Left-Handed Mode

Feature Requests Avatars
1

This is not about circuits or building whatsoever but this has been bugging me a lot ever since I started using VR on Rec room. As someone who is left handed, there are some small things that are annoying to handle.

  1. Movement and rotations: Ever since I’ve gotten much more into lasertag I’ve found that switching my moving joystick and rotation joystick is much more enjoyable than the preset one. However, I didn’t know this until one of my friends offered the idea months later. Unfortunately, I had to relearn everything and even though my gameplay is much better, I feel like it’d be better to give players a more announced option (maybe even in orientation), so they don’t have to change it months later. HOWEVER, I am aware some left-handed people may enjoy their joystick controls just the way they are. A custom mode would just be nice as well.
  2. Items & Weapons: As being left-handed comes with trial, so does the difficulty with weapons. For one, I always have to switch the hand I hold a weapon with when I spawn (in lasertag and paintball for example), and it’s even worse when I play a PVP and the item is stuck on my right hand (and yes, there have been games where I’m unable to change it altogether). With a mode, a player would immediately spawn with a weapon with their left hand and avoid the awkwardness of switching it.
  3. Menus? - More hesitant on this one since it hasn’t been an issue. I don’t know if the menu should be flipped, but it could be something to consider (maybe ask other lefties on a forum?).
  4. Watches: Since watches are always on your left hand, it would be a nice tweak to have them on the right hand to have an easier time moving around the menu with your dominant hand rather than the other one.

Once again, these are small issues that could be taken (or not taken into situation), but would make a small portion of Rec Room a tad easier for left-handed people.

Thanks!

2 Likes
2

Edit: The watch thing is invalid. You can have it on your right hand (second hand embarrassment lol)

3

I’m not a left handed guy, but that would be useful for others like you, I’d say.

1 Like
4

Just saying this personally as a left-handed person myself. I have never wanted the joystick controls to be reversed. In fact, it really annoys me when games do that for their “left-handed modes.” I honestly didn’t think there was any left-handed person who actually wanted that sort of option.

5

Yeah- I mentioned how some ppl like their controls just the way they are. When it comes to lasertag, it was difficult to shoot and move on the same joystick for me personally. It was easier for my dominant hand to handle shooting and rotating and leave the rest to my right. But yeah, I totally agree with you :+1:

1 Like
6

Adding onto this: there should be a menu in settings to set your dominant hand.

In circuits, there’s a chip that returns true or false depending on if the dominant hand is right, but this often switches. When a VR player picks up something with their left, while being predominately right-handed, the game considers their main hand as left.

It’s limiting to us creators and confusing to normal users, so I think having a dominant hand chooser in the settings would really help. Maybe “auto” as the option we have now, and a slider that goes left and right for a hard set. As a bonus, this can also affect the hand objects are picked up on in screenmode!

1 Like
7

I love this idea! Especially the screenmode part, since I was temporarily a screenmoder for a bit (not my prodest days for sure lol). I’m not a huge circuit person so I could be wrong (please feel free to educate me), but does the chip cause issues for right-handed people who just happen to pick stuff up with their left hand?

8

It itself doesn’t cause an issue, but say you want to force equip something to the player’s actual dominant hand.

Checking if the player’s dominant hand is right through the chip is no longer reliable once the player physically grabs another object with their offhand (ie if they are right handed and grab with their left).

For example, say I had a bow I wanted to equip to the player’s offhand, since bows are usually drawn with the main hand. And also assume the player is right handed (main hand = right, off hand = left).

If they have ever picked up anything in their left hand, like a potion or shield, the main hand is now left, despite the player actually being right handed. So force equipping the bow to the offhand is now the right hand, forcing the player to draw it with their left.

And without going into the rabbithole, even forcing the bow to the offhand causes the main hand swap. Then, forcing another object, say a sword, to the main hand… will pop off the bow from the hand and equip it to the left, instead to the expected right. Kind of dumb, huh?

Basically, this would be solved if there was a hard toggle that players can choose between. It would save so many headaches with programmers doing circuits working with user experience.

9

Thats actually interesting- it sucks how it only relies on information on a whim, rather than frequency of what a player uses. Frequency might also be faulty if the player happens to use their nondominant hand more; so I could totally see how the hard toggle could help circuiters when formatting their games.