Games that are optimized for mouse & keyboard! My favorite!
ASTRONEER is a really lovely co-op game that left me in the dust. Through my boyfriend and I's romp, I would say the majority of his 20+ hour playtime was... discovering new material, making new equipment, just generally having a really awesome time with the game. Meanwhile, it wasn't until about hour 14 that I finally stopped complaining about how (ironically) alienating this game is.
Look. Console experiences aren't perfect or anything, I'm not saying that. But ever since I stopped using my PS4 as my primary gaming device, video games have started to relentessly remind me that I'm disabled.
Shocking, I know. Earth shattering information here; PC gaming has a really big accessibility problem. Personally the most aggravating thing is that, for whatever reason, Steam refuses to believe that I'm using a Dualshock controller. Don't know why! It just does!
This internal confusion means every time I pick up a game on Steam, I have to recalibrate. Rerouting my mental button layout to whatever weird controller Steam mistakenly believes I'm using. Some games get the memo... ASTRONEER didn't.
ASTRONEER really, really didn't. It is not as bad as ABZÛ - nothing will ever be as bad as ABZÛ - but it sure comes close. Every time I opened ASTRONEER, I had to spend a good 5-10 minutes remembering what button did what. On its own, this is frustrating beyond belief - factor in the cooperation play here and the collaboration effort. Imagine you're me, someone who physically can't use M&K due to fine motor control issues and is really struggling because of that, watching your boyfriend in the distance (literally, on another planet) having oodles of fun.
Yeah. It stings.
All in all, I really liked ASTRONEER but I am very obviously not the intended audience. PC-first games have... physical expectations of their playerbase, I've come to find, and ASTRONEER is one of the most glaring examples I've found.
(Yes, I understand that there is some personal under-the-hood adjustments that can be made here - as in, fixes to the Steam client itself and not the games - but because of my learning disability aka bad-at-information and mechanical problem solving brain, I don't know how to implement those fixes either. ¯\(ツ)/¯ )
Beyond my very many grievances with ASTRONEER'S accessibility, the game itself is cute. Nearly a co-op experience dream.
Admittedly, its very real world building and collision system is... odd, to say the least. The game doesn't play fair whatsoever. We both had our odd encounters with the game's luck, got stranded, suffocated through no fault of our own, etc.
Crafting completely went over my head and I was delegated to the 'brawn' of our duo. Or, uh, the delivery boy. I didn't understand what any of the equipment on our base did, no. Nonetheless, I do know how to mine! (Allegedly!)
Obviously I got burnt out pretty quickly for all the aforementioned reasons. I do think I'll return to ASTRONEER, whenever my blood pressure has lowered and I'm not at risk of bursting a blood vessel.
ASTRONEER is a really lovely co-op game that left me in the dust. Through my boyfriend and I's romp, I would say the majority of his 20+ hour playtime was... discovering new material, making new equipment, just generally having a really awesome time with the game. Meanwhile, it wasn't until about hour 14 that I finally stopped complaining about how (ironically) alienating this game is.
Look. Console experiences aren't perfect or anything, I'm not saying that. But ever since I stopped using my PS4 as my primary gaming device, video games have started to relentessly remind me that I'm disabled.
Shocking, I know. Earth shattering information here; PC gaming has a really big accessibility problem. Personally the most aggravating thing is that, for whatever reason, Steam refuses to believe that I'm using a Dualshock controller. Don't know why! It just does!
This internal confusion means every time I pick up a game on Steam, I have to recalibrate. Rerouting my mental button layout to whatever weird controller Steam mistakenly believes I'm using. Some games get the memo... ASTRONEER didn't.
ASTRONEER really, really didn't. It is not as bad as ABZÛ - nothing will ever be as bad as ABZÛ - but it sure comes close. Every time I opened ASTRONEER, I had to spend a good 5-10 minutes remembering what button did what. On its own, this is frustrating beyond belief - factor in the cooperation play here and the collaboration effort. Imagine you're me, someone who physically can't use M&K due to fine motor control issues and is really struggling because of that, watching your boyfriend in the distance (literally, on another planet) having oodles of fun.
Yeah. It stings.
All in all, I really liked ASTRONEER but I am very obviously not the intended audience. PC-first games have... physical expectations of their playerbase, I've come to find, and ASTRONEER is one of the most glaring examples I've found.
(Yes, I understand that there is some personal under-the-hood adjustments that can be made here - as in, fixes to the Steam client itself and not the games - but because of my learning disability aka bad-at-information and mechanical problem solving brain, I don't know how to implement those fixes either. ¯\(ツ)/¯ )
Beyond my very many grievances with ASTRONEER'S accessibility, the game itself is cute. Nearly a co-op experience dream.
Admittedly, its very real world building and collision system is... odd, to say the least. The game doesn't play fair whatsoever. We both had our odd encounters with the game's luck, got stranded, suffocated through no fault of our own, etc.
Crafting completely went over my head and I was delegated to the 'brawn' of our duo. Or, uh, the delivery boy. I didn't understand what any of the equipment on our base did, no. Nonetheless, I do know how to mine! (Allegedly!)
Obviously I got burnt out pretty quickly for all the aforementioned reasons. I do think I'll return to ASTRONEER, whenever my blood pressure has lowered and I'm not at risk of bursting a blood vessel.