tough to offer specific advice, so I'll just shotgun some ideas here.
First, assuming you can still use a right-handed mouse, might I suggest the Logitech G600. It's got tons of buttons, which assuming your right arm is the functional one, can help fill in a lot of gaps with some creative mouse button configuration. And before anyone cries foul, yes, it IS superior to the Naga which it obviously borrows its design from; I own and have thoroughly used both. The G600's software is also superior.
For left-handed use, either the Razer Nostromo or Logitech G13 gamepads. I have both, and while Logitech's offering has a lot more extra buttons, I find the Nos to be generally more useful with its scroll wheel and more ergonomic feel, while the G13's advantages are more buttons and a true anolog stick (though in a very awkward position, unlike the Nos' more comfortable d-pad). The Nos also has an adjustable palm rest unlike the G13.
Those are off the top of my head, and granted are only mainstream devices and not anything specifically made for the disabled, but I hope I've helped, or at least given a direction to pursue further. Best of luck with the gaming! :)
Actually, I think this is probably the only thing that needs to be posted in response to this question.
The field you want, in general, is called accessibility. I tell you that so it can help your Google and other searches. I encourage you to reach out to the organizations listed on this Wikipedia page. I know some of them personally as I'm blind and a PhD student in computer science and an accessibility researcher, so I'll be more than happy to perform introductions on LinkedIn, email, twitter, whatever you like, just let me know. Here's the Wikipedia page listing some organizations. I'd start with Able Gamers. Mark's a good guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_accessibility Next, I'd encourage you to get on twitter, if that's possible. I can connect you to tons of folks to cover everything from one handed typing approaches (both paid and open source solutions), speech input alternatives, strategies developed by other users of technology with the use of only one hand, and so forth. I'm @SinaBahram on there. Just drop me a line. Btw, the accessibility community often goes by the numerical acronym A11Y, so look for #A11Y or just a11y when Googling around, and that can help some of your searches as well. Sorry if this post is a bit disjoint. I would love to leave more comments on Slashdot and interact with it more, but Slashdot has repeatedly ignored my various emails and other attempts to reach out to them, since I use a screen reader and there are some serious accessibility issues that could so easily be fixed if I could just get ahold of the right person *poke poke to anyone who reads this*. To you or anybody else looking for more information on accessibility, technology used by folks with disabilities, etc., just contact me via whatever mechanism you like. It's all on my site, which I'm not sure my profile links to, so here it is. www.SinaBahram.com I hope this helps, and please don't' hesitate to contact me so we can get you connected to the right folks to get you gaming again.