Hi people, I currently have two friends who have issues with their dominant arm and 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…
For the friend who enjoys BG3, you can play Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous pretty much entirely with the mouse. The base game is 90% off on steam right now too.
Pathfinder has a massive learning curve compared to DnD 5e though, but that just means you can get an extra 50 hours of entertainment out of the game before you start the story, just by figuring out all the options when creating your character lol
Edit: whoops, seems like the steam spring sale just ended. The game is still absolutely worth it at full price though
Puyo Puyo Champions has a one-handed controller preset. D-pad or ABXY to move, shoulder buttons to rotate.
Only caveat is that if you want to play online, only the Switch version is actively populated, so I can’t recommend the game on any other platform.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 is basically just more BG3 (though with less production quality) so that should be right up your RPG-loving friend’s alley. Turn based combat and click-to-move lets you play the whole thing with just your mouse I’m pretty sure.
One really handy thing with the Steam Deck is the ability to remap all of the buttons (as well as the two paddles on the back for each hand), so one could probably make a decent one-handed control setup for 99% of turn-based games. Even ones that require the use of the mouse, given the Deck’s touchpads.
Vampire Survivors requires nothing except the stick/dpad outside of menus (and I’m pretty sure you can use the touchscreen for menus, too).
If your friend(s) are stuck using the dpad, it might not be suitable, but Crypt of the Necrodancer only requires four buttons or left, right, up, and down (and you can assign buttons for the button combos normally required to do things like use bombs). This assumes that they like rhythm games.
I second Vampire Survivors
I remember that the dev of Legend of Grimrock added an option for movement with the mouse because a disabled gamer wanted to play. Maybe that second friend should check that and the 2nd game out.
Using a mouse with your non dominant hand is annoying…
Yeah, for PC they’ll probably have to grit their teeth and power through the discomfort. An alternative is getting a hand in some old emulated games. Anything from the NES era can be mapped to 4 movements + 4 buttons (start, select, A, B), which on a keyboard could be WASD + Q, E, R and F. Dunno how to set something similar on a Deck.
Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee both support single hand mode.
So left hand only games… driving games should work(enjoying NFS heat, atm), turn based games and isometric RPGs (plenty of those, depends on preferences… Balatro, slay the spire, XCOM, disco Elysium, etc… I could make a list if needed).
Telltale games like the wolf among us and stuff
Vampire survivors and all the similar games (halls of torment, brotato, soulstone survivors, etc)
Ben Heck made a couple of one handed controllers a few years ago. One of these controllers might open up more games than remapping buttons.
I went through the same thing a while back
I played a lot of turn based RPGs
Rafa Nadal is right handed and plays left handed. If someone has issues with a non-dominant hand then it’s time to start making the other one dominant.
for most games you need two hands though ;)
Try to read the post again, “having issues with an arm” doesn’t sound as simple as you might think…
Just FYI, there are a number of controllers out there for people who only have the use of one hand that are relatively cheap. I don’t always have the use of both hands, and I can definitely say that it’s possible to learn to use regular controllers effectively one handed as well. Once did a live stream specifically to show people what it’s like and how to do it. Both the Logitech F710 and the 8Bitdo Pro 2 work really well in my opinion. People have laughed at me, but the 8bitdo Zero 2 surprisingly works really well too, but is much more limited for inputs and thus, more suited to retro games.
Have they tried narrative games like the ones from Telltale, Dontnod, … ?
Caves of Qud is keyboard only option (no mouse), mostly just need wasd. Definitely an atypical RPG but very fun all the same.
Atomic Heart
One Finger Death Punch and One Finger Death Punch 2
What more is there to say? The reason why that works perfectly is already in the title of the game.
Caution: this game is addictive
