Gaming with a disability.

After a recent brain injury I have found myself at a disadvantage when playing games. I can no longer feel most of my left hand and the range of motion is slightly limited. I was wondering if anyone in the community had any suggestions of wished to share similar stories. I found that placing double-sided tape on the analog stick kept my thumb from wandering, but the triggers and d-pad a much more of a problem.

PC gaming is the biggest problem, since there are many more keys to be concerned with. The other night while playing TF2, I found myself repeatedly calling for the medic because my finger had moved from W to E. Thankfully, I am a fan of RPGs, so twitch based skills are not always an issue.

Thanks.

Hmmm, i presume that since it is quite a recent injury for the start it will foreign to you and you'll let your hand wander. I think that you'll probably get used to it, and have a stricter control over it. Perhaps there are some sorts of raised keys for WASD that you could replace your current ones to increase the difference between them and other keys.

That's unfortunate. At least you'll probably heal.

Unless I'm very lucky and all this monkey research pans out, I'm never going to be able to actually play a popcap game because I'm hella colourblind.

That might be a good thing though.

@nintendoeats said:

That's unfortunate. At least you'll probably heal.

Unless I'm very lucky and all this monkey research pans out, I'm never going to be able to actually play a popcap game because I'm hella colourblind.

That might be a good thing though.

I thought colourblindness was a choice? ; )

@Cloudenvy said:

@nintendoeats said:

That's unfortunate. At least you'll probably heal.

Unless I'm very lucky and all this monkey research pans out, I'm never going to be able to actually play a popcap game because I'm hella colourblind.

That might be a good thing though.

I thought colourblindness was a choice? ; )

I continue to fucking hate that guy. He didn't sound like he was joking. Moron.

@nintendoeats said:

@Cloudenvy said:

@nintendoeats said:

That's unfortunate. At least you'll probably heal.

Unless I'm very lucky and all this monkey research pans out, I'm never going to be able to actually play a popcap game because I'm hella colourblind.

That might be a good thing though.

I thought colourblindness was a choice? ; )

I continue to fucking hate that guy. He didn't sound like he was joking. Moron.

Jeebus.

I don't remember the name of the company or if they're still around but for a while there was a company that made custom controllers for people with disabilities. If you want I can try to see if they're still around and link you to some products if they are.

@nintendoeats said:

@Cloudenvy said:

@nintendoeats said:

That's unfortunate. At least you'll probably heal.

Unless I'm very lucky and all this monkey research pans out, I'm never going to be able to actually play a popcap game because I'm hella colourblind.

That might be a good thing though.

I thought colourblindness was a choice? ; )

I continue to fucking hate that guy. He didn't sound like he was joking. Moron.

Which guy is this? And no, it's not a good thing. Popcap games are pretty awesome. And I don't know how colorblind you are, but most Popcap games now have a colorblind toggle.

Anyway, for the OP, I'm hoping you heal. I'm not sure how else you could combat this. Other than getting different keys for WASD and such to at least let you feel a height/texture difference. As far as console gaming goes though, I don't think there are any major departures from the standard versions of controllers.

Thanks guys. The raised keys don't really work for me, since I can't actually feel if my fingers are on there to begin with. However, I am going to try to map the E and F keys one key to the right to keep my from spamming the wrong things when I do get off center.

The neurologist have given me a 50/50 shot at gaining any sensation, but there is pretty much no chance it were ever be back to normal for my hand or face.

@myketuna:

I think its about 10 minutes in, they start talking about colourbindness. The guy showing the game says that he isn't convinced that people are actually colourblind. I mean, I would appreciate that as a joke. It's just not entirely clear that he is kidding.

If you have a console one of these might help.

@nintendoeats said:

@Cloudenvy said:

@nintendoeats said:

That's unfortunate. At least you'll probably heal.

Unless I'm very lucky and all this monkey research pans out, I'm never going to be able to actually play a popcap game because I'm hella colourblind.

That might be a good thing though.

I thought colourblindness was a choice? ; )

I continue to fucking hate that guy. He didn't sound like he was joking. Moron.

Jeebus.

Only thing I can suggest is to start playing games that don't require twitch skills. Best of luck to ya, and I hope it's something that you can one day get fixed.

@laserbolts: These images are what I usually refer people to. They aren't 100% accurate to my experience (in theory I shouldn't be able to tell the Anomalous Trichromatic images from the normal one), but They seem to be a good approximation. To my knowledge me and most of the GB staff all suffer from Dichromacy, but I obviously can't say for sure.

@Alex_Murphy: Those seem awfully expensive. I know its a specialized industry, but its odd that the base price (for an unaltered controller) is so high.

sorry about your condition. I suppose you could attach some sort of raised something to attach to the WASD keys for a guide for your fingers, and maybe so fir any buttons on a controller. here's hoping that the nature of your brain injury is heal-able, and you could hopefully regain some feeling in your hand.

You'll figure something out, man. Check out this dude. He has to play with his face and guess what, he's whooped my ass a couple times. No joke. 
 
  

Thanks to all the suggestions. I think the main problem is me getting frustrated at not being able to do what I am used to. Patience is not my strength.

@nintendoeats: I can tell he's joking. I thought it was funny. He just says it real matter-of-factly.

I am a C6 quad with no finger movement and I can play any game. At first learning and adapting is always difficult and can be frustrating but if you are persistent you will find ways to adapt and will be able to play as well if not better then before.

I think its about 10 minutes in, they start talking about colourbindness. The guy showing the game says that he isn't convinced that people are actually colourblind. I mean, I would appreciate that as a joke. It's just not entirely clear that he is kidding.

sorry to hear/ read that. look into getting new controller for a better controller.

Thank you all so much for your suggestions and support. I honestly didn't expect this many replies. I'm going to remain optimistic and be grateful that I can play games in any capacity. Especially since I shouldn't have survived in the first place.

I had some jaw surgury and the anesthesia fucked me up for like a week- just... wait it out. Unless, of course, you can't. In that case, you may want to pick up more turn based games or something.

I have three foot pedals to help my muscle+nerve disease out, some days depending on the weather even clicking a mouse button is too much and I make my 70 year old father look spry. I'd build and donate one if I had the resources, it helps immensely.

One is simply a USB mouse circuit board inside of a cheap junky sustain pedal (or keyboard pedal, whatever they may call it) soldered so it triggers middle mouse down, which nobody ever uses since it's tied to the scroll wheel. The other two go to a box where I have the circuit board of a PS/2 keyboard in it, I just plug my pedals in there. I figure I'll be using one for voice comms, one for walking forwards, the third for some commonly use function like jump in an MMO.

This is a great controller grip for the disabled as it allows you to set up the button depression to "hair trigger" like states which is a blessing for people who have limited movement.

@MixMasterShake: You should also look into getting into Civilization V. Turn-based and it will suck your life away if you dig in. Trust me. Also, that controller @Buzzkill posted looks cool. I don't know if would help, but this means there are devices out there if you ever want to try them.

Don't have any suggestions that haven't already been made but just want to say that I hope you figure something out that works for you.

Thankfully I have an eclectic taste in games, so switching to something new isn't a big deal. I feel like kind of an ass for whining about it now, especially since there are those who have it worse than me. I feel doubly worse since it is my fault for ending up this way.

Planking?

Try to see if you can change the key bindings to something more comfortable.