Hi people, I currently have two friends who injured their dominant arm in unrelated accidents and mostly can’t do anything but sit around and watch movies.

I’d like to gift them some games to play with just one hand. Not the hentai variant, but something to keep them occupied with.

Both own a steam deck. One is more into cozy games like Dorfromantik and the other into RPGs like BG3.

One Finger Death Punch would be a good example as you can remap controls so you only need to press left and right on the D-Pad, but both of them don’t really like that game.

Do you know any games which can be played with one hand, preferably a controller or Steam deck? Using a mouse with your non dominant hand is annoying…

  • OpenPassageways@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    Simple two button games like Divekick can be played with one thumb if you want. It’s Steam Deck verified.

  • Abnorc@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    7 days ago

    Crypt of the Necrodancer is great fun if they don’t have it already.

  • disposabletentacle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    871·
    8 days ago

    I don’t understand. You have two friends, each with a good arm, that’s two good arms. Tape your friends together and have them coordinate and BAM: two-handed gaming.

    • Helix 🧬@feddit.orgOPEnglish
      12·
      8 days ago

      sadly they live 80km apart from each other, and both are right handed, so they couldn’t face each other while playing. We’d need a pretty weird dual-monitor setup if we’d tape them together.

    • Socket462@feddit.itEnglish
      71·
      8 days ago

      That sounds like a good plot for an episode in a tv show. I sense potential here. Haha

    • wia@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      8 days ago

      My SO and I died this during a stream once. I don’t know why lol.

      We played Hades. I was right, she was left. It started as a joke but we actually made it decently far lol.

  • Riley@lemmy.mlEnglish
    42·
    8 days ago

    You might be interested in the videos made by Champutee, a one-armed gamer who has done several experiments with both genres and controllers to continue enjoying gaming.

  • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    16·
    8 days ago

    XCom and XCom 2 can be played entirely with the mouse. Minor typing if you want to name your soldiers, but nothing requires quick reflexes. Everything is turn based.

    There’s an older breakout style game on steam called Shatter that can be played entirely with the mouse and has a banger soundtrack and neat visual style.

    Emulation opens up a lot of options for old school turn based games. RPGs, turn based strategy. Any of the Pokemon games gen 1-3 can be played one handed with some clever button mapping. Any game made to use just the Wii-mote as a pointer would also work, but I don’t know those off the top of my head.

    You might want to look into one handed controllers, or something like the FLIR USB dongle that you can use to map IR TV remote signals to keyboard button presses. Just need to use a remote that doesn’t already control something.

  • rockerface 🇺🇦@lemm.eeEnglish
    15·
    8 days ago

    Balatro is turn-based and is easy enough to control. I myself play on mobile, but Steam Deck shouldn’t be very different.

    • y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      I’m interested and for $3 I thinnill give it a shot. How does this compare to rimworld, as they look similar?

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        I hadn’t played so I just checked out a beginner’s guide and I don’t think they’re very similar at all.

        In FTL you’re pretty much going from point to point on a map which mostly have encounters with single ships. You try to collect resources for upgrades or new weapons. At shops you can repair or buy things, and you’ll find new crew members there or organically through events. There are a few different ways to do combat (different kinds of guns/missiles, drones, or boarding enemy ships), and everything builds to a boss battle in the final sector.

        I’m sure there are some vids that can lay out the basics in a few mins, but if it sounds anything like a genre you’re interested in I’d say 3 bucks is a steal for it. As a roguelike it’s got a lot of replayability.

      • FooBarrington@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 days ago

        Especially with the Multiverse mod!

        (though it’s much harder to install on Linux than it has any right to be)

          • FooBarrington@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            7 days ago

            You’re welcome! I’ve played it a bunch, it’s essentially FTL 1.5 and extremely well made. Hope you have fun playing it!

            In case you’re running on Linux, be warned that you might have to add a SELinux exception. Hit me up if that’s the case, I’ll try to find the commands.

  • Bananobanza@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    8 days ago

    If they have a keyboard and are into turn-based role playing games then I can recommend Caves of Qud. It has a bit of a learning curve but once you get the hang of it starts to open up and it’s just incredible!

      • gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com
        2·
        8 days ago

        The objective is to make sure you have enough supplies to survive for as long as you can while making it across America to a place safe from zombies.

        I believe the goal is ultimately to get to Canada (I haven’t played in a while) but I might be mixing it up with Death Road to Canada, which is similar in premise but probably not something you could play one-handed.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    8 days ago

    If this is a long term thing, you might consider a left handed gaming mouse with programmable side keys.

    I hate to recommend Razer cuz their build quality has taken an absolute nose dive, but the only one I know of is the Razer Naga: https://www.razer.com/gaming-mice/razer-naga-left-handed-edition/rz01-03410100-r3m1

    Setting some of the side keys as WASD and the usual surrounding support keys (Q, E, R F, G, X, C) and you can play almost any game one-handed.

    The learning curve to get your brain to accept mouse movement and clicks with your left hand is annoying as fuck though.

      • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        7 days ago

        Good to hear.

        I’ve had 4 - the 1st was around 2012 I think, and it was fucking amazing.

        The second was around 2016, and even before plugging it in, it felt cheap. Actually using it, problems started popping up like measles in a red state - one of the side buttons stopped working, scroll wheel was janky.

        The 3rd was around 2016, after exchanging the second via RMA. The L-click button was super fucked up right out of the box - it’d do this annoying thing where you push it down once, and like multiple clicks would register (the internet called it the ‘double click issue’ but was was WAY more than double… happened when I was using some art software and I’d have to ctrl+z like 10 times to clear all the actions it registered from a single click).

        4th was around 2016, after exchanging the third via RMA >_< it made it a couple weeks without incident, but just when I thought I was in the clear, the cursor started jumping upwards a shit-ton randomly, which was hell trying to click-and-drag on anything. Then the internal LEDs went out (oh well, don’t really care if it’s pretty, but did like being able to see it in the dark). Then the double click thing started again.

        Dealt with that for a while cuz I couldn’t afford to replace it and was tired of dealing with Razer’s customer service.

        Then I joined the Air Force and didn’t have any time at all to game, so kinda fall out of the scene for a bit.

        Separated around 2020, got myself a Corsair Scimitar, and lived happily ever after. Doesn’t come in lefty though. :-/

  • Die4Ever@programming.devEnglish
    9·
    8 days ago

    I guess games like Monkey Island (1 to 3, and Return, the 3D ones would be harder) could work using the touch screen or touchpad working as a mouse