Tag Archives: Games Charity

Train2Game News SpecialEffect help Ben back in the game

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SpecialEffectSpecialEffect, the gamers charity, have recently helped a young man named Ben to be able to play video games for the first time.

Ben, who has spinal muscular atrophy, never thought he’d be able to play video games. He’d found out about SpecialEffect online and told his parents, but they hadn’t said much. It turned out they’d subsequently arranged a visit to the charity in Oxfordshire without telling him, so one morning in April they took him for ‘a bit of a drive’ and an hour or so later, to his absolute surprise, he found himself in their games room.

“I’ve never played a proper computer game,” he said. “I’ve always watched my friends play. Games are important to me because I can’t go out and play football like other kids so I do it on a computer screen.”

Ben uses a joystick to drive his wheelchair and control his PC at home, so the dev team from SpecialEffect bluetoothed it to a laptop so it could act as the left gaming stick for games like FIFA and Grand Turismo. They also rigged up a selection of light-touch switches and connected them into the PlayStation via a couple of interfaces.

The end result is that Ben’s able to play on the PS3 for the first time ever, and he’s barrelling into a range of games including Gran Turismo, FIFA and Minecraft. The equipment he needs has been lent to him, and now he’s one very happy gamer.

“It’s good because I get the same amount of fun as they do. I can do everything on it and it’s amazing”

This is just one of many stories from an amazing charity that deserves continued support from as many people as possible.

You can view Ben’s story below

Train2Game News: SpecialEffect Case – Reece

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Reece is 9 years old and has Cerebral Palsy. He is crazy about football, but has struggled to play with his Dad at games like FIFA using a standard controller.

We met Reece at a SpecialEffectRoadShow in Coventry where he tried out a controller which enabled him to play independently with his Dad.

Reece and his father visited the GamesRoom in April during the Easter holidays to try out some different Xbox360 controller set-ups, specifically looking at ways he could play football games. Standard controllers are too small for Reece to as he finds it hard to control his fine movements. We tried out controllers with larger joysticks he could grip more easily and larger buttons he could press more accurately.

Reece is currently borrowing a larger controller through the SpecialEffect Loan Library which enables him to have greater control over the players’ movement, kicking, tackling etc. Reece and his Dad visited the GamesRoom again mid-June to try out a more customised layout and that looks like the route we’ll take. We’re going to order some equipment to lend to him. Reece and his Dad will return to our GamesRoom for us to tweak the set-up and look at accessing other games.

 
Don’t forget you can help SpecialEffectby simply watching the video below and sharing it out. We can get this video to 25,000 by December 25.