Helping disabled gamers play Minecraft

I can lose myself in again and my disability is not matter and I could just be myself I don’t have to worry about I know what people think about me I can do things in my games that I could never do in real life for me it’s not

Just about playing games for pleasure but you’re the deaf but now Dewey’s gonna gather this feels like I can always play I’m very good at high gaze I think which is my superpower this is Becky Tyler she has quadriplegic cerebral palsy I can’t sit up on my own and I can’t stand

Up for balance or walk I find it hard to eat and I can’t talk with my mouth that hasn’t stopped her from doing the thing she loves more than anything else playing video games when I am playing again I feel happy I can lose myself in again and forget about my worries and

Troubles Gaming takes me to different places and gives me different experiences to explore it gives me different ways to be creative Becky talks through her computer and controls everything using a system called I gaze it’s a combination of head and eye tracking linked to her computer

I find it quite cheesy but it takes a bit of practice using the device Becky can play games like The Sims communicate with friends she can do her homework even paint pictures but perhaps most impressively the 15 year old has been helping develop a system allowing almost

Anyone to control one of the world’s most popular games using only their eyes I feel very happy if I have helped lots of disabled people like me to play Minecraft for the first time Minecraft is a global phenomenon the game is sold around 150 million copies and hit a new record in December 2017 when nearly 75 million people logged in to play the game but for people with severe physical disability this hugely popular game has been unplayable now a

UK charity with the help of Becky has changed that using a combination of affordable hardware and free open source software it’s called imine what it means in a nutshell is that anyone who can simply move their eyes will be able to play minecraft I’m McDonough gonne founder and CEO

Special effects the right to play is actually one of UNICEF’s rights of the child alongside the right to be safe at cetera being able to play video games it is probably one of the most inclusive uses of technology that you could possibly imagine it immediately puts them on a level playing field with

Everyone else and they can fly and they can run making the special effect team have helped hundreds of physically disabled people in the UK to access gaming and thousands more worldwide by offering advice and free software the team combine a mixture of software development hardware modification and homes theraphy support to build systems

That allow people like becky to play video games I wanted to give people a way to play civilly Sable people way to play but they are able to play at the highest possible level Becky for example is infinitely better just with their eyes than are ever be with a joypad the

Technology of AI mind isn’t you but the developments that Mick’s team have made mean is cheaper than any other system available about the tenth of the price of similar devices and it’s designed to be used by anyone I’m casement know I work with special effect as a developer

And in particular looking at I gaze the eye tracking camera looks out and follows your eyes tracks them with an infrared light on them and this allows the camera to work out where you’re looking on the screen the software then allows you to select things just by

Looking at the button that you want and then on top of that we’ve modified minecraft to make it much easier to make certain complex actions accessible by our single click and integrated this way and I dragon keyboard the system allows people with the most serious spinal injuries or severe

Involuntary body movement to control the game the charity estimate than more than two and a half million people in Europe alone now have the opportunity to play Minecraft and the potential for other uses of systems like AI mine are causing huge excitement I hated the movement I

Can I can control so being able to control something with the eyes is absolutely amazing my name is Ajay Yadav and I have spinal muscular atrophy Ajay was an avid gamer when he was growing up playing regularly with friends at home but spinal muscular atrophy means his

Muscles deteriorate and by the time he reached his late teens he lacked the strength to play computer games anymore that was extremely disappointing because I had some friends used to come behind him I could watch them playing and obviously watching someone do something that you can’t do this it’s not a nice

Feeling it’s very quite upsetting there are parts of AJ’s life that are familiar he went to the University of East London where he studied information systems and now he has a job in the IT department of a charity in London but where most of us are working for the weekend it was

Filling free time that AJ struggled with the most it must be a time as a disabled person not being able to get out no being able to socialize you know being able to do a lot of things due to you know access restrictions or you know having support gaming needs to be

Something which I knew I could turn to to to find some entertainment in them and unfortunately I couldn’t find anything for many years until my special place I wasn’t playing as a stylist it was absolutely amazing I mean try playing call of duty and I’m a big fan of

College if you love those types of games and being able to actually move demand around using the analog stick where controller I was at oh my god give it like I can actually do this now this is gonna happen when the furbling gaming has to back up all my life will try and

Loss using a combination of mouse control simple triggers attached to his chair and voice commands Ajay can play all sorts of games it’s definitely social network to some degree because as insane person I don’t feel part of the big Network you know them I’m not able to do a lot of things

It’s a various reasons supporting yeah access sensation of being able to play video games and be part of that network for me it’s the social side of video games that is often missed by people who don’t play them it’s particularly important to disabled gamers they don’t

Have to know about my disability and I usually don’t tell them and I could just be myself I don’t have to worry about I know what people think about me when I play online I am anonymous and no one sees my disability so I feel the same as

Everyone else which is amazing it is one of the few times that my disability is invisible and like it is not matter I can play games independently or by myself which means I get to decide how to play the game and nobody tells me

What to do it means I feel the same as other people who played the games and I don’t feel different because of my disabilities unlike most parents Becky’s mom fiona sees her daughter playing games for hours in her bedroom as a good thing I’m really just grateful that

She’s got this technology and I don’t limit scream I’m because it’s the one thing she can do when there’s so much that she can’t do I don’t mind her telling me to go away I actually quite like that she is developing her own independence and that

And her own attitude she’s very much got the teenager attitude going I just think it’s great a few months ago I enjoyed playing The Hunger Games challenge with my sins and I liked finding different ways to kill enough things were difficult when she was younger so it was

Hard very hard to imagine what life was going to be like as she grew up but I’m really excited about how life is panning out for her now AJ’s also found that gaming has strengthened relationships in his life taking my nephew and came to love playing games so I thought I can do

Something confidently do things which uncool in the future when I want to but for me I knew I can do this if quality time and it makes you feel included adds as a person as an uncle and someone who’s a member of family a t-top the games I love playing the

First-person shooters and sports games since I was a child when I was void wanted to do to be like a soldier to kind of reenact that just you know be something which I can I dream of is this it’s great and the same with sports games I’m a big

Football fan I love watching football and he’s really being able to play it makes me feel pass over reality which I know physically in the real worlds but acontece there are a massive number of devices people with disabilities are able to use to access technology recently special effects were part of a

Team working with gaming giant Microsoft on a new accessible controller system for their flagship console the Xbox one and Windows 10 there will be more games that are more accessible from the outset and I genuinely believe that’s going to happen it’s a win-win all around not only can

More people play the game but also you make more sales the Xbox adaptive controller launches in September is slated to cost less than 100 pounds and Microsoft has announced that it wants the device to be compatible with rival systems from Sony and Nintendo but gaming is a vastly profitable industry

More than 2 billion gamers worldwide are expected to spend close to a hundred and forty billion dollars this year AJ and Becky think developers with these huge resources just aren’t doing enough for disabled gamers I would like games to be more inclusive to disabled people I would really like it if there were

Disabled people in the Sims this would make the game more realistic and help disabled people like me to feel like we were included game developers and console manufacturers are not fully aware of the needs of many disabled people out there it could make a huge difference to a lot of disabled people

Where the possibility to do it if they could include that then make the same people who play games but thanks to this technology AJ and Becky can experience some new worlds and be the hero in their own stories I can do things in my games that I could never do in real life You you