AAAGH! Unfortunate illness ending your gameplaying days!!!!

[Turnarcades]

Hi folks
 I'm just celebrating my return as a contributer to the BYOAC community and to let you know a sad tale.

I am a huge classic game fan, 27 years old, living in England and have been building arcade cabinets for about 12 months. 8 weeks ago to the day I was taking my dog for a walk before hitting the sack the night before my 27th birthday. I suddenly felt overcome with nausea and collapsed in a pile of broken glass, unable to move. Luckily a neighbour alerted my wife and soon I was being whisked away to hospital. I was completely unable to move my left-hand side, sit up or even lift my head. After much analysing from the doctors, I was diagnosed as having had a severe ischaemic stroke, something usually common in old or seriously unhealthy people.

The reason I am sharing this with you is because I have been an avid gamer since I was 3 years old, and of all the things to happen to me, one of my biggest concerns is that I may never be able to play, for the most part, my favourite video games ever again. After much physiotherapy I am now walking again, with difficulty, but my left arm remains mostly unmoveable and pretty much useless, confined to a sling for most of the day.

There are many concerns I have had since this happened to me, and although it may seem ridiculous to some, I find the prospect of life without videogames will take away a big piece of me. I have spent time in hospital on my laptop, devising control layouts that would enable a one-handed player like myself to play some of the classic games we all enjoy, even identifying games to help with cognitive rehabilitation as part of my own recovery, but I may never be able to recover use enough to knock seven bells out of my mates at Street Fighter 2 or be stomping goombas in Mario Bros.

I just wanted to share this experience with you all and let you know I have not lost my spirit or my interest, and will work towards getting back in front of my arcade and consoles. The next 12 months are crucial, and I may get much better, but the effects of stroke are so varied, no one can tell me how much better I will get.

The point I am making to you all is to make the most of your game-playing days, as well as your current or revisited youth, as it can be stolen away from you in an instant, as it was with me. Turns out it was a genetic condition that causes internal blood clotting, and not something I could have avoided, even as healthy as I was. Though unlikely to recur, the damage has been done and I now have to live with that.

Maybe one day I will be a gamesmaster again and pick up my custom cabinet building business, but until that day I will keep fighting and have vowed to give something of a gift to the medical unit that helped me in the form of a customised arcade machine with a hand-picked selection of games aimed at developing brain and hand/eye co-ordination.

Big thanks to everyone in the community who has answered my questions in the past right here at BYOAC and shared in that cult passion of classic video gaming.

Craig (samshaw946)

[Red]

So sorry to hear about that.  I wish you all the best in the future.  Take care.

Red

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Wow!

Anything is possible. My cousin was in an accident at the age of ten that left him completely paralyzed from the neck down.
Adjusting to his new condition was extremely difficult, but he went on to learn how to control a computer using a series of breathing tubes, coupled with a motion controlled mouse-pointer on a head strap.

He began a home study program and eventually graduated at the top of his class in college. The guy is like a superhero to me...

Sounds like you've got that same willpower to reach your goal, or at least make the best of what you've got! All the best on your recovery!

 

[TOK]

Sorry to hear about this, but it's obvious from your attitude that you have right spirit to overcome this.
Seems like the obvious first thing would be to try some games that don't need buttons. There aren't many, but Pac Man and Frogger immediately come to mine.

Also seems the single button games would be very playable on a layout similar to Defenders reverse control, where the button is close to the stick right where your thumb hits it. I think I'd prefer that to a trigger stick, since the large sticks are klunky for games that require a lot of intricate moves.

Best wishes on your recovery, and glad to see you back!

[ARTIFACT]

Thank you for sharing your story with us.

Do look into Speech Recognition software (Vista has a great one built-in) for general computer control and dictations. This helped me a lot when I had shoulder surgery on my left arm (I am lucky that it is fine now).

Some of the game controls could be done one-handed via a joystick with buttons on the stick. Let's say there is a trigger and a thumb button, you could map the mid kick and mid punch in SF2, and train yourself to do your moves this way.

I hope this helps.

Do know that you have a supporting community here, and that we all think about you and wish you the best in your life.

-A

[ratzz]

Good luck with your recovery.

We all take our health and family far too much for granted sometimes - its worth just stopping and taking a moment to think how lucky we are.

Ratzz

[Turnarcades]

Thanks for your comments guys, any suggestions are welcome, and I am training my left arm to do new things daily.

I was trying to play the Wii version of one of my favourite games; Resident Evil 4, but this becomes tiring very quickly. I will be buying my own though as this system is ideal for obvious reasons. I may even try to incorporate one into a cabinet one day.

I found there were some games that were ok to play comfortably, mainly sports games like Hyper Sports, Track and Field etc., where simultaneous joystick/button action is not required. I'd rather not resolve to just playing point and click games on a PC, it's not really my bag.

Certain vertical shooters are good to play, as well as casino games (I'm a big card player in the real world) and joystick only games like pac-man. I may swap out the joysticks on my own cabinet for ones with buttons on, but a top-fire joystick does not give enough playability options and big ugly flight sticks would not have the right feel for certain games.

I need something like the old quickshot joysticks a la spectrums and the like, with several buttons on the stick, but a lot harder wearing and cab-friendly too.

I'm sure it will come to me.

[saint]

Good luck on your recover mate - attitude is very important here and it sounds like you've got the right one. I had a 21-year old employee that suffered a stroke (sounds like yours, he had a hole in his heart undetected since birth). It's taken him about a year but he's recovered most of his functionality. Sheer determination carried him most of the way, and refusal to accept any limitation that he hadn't pressed against first. I'm pulling for you!

--- saint

[arcadefever]

Hello,

i wish you the best, and hope that you will completly recover ...

keep fighting 

the game is not over 

[Smack]

Have you considered making a small external floorboard (similar to a guitar pedalboard) that you could trigger buttons with one of your feet if you were seated on a stool? You could put a network jack, use cat5 cable and make it removable?

See if the source could be tweaked / cheat code for rapid fire so you can just hold one button down for shooting games?

Just thinking out loud...

Thank you for sharing. I wish you the best in your recovery as well!

Scott

[Kaytrim]

Don't forget trackball games like golden tee and bowling.  A trackball would also be a good tool to scroll through the growing game list.  

Keep your positive attitude mate, we are all pulling for you.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[dna disturber]

He craig,

Have you seen this controller...
http://benheck.com/right-handed-xbox-360-controller/

Heckendorn has built an xbox360 controller that can be operated with one hand (and all the buttons can be used).
And an xbox360-controller can be connected to a pc (as used in a cabinet    )

So SF2 opponents and all you goombas out there better watch out !

Hope your recovery goes well.......

Dna Disturber

P.S. You should also check out his other projects...awesome (atari2600 handheld or an xbox360 laptop) 

[Chris]

The flightsticks may not be ideal for all games  but the solution is to have two sticks on the panel... A Xenophobe stick gives you three buttons to work with.

[Akuma]

I wish you all the luck for recovery in general and for the next 12 months in particular! I might contribute with an idea for a custom one handed control that just came to my mind. following the layout of your hand - a thumbstick placed under your thumb and buttons placed at every fingertip, and another set of buttons below these. Might take some training but it could work out. But I am also just thinking loud here.

Anyway, GOOD LUCK AND GET WELL SOON!!!

[Chris]

I wish you all the luck for recovery in general and for the next 12 months in particular! I might contribute with an idea for a custom one handed control that just came to my mind. following the layout of your hand - a thumbstick placed under your thumb and buttons placed at every fingertip, and another set of buttons below these. Might take some training but it could work out. But I am also just thinking loud here.

Oh, nice one!  Maybe a D-pad would be easier to handle in that situation than a thumbstick.

The one pictured below is actually listed as a thumbstick instead of a D-pad, but it loks like a D-pad to me!  It's microswitch-based so it should hold up better than one out of a gamepad.

[Akuma]

I wish you all the luck for recovery in general and for the next 12 months in particular! I might contribute with an idea for a custom one handed control that just came to my mind. following the layout of your hand - a thumbstick placed under your thumb and buttons placed at every fingertip, and another set of buttons below these. Might take some training but it could work out. But I am also just thinking loud here.

Oh, nice one!  Maybe a D-pad would be easier to handle in that situation than a thumbstick.

The one pictured below is actually listed as a thumbstick instead of a D-pad, but it loks like a D-pad to me!  It's microswitch-based so it should hold up better than one out of a gamepad.

Infact, I was thinking of this specific part (and got the term thumbstick from this site : )

[_) (V) (-)]

Woah man, thats tragic! Makes you appreciate life.
These guys hit all the major points, types of games/controls options, etc.
If you typed that message I'd say you've got the dextarity and it sounds like you are willing to try.

I know it possiable because I've already played fighters, using the palm of one hand on joystick, hitting/holding 2-3 buttons with my fingers. It helps to have rather large hands.

Go get some high scores Mate!