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Games Entertainment Hardware

Solutions for the Left (and Single) Handed Gamer? 38

Posted by Cliff from the one-armed-bandit dept.
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)."
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Solutions for the Left (and Single) Handed Gamer? More

Solutions for the Left (and Single) Handed Gamer?

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  • was able to be played with just the left hand. It would have to be the left because the directional pad is on the left, but everything could be accomplished with just two extra buttons (L and select) as you could with the 5 buttons for the other hand (a,b,x,y,r).

    While earthbound isnt a FPS it might be something to check out for ideas on ways to merge buttons efficintly.
    • Suikoden I, II and III had a similar setup, but with two L buttons (accept and cancel/run), select (open menue) and the digital pad for I+II, and analog stick for III. Works like a wonder, since Suikoden is the type of game where you don't have to look at the screen constantly.

  • Emulators (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lightspawn ( 155347 )
    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
    • You mean like the nice ones I had for my C64?
      The joysticks that cracked wide open & broke if you slammed them into a sharp corner?

      Yeah.. I'm glad I got a NES after the 12th or so joystick.

  • Nostromo (Score:4, Informative)

    by nick_davison ( 217681 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:47PM (#7305142)
    The Belkin Nostromo [crucial.com] 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 [saitekusa.com] 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.
    • Weren't thumbscrews medieval torture devices? 'Nuff said.
    • I'm left-handed, but I got so used to using a mouse right-handed that it's actually my preferred means of playing. But for joysticks, I need to use my left hand, and Saitek joysticks have worked beautifully. They follow actual standards, so they work fine with Linux, too.

  • What I Did (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Friday October 24, 2003 @06:19PM (#7305349) Homepage
    About four years ago I nearly broke my wrist. Being the genius I am, within the next day I bought Half-Life (I know, I was late to the game) which I had trouble playing due to my injury. What could I do so that I'd be able to play my new game?

    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.

  • There's a config [planetwolfenstein.com] around to let people play with one hand only when playing wolfenstein enemy territory [blueyonder.co.uk]. The config was made by a guy called Iffy, he has an excellent help and how-to wolfenstein site at http://planetwolfenstein.com/4newbies/
  • I seem to recall that Sony produced a one-handed controller for the PSOne. Dunno how good the layout is (probably not that effective for the more action-oriented games,) and I recall the lack of analog control sticks, but there was one out there at some point. This would be a tad more difficult to do with most current game controllers, though.

    And as another poster said, Earthbound was designed so that you could play the game with your left hand only(control pad, L, and select buttons,) though some functio

    • You could also take up DDR. No need for hands in that game.


      On that note, he could simply get a DDR mat for the computer and use it as a controller for any game.
    • I seem to recall that Sony produced a one-handed controller for the PSOne.

      It was put out by ASCII, and it had all of the conventional buttons though no analog sticks. It was uncomfortable to play with, as the D pad was in the middle, surrounded by two buttons on top (repeated twice for left / right handers) and two more trigger buttons underneath. It also had L1 R1 L2 R2 mapped to a little pad just south of the D-Pad.

      I had one as a FF7 controller, but gave it to a one-armed game developer.

      The pad was
    • The PS2 DVD remote has all the controller buttons (even L3 and R3 I think) on its face, plus a d-pad. It's not as good as an analogue controller, obviously, but you could play RPG, turn-based strategy, or puzzle games with it, I imagine.
  • Oddly enough, it sounds like you might be able to hand some (but not all) console gaming system, especially the older ones. My best friend was born with a birth defect - his right hand is a lump with little nubs for fingers. However, with most console controllers, the fine control is done with the left hand (either d-pad or analog stick), and the right hand presses a single button at a time. If you have enough control over your right side for that, you should be all set. If you can't do it with your thumb a
  • You know, my strategy is to put my mouse on that other side of my keyboard.

    If righty-designed equipment is harder to use sometimes, its more than compensated for by the fact that the Vast Left Handed Conspiracy, of which I am a card carrying member, has convinced the righties of the world that we're more highly developed life forms than they.

    You, for one, should welcome your new left handed overlords, and design more left handed video game paraphernalia.

  • I've heard of people putting a trackball on the floor, with the buttons modified to be pedals. You will have to expiriment, but I think you could find something that will work.

    I'd look at chord keyboards too, they allow you to simulate a full keyboard with just a few buttons. They are not popular because they are hard to learn, but for you they could be the ticket.

    Headsets have been made. Moving, twisting, and bobbing the head can all be mapped to controlls. I'm not aware of anything commercial, but

  • oy, i game strictly on the PC and currently have a MS optical 5 button (wired) and a saitek cyborg 3D stick and it still isn't enough.
  • Well, I use a mouse with the left hand (a non-contoured symmetrical mouse) and I have found great success with the Thrustmaster Tactical board under the right hand. While the board is contoured for use with a left hand (the designers assume you are going to use the mouse with your right) it still functions really well. The nice thing about it, is the keys are arranged in a much more ergonomic manner, so extended games of unreal or counter strike wont give your hand a cramp from trying to use a keyboard that
  • Hello,

    The way I do mouse movement in my current game( http://www.holepit.com/ [holepit.com]) is to make everything mouse controlled. It takes quite a bit of work to design your game in this way though. Depending on the game you may not be able to do it.

    I have the characters follow where the mouse pointer is. So the movement of the character is kind of passive. You do not have to constantly tell it to go forwards. It always goes forwards depending on where the mouse is. Any of the buttons on the mouse will acti
  • I put the mouse under my left hand.. bind shoot to left click (well, right click, really... I do have my mouse commands flipped, being a lefty and all.) and alt fire/use/whatever the second most used function is to my left button. the middle mouse button is reload.. unless the game utilizes alt-fire AND action keys, in which case, action is the middle button.

    my right hand goes on the d-pad. 5 moves forward, 2 backward, and 1 and 3 are for strafing. 0 is jump, . is duck (or walk), enter is set to 'walk' (
  • I have been using this configuration ever since Quake 1 Team Fortress. Though ideally, I use it with two hands, but occasionally when I am eating... and stuff... I can easily switch to one hand and place with decent effectiveness. :D

    This requires a 5 buttoned mouse. I recommend the Microsoft IntelliEye Optical mouse, for it can be used with either hand. (Unlike its Explorer counterpart.)

    Basically, my primary movement buttons are:
    Mouse1 - forward
    Mouse2 - backward

    Then, normally I use my keyboard for the re
  • Try this link:

    http://www.research.att.com/projects/ShortStep/

    Maybe that would help? You'd move about the game's level with the mouse, and use the foot controls to open up a can of kickass on the Hell Knights who ain't gonna let you get to that Megasphere without a fight.

    If you're a southpaw, get a leftie board here:

    http://www.research.att.com/projects/ShortStep/

    (Disclaimer: I don't use those products, and no one is paying me to recommend them.)
  • I only have one hand. I type at ~60 wpm. I play games (to completion) and regularly beat two handed friends, etc. It could be worse. You've had full use of your hand for years, there are many who are worse off. Now go and try do something that is actually relatively tricky one handed. Like golf. Have fun.
  • This is a little late, but I just picked up Super Monkey Ball. The game only uses 1 analog stick, no buttons. Steven Hawking could play this game.

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