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How I play video games with spinal muscular atrophy

156 pointsby dannyobrienlast Thursday at 6:45 PM20 commentsview on HN

Comments

VonGuardtoday at 4:01 PM

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/

throwaway2037today at 3:34 AM

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.

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PetitPrincetoday at 7:42 AM

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

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cobbzillatoday at 4:10 AM

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?

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Firehawketoday at 5:49 AM

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.

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DigiEggztoday at 4:25 AM

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.

password4321today at 2:49 AM

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.

ElenaDaibunnytoday at 10:24 AM

curious how playability handles the false positive problem with expressions though, involuntary facial movements must trigger inputs constantly

Boom890last Thursday at 7:00 PM

Glad he gets to do so.

blinkbatlast Thursday at 6:48 PM

King shit.

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senectus1today at 1:06 AM

this sort of digital accessibility fascinates me. I'd love to get into working in that field.

dbg31415today at 12:58 AM

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kQq9oHeAz6wLLStoday at 1:25 AM

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