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One-handed games?

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...

80 comments

  • 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.

  • 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.

    • I have a couple Nagas and they’re excellent!

      • 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. :-/

  • 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

  • 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. 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

80 comments