I am a board member of this org, and I wanted to post the link for donation in here. GOAT is dedicated to open sourcing and open copyrighting materials, schematics, and standards for accessibility hardware. Remember the guy with the robotic legs, and the manufacturer turned them off remotely? That kinda stuff simply cannot be allowed to happen.
GOAT is a fantastic organization, and when Andrei, who wrote this blog, asked for help with his wheelchair, GOAT found the parts he needed, put someone on a plane to his country, and installed the equipment. Andrei was able to go the park for the first time in years, as a result.
When I saw the title I immediately thought of Xbox Adaptive Controller. It's such a cool initiative.
Microsoft has a lot of really cool accessibility tools and services. For example their extensive usability guidelines, which is a massive set of documentation for how to make games more widely accessible. [0]
They also have a great service where you can submit your games to get a report with feedback how to improve accessibility.[1] I read through one we got at my last job and it was really impressive. Very thoughtful and comprehensive.
There's a hub with links to a lot more accessibility services as well. [2] Microsoft is one of the companies which really does a lot of great things in this space.
It’s so amazing how far assistive technology has come!
This is a fantastic article but I wish he would have included some wish list or constructive criticism, clearly there are areas of improvement!
But to discern an ask from his writings: At the end he mentions the complexities of working so many different purpose-specific tools— is this perhaps the next area of progress, tool integration and a cohesive experience?
There were FOSS Tongue-driven and Air-switch (Puff/Blow Morse codes) wheelchair control interfaces with generic USB HID mouse/keyboard emulation. They also have normal pointer interface modes with desktop and tablet OS (no janky software required.)
The projects were necessitated because costs of medical-device regulatory barriers made hardware iterations economically infeasible to mass-manufacture. There were a few university faculties that would show up at community events to demonstrate DIY kits folks could put together with a friend.
If these projects are no longer available, send up a flag and someone will spend a few weekends to bring up more open-hardware options. One can't legally sell these as a medical-device in most places, but there is likely nothing stopping a low-power hobby "game control" kit. =3
Kind reminder that you can be disabled and still kick ass in videogames. I have in mind Brolylegs (RIP) [1] who ranked very well in competitive Street Fighter 4, despite having to play with his literal face.
It occurs to me that some of this could be really useful to implement into SteamInput for players with disabilities. Someone really needs to show this article to Valve.
Valve is also part of the Accessible Gaming Initiative, along with Microsoft and others.
And Steam does already support the Xbox Adaptive Controller, along with a huge amount of control overlays, and if that isn't enough - SteamInput can be disabled for raw HID mode and then you can interface with any 3rd party app, like in the article.
Their virtual menus are a godsend for building your own control systems - I've used one with eyetracking software to play Counter Strike.
Very cool. I have a friend with cerebral palsy and he has very little movement in his hands. I'd love to connect him with these kinds of devices but he has an intellectual disability that makes it especially tough. I wish there was an easy affordable way to get someone who can give advice to a guy like him. He's learned to use an iPhone because SIRI does a lot of things for him, but computers are difficult for him. Which is very limiting
It's really great to see paths forward despite extreme difficulties. My late friend would have been interested in all of these setups, especially the facial tracking. Thank you for sharing this.
Great point on the Xbox Adaptive Controller — the open source hardware angle
makes this even more important. If manufacturers can remotely disable devices,
open alternatives become critical infrastructure.
There are several Twitch streamers with similar setups.
It's discouraging when they haven't streamed for a while like NoHandsKen, though I'm surprised to not find any evidence of a couple streams 3-6 months ago.
Years ago, a buddy of mine was in a car accident and broke his arm. He was then banned for using keyboard remapping software so he could keep playing one-handed. It always bothered me that some game companies treated any modification as cheating, regardless of why it was being used.
I’ve always wondered how developers balance anti-cheat systems with accessibility. Sometimes the same tools can be used for both. It’s encouraging to see companies giving players more flexibility and recognizing that not everyone interacts with games the same way.
Gaming should be about skill and creativity, not whether your body happens to fit the default input scheme.
I am a board member of this org, and I wanted to post the link for donation in here. GOAT is dedicated to open sourcing and open copyrighting materials, schematics, and standards for accessibility hardware. Remember the guy with the robotic legs, and the manufacturer turned them off remotely? That kinda stuff simply cannot be allowed to happen.
GOAT is a fantastic organization, and when Andrei, who wrote this blog, asked for help with his wheelchair, GOAT found the parts he needed, put someone on a plane to his country, and installed the equipment. Andrei was able to go the park for the first time in years, as a result.
Please consider giving to GOAT. It's so rare for a nonprofit to be this scrappy and life changing for people. It's awesome. https://www.openassistivetech.org/contribute/
Insanely cool blog post. I had no idea about the XBox Adaptive Controller: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/xbox-adap...
I am surprised that we have not seen some sick setups shared on HN.
When I saw the title I immediately thought of Xbox Adaptive Controller. It's such a cool initiative.
Microsoft has a lot of really cool accessibility tools and services. For example their extensive usability guidelines, which is a massive set of documentation for how to make games more widely accessible. [0]
They also have a great service where you can submit your games to get a report with feedback how to improve accessibility.[1] I read through one we got at my last job and it was really impressive. Very thoughtful and comprehensive.
There's a hub with links to a lot more accessibility services as well. [2] Microsoft is one of the companies which really does a lot of great things in this space.
[0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/accessibility/guide...
[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/accessibility/mgats
[2] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/accessibility/acces...
It’s so amazing how far assistive technology has come!
This is a fantastic article but I wish he would have included some wish list or constructive criticism, clearly there are areas of improvement!
But to discern an ask from his writings: At the end he mentions the complexities of working so many different purpose-specific tools— is this perhaps the next area of progress, tool integration and a cohesive experience?
There were FOSS Tongue-driven and Air-switch (Puff/Blow Morse codes) wheelchair control interfaces with generic USB HID mouse/keyboard emulation. They also have normal pointer interface modes with desktop and tablet OS (no janky software required.)
The projects were necessitated because costs of medical-device regulatory barriers made hardware iterations economically infeasible to mass-manufacture. There were a few university faculties that would show up at community events to demonstrate DIY kits folks could put together with a friend.
If these projects are no longer available, send up a flag and someone will spend a few weekends to bring up more open-hardware options. One can't legally sell these as a medical-device in most places, but there is likely nothing stopping a low-power hobby "game control" kit. =3
That's cool !
Kind reminder that you can be disabled and still kick ass in videogames. I have in mind Brolylegs (RIP) [1] who ranked very well in competitive Street Fighter 4, despite having to play with his literal face.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrolyLegs
In Warcraft 3 we had Space: https://liquipedia.net/warcraft/Space
See also BlindWarriorSven, another Street Fighter legend, who as his name suggests is blind.
It occurs to me that some of this could be really useful to implement into SteamInput for players with disabilities. Someone really needs to show this article to Valve.
Valve is also part of the Accessible Gaming Initiative, along with Microsoft and others.
And Steam does already support the Xbox Adaptive Controller, along with a huge amount of control overlays, and if that isn't enough - SteamInput can be disabled for raw HID mode and then you can interface with any 3rd party app, like in the article.
Their virtual menus are a godsend for building your own control systems - I've used one with eyetracking software to play Counter Strike.
Very cool. I have a friend with cerebral palsy and he has very little movement in his hands. I'd love to connect him with these kinds of devices but he has an intellectual disability that makes it especially tough. I wish there was an easy affordable way to get someone who can give advice to a guy like him. He's learned to use an iPhone because SIRI does a lot of things for him, but computers are difficult for him. Which is very limiting
It's really great to see paths forward despite extreme difficulties. My late friend would have been interested in all of these setups, especially the facial tracking. Thank you for sharing this.
Great point on the Xbox Adaptive Controller — the open source hardware angle makes this even more important. If manufacturers can remotely disable devices, open alternatives become critical infrastructure.
There are several Twitch streamers with similar setups.
It's discouraging when they haven't streamed for a while like NoHandsKen, though I'm surprised to not find any evidence of a couple streams 3-6 months ago.
Glad he gets to do so.
this sort of digital accessibility fascinates me. I'd love to get into working in that field.
curious how playability handles the false positive problem with expressions though, involuntary facial movements must trigger inputs constantly
King shit.
[flagged]
This is great!
Years ago, a buddy of mine was in a car accident and broke his arm. He was then banned for using keyboard remapping software so he could keep playing one-handed. It always bothered me that some game companies treated any modification as cheating, regardless of why it was being used.
I’ve always wondered how developers balance anti-cheat systems with accessibility. Sometimes the same tools can be used for both. It’s encouraging to see companies giving players more flexibility and recognizing that not everyone interacts with games the same way.
Gaming should be about skill and creativity, not whether your body happens to fit the default input scheme.
[flagged]
Please don't do this here.
C'mon, it's Father's Day in the US. You're not down for a dad joke, even in Father's Day?
There's a genre for everything these days glad he found a niche he enjoys.