Channel 4 have just released an inspiring Paralympic promotional video like no other I've seen. Just click on one of the pictures above to view it. The Olympics arrives next Friday, and the Paralympics from the 29th of August. I'm hugely looking forward to them especially the Danny Boyle opening ceremony to kick it all off.
Meanwhile get involved from the comfort of your home with the Game Base Video Olympicks 2012 and follow the C4 Paralympics blog to learn much more.
His site presently has seven free PC games, many of which can be played using one-switch, "one-key" (aka binary one-switch input where brief taps are enough to play) or pointer controls. If you can use a point and click compatible device, hovering over the web-site's blue human symbol helps to tell you a bit about what controls are supported. Very useful, and I wish more people did this.
Some of the games are not suitable for work or the easily offended ("Droopy Dick's Blow Job" perhaps being one of them). Others, such as AMAZE-O-TRON-2000 game, are suitable for any age.
The game I've been most impressed by is Tam's latest title "City Sniper Shoot-Out". This reminds me a bit of Dirty Harry and a bit of a SEGA Virtua-Cop type game but with cartoon graphics and really brilliant accessibility features.
Rob Fearon's OW:Videogames review: "For those who prefer to stare people to death, headtrackers are supported along with mice", made me wonder about a Scanners type eye-gaze or mind-control game. I might mention that to Tam.
Finally and linked to that, Tam has made an open call for ideas for accessible games that he might then go and make. Top man.
Mark Heath has created a really nice chin mountable system for controlling Remote Control vehicles. It uses an adapted Wii nunchuk controller hacked into a standard R/C controller.This great video showcases a monster truck, where the owner has sourced a really good looking chin mount.Originally seen on the SpecialEffect GameBase. Reminds me a tiny bit of this chin-mounted Scalextric post from years ago.
Half-silvered mirrors. That could be the solution. Previously I'd been wondering about getting eye-gaze and more versatile switch control over console games, having a Heads Up Display to assist. Seems this could be easier now than I'd previously thought. Three steps...
1. Getting PC compatible controls to take control of an Xbox 360/PS3 seems possible already (via an XIM 3 or Cronus adapter). That's potentially great news. The PC has by far the largest range of compatible accessible controllers and controller utilities of any platform. How well this works needs to be proven through more testing.
2. Getting key PC graphics such as the mouse pointer on top of a games console image may be less expensive than I feared, stops your eyes having to dance between two screens rapidly, and makes eye-gaze control feasible.
I wondered about using professional HDMI video mixing technology until "Georgli" on the Accessible GameBase forum had the inspired idea of using half-silvered glass mounted at 45 degrees between a console monitor and PC monitor (see the video below). This is a slight variation on an old coin-op arcade game trick used to make basic black and white displays more appealing in the 1970s (see the Space Invaders picture above). Not sure how well this would work, but it's got to be worth a try.
Things needed? Some carpentry skills, a half-silvered (aka two-way) mirror such as from Mirror World, two identical monitors, with at least one that can reverse flip it's image across the horizontal plane (via a PC graphics card if not).
3. Test playing to see how well it works in practice. It would be great to see this become a reality for players, and maybe there's a chance that the likes of 4Noah switch utilities, anti-tremor devices, head-trackers and eye-trackers will be enabled more people to play console games. It's likely that head-tracker and eye-gaze users will need something like Alt-Controller or Mouse Raider to get greater control. Looking forward to finding out.
NERF make some nice toys. Gavin Philips first brought Nerf Guns to my attention with his superb work at the Switch It Up (previously AbleGames) events.
Their Thunderstorm Super Soaker battery powered water-pistols are great too, and pretty simple to adapt for switch access once you know how. Here's probably the simplest guide I've written.
1. Remove all screws. Prise the casing open.
2. Drill a hole for your switch socket above the spring as pictured.
3. Carefully drill a hole at the bottom right of the battery compartment, as pictured (next to the blue dot), to expose the negative battery terminal.
4. Connect one side of the socket to the red wire, and the other to the exposed negative battery terminal.
5. Reassemble. Put the two long screws either side of the water cartridge.
Test. If there's any problems with constant operation, try removing the loose clear plastic rocker mechanism. Have fun!
Fruit Ninja Kapow is Don Calaca's C1ic.mx's one-switch take on the Half-brick instant classic. Click to slash fruit, try to slash multiple-fruit with one-slash and avoid bombs. On-line and free. Simple.
For alternatives, hunt down Half-brick originals for Xbox Kinect or iOS devices. Recommend taking a look at these SpecialEffect and AbleGamers videos to get an idea of just how accessible this game is. See also this cause and effect one-switch melon smashing idea.
