The Gamer Life

Photo Description: Codee sitting on a green chair with computer screens behind them, wearing a gaming headset. Smiling with a thumbs up.

I’ve always been into video games. Not so far in that I’ll buy every game on the market, but I do enjoy losing myself in a game. It started with Tetris on my uncle’s original gameboy. Followed by experiences with those Amstrad computers with a monstrous screen and a cassette deck that made so much noise when loading a game, that you couldn’t be a sneak and play after bed time. Later I got my first console, also made by Amstrad and I was gifted an Atari console shortly thereafter. My college years were spent playing the original Playstation 1. Somewhere I remember a PS2 sitting on my desk but I’ve also owned the Xbox 360, a Sony PSP and multiple Nintendo DS systems. Nintendo was finally the system I settled with and currently play on the Nintendo Switch. 

Why Nintendo? Well, it’s the console that’s the most accessible for me. Nintendo and their partners have a tendency to create bright, colorful games with just enough detail where it looks good. But not so much detail that I, with my 5% remaining eyesight can’t process what’s on screen. Also the Switch’s ability to play docked or handheld is great when you’re chronically ill and can’t always sit at a desk. 

I’ve played all the fun games from MarioKart to Lego Harry Potter. Got myself addicted to Animal Crossing New Horizons and MineCraft and lately you can find me with my head buried in Stardew Valley or Paleo Pines. I love the cozy games. They’re the ones that allow me to take myself far away from the real world and enter a completely chill state. 

I’ve had my fair share of uncomfortable experiences while gaming. People on the internet can be as cruel as they can be kind and often present me with awkward questions. As do people in the real world who don’t know me very well. 

‘How do you do that if you can’t see’? 

‘You’re blind, you can’t possibly know that you’re being attacked by a spider’. 

‘Blind people can’t play games’. 

Ummm… yes, yes we can. There’s even a large online community of blind gamers. 

I love when people tell me I can’t do something. Instead of retaliating with anger and frustration, I tend to do radical things. In this case I put my iPad in an iPad tripod, plonked it in front of my computer screen and went live on Facebook while playing MineCraft. Alright, Facebook is mostly filled with family and friends but I do have Facebook friends that I’ve never met in real life. The response I got was so positive that I spent 2 hours live while my cousin was in the chatbox helping me with the game. My viewers were entertained and some quickly asked when I would go live again. 

I did, a few times, each being more successful than the last. There was just one thing I didn’t enjoy. Staring at the game via the iPad screen. I had to sit in weird positions to do so and it was causing pain. So I stopped. 

Several months later I was gifted a laptop. This gracious gift set off a little spark of excitement in my head. Was there an affordable capture card I could use to live stream on Twitch? My birthday brought me the answer I was hoping for and a couple weeks after the celebration was over, I became a Twitch streamer. 

My body won’t let me do it as often as I would like. Streaming requires me to sit at my desk. Doing this daily, or even weekly isn’t achievable. I do try to keep some consistency in my streams though. Once every 2 weeks works and if I ever have time and energy to do streams in between, that’s a viewer’s bonus! 

So far I’ve streamed Mario Kart, MineCraft, DC League of Super Pets, Paleo Pines and now we’re on a Stardew Valley run. I consider myself a cozy streamer as the games of choice are mostly simulators of some description. While cozy is comfortable, I often take myself out of that comfort zone while live, by explaining what I can see and how I play when something isn’t visible to me. I easily get lost in open world games such as Minecraft and Paleo Pines but finding my way home has become a source of entertainment for my viewers. When I miss details I turn up the volume to see if something I missed has a sound linked to it. When I make a mess, I restart and try again.

Everything I play, is done by paying attention to sounds, the haptic feedback from the controller and the little bit of vision I have left. Sound needs to be loud as my hearing is almost as wonky as my eyesight. I often wear headphones as that makes the sound clearer than using speakers. I’ve discovered wired controllers don’t have vibration and haptic feedback. I also hate using the joy cons while playing docked, so I have cheap wireless controllers that get the job done. When the Switch is docked, it’s connected to a 27 inch curved monitor. I can only see in a straight line in front of me. I have very little peripheral vision and can’t control my eyes well enough to look sideways. The curve in the monitor compensates for this and it’s a gaming monitor, so brighter than a normal TV.  

With tips from other streamers such as SneakyBadgerUK, I’ve learned more about the technical side of streaming. I gained tips for setting up OBS, the app I use to stream with and also learned how to stream to both Twitch and Youtube at the same time. This has helped me grow my audience and although my viewer count is still tiny, I know it will only get better as time goes on. Besides, if I can reach at least one person and make a difference in their day, I’ve done what I set out to achieve.

The Gamer Life may look a little different for me. I’m not 20 anymore. Compared to other, more popular streamers, I’m a dinosaur. But the joy I get from playing games and sharing my world with the internet keeps my head and my heart exactly where I need them!