Taking time to get gaming right for Suzanne
Wednesday, September 11th, 2024
Image above: Eight carefully placed switches and two joysticks help Suzanne tackle games like Wolfenstein.
Test, tweak, rinse and repeat. Our specialist assessment team are making sure that Suzanne gets off to the best possible start with her gaming thanks to a series of support calls, visits and ongoing adjustments to her personalised accessible gaming setup.
Suzanne has a spinal cord injury that limits the use of her lower and upper body movement. She can move her shoulders and arms, but has no finger movement to use a standard gamepad. She was keen to explore the world of gaming but wasn’t sure where to start.
Our team had an initial video call with her to find out more about the extent of her physical abilities and her gaming ambitions. Based on the information, our experienced team curated and sent Suzanne an initial loan of a customised accessible controller setup for an Xbox One that they considered would potentially help her to access and enjoy games like Sonic, Streets of Rage and Forza Horizon 5 to the best of her abilities.
The setup, which included a lap tray with four buttons and a joystick, provided a gaming breakthrough for Suzanne, but she struggled with the positioning of the tech, especially the joystick. Our team decided that a home visit would allow them to look at possible improvements in more detail.
Home visits often give the team more opportunity to identify and experiment with the control potential of body movements that might be less evident through a video call, and as a result they added a mounting arm that put the joystick in the same position as Suzanne’s wheelchair joystick where it was easier to use. They also positioned button switches alongside Suzanne’s controllable movement in her head and arms to enable her to try out games such as Street Fighter, As Dusk Falls, and The Quarry.
The extra equipment proved to be a real boost to Suzanne’s gaming skills and gave her an appetite to try more complex titles, so another home visit was arranged that gave the team the chance to see if they could bring a second joystick into the mix. After discussing and trialling various options with Suzanne, they decided on the loan of a chin-controlled joystick. They also swapped the functions of her forearm switch and added an extra switch to her headrest for left and right movement.
Suzanne now has a controller setup that features eight switches and two joysticks, and it’s opened up access to a huge range of games for her to enjoy. “I just wanted to say thank you for introducing me into something I can actively do,” she emailed recently.
It often takes time to get a gaming controller setup just right, especially for people with complex disabilities, but we’re more than happy to take on the challenge. And the specialist expertise, tenacity and resources that this requires only exists because of your wonderful fundraising, so thank you again for the bottom of our hearts for your support, it’s truly appreciated!