Finally - a game that's making me seasick...

I've been bragging that I never get seasick with first person mode...-well that seems to be the case only where you can walk forwards using the keyboard (arrows or WSAD), or point-and-click fixed mode.
Scratches in it's free-viewing 360 degree mode, is making me so seasick I had to stop.

I'll try it again in fixed mode when I've recovered a bit.

Strange that I've played all the CSI's, and they also have a swivel mode, but that might only be on one axis, that is to say horizontally. Scratches is vertical and horizontal scrolling at the same time.
Pity, that.

Moondancer, I think I played in slideshow mode and it was fine. Give it another go. I really enjoyed it but couldn't do panning because of mouse issues (was stuttering in certain places).

The original Scratches with its soft edge-panning gave me terrible motion sickness because I only had limited control over when the screen would move. Every time I had to pan down to click a doorknob I felt my stomach turn over. The updated version, Scratches Director's Cut, uses a fixed cursor panning, like the Kheops games, which gives much better control. So if you're using the original version, you might try getting hold of the second one.

When I played the original (back before the Director's Cut was available), I tried the "slideshow mode." But it felt like having blinders on so I'd switch back and forth between modes. Generally I only used the "slideshow mode" in areas that had a lot of doorknobs to click.

Hi Moondancer , have you played Sherlock Holmes Awakened ? It is supposed to be a 360 degree mode game too I played it and didn't get sick because I been now useing a laptop instead of my home pc I seem to have more control of my mouse, curser which I can move it at the speed I like so I don't get that dizzy sick feeling like I do on my home pc. But you are saying the Scratches game spins more. I am just wondering because I was thinking of buy this game in the future to play. On my home pc I had to use motion sick pills and wrist bans to play first person games.

Hi Jenny , I think I will take your advice also and buy the directors cut of Scratches .

Trinny3,
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is real time 3D, not 360 panning. You can pan in The Awakened, but you can also move around in real time instead of jumping between nodes.

Trinny, I actually played all the Frogwares Sherlock Holmes games without getting motion sickness. I often play other action orientated games in first person mode without getting seasick.

There has been once or twice where it happened to me, but when I set shadows to 'off', and I set my mouse sensitivity as low as possible, for less of a "bobbing" sensation, I could play without problems.

I am very motivated to play Scratches though, as I've been curious about it for a long time.
Jenny, unfortunately, I already have the Director's cut version.
What also seems to make things worse for me, is that there seems to be an elasticity to the mouse movement - it sort of carries on moving after your hand has stopped.
I've been thinking I should experiment with moving my hand more slowly.
Trinny, I will let you know asap if I manage to sort the problem out.
Cheers!

This is so strange... Moondancer

Scratches I had no problem with sea-sickness...Only The Sherlock Holmes games

As a motion sickness sufferer in "real life" and games I put this tips that work for me and for some other sufferers also

Recently I was playing Dracula 3 in my desktop that I always use for games but with an old monitor situated quite high (my normal monitor was out for repair) and felt that horrible feeling after a couple of minutes. I installed the game in my laptop and could play without major problems using the normal tips. Trinny3 also noticed that the laptop was better, I guess that it maybe because normally using a laptop one gazes down that is a more natural way when walking instead of traveling by car or boat.

MCC

The looking down theory is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. This may make me think about a laptop - may, I say. As one who has a lot of trouble with seasickness, I'd love anything that really made a difference.

Thanks for the idea!

sarahandus, maybe just using a higher chair and the monitor tilted upwards like when using the laptop may work also, with my normal monitor even when it is big I use it this way. I still have to use the other tips but at least I manage to play.

Wow, MCC, now that is a very interesting theory, about tilting the monitor up. I'm going to get myself a few big pillows to sit on, and try it out - thanks for the tip!

I think I've actually heard someone say they eventually got used to a game as well. So I'm also going to try the little bit by little bit technique and see if I get used to it!
Thanks!

Moondancer, not every tip works for everybody, however as long as one stops playing before feeling nauseated, many people seem to benefit from these tricks, also looking at the "virtual floor" when walking instead of upwards. Something that it makes things difficult for me is when the camera pans on its own to show something, this happens in Dracula 3.
And, yes, most of us get used to play a game after a few sessions, the bad thing is that the "getting used" doesn't stay for the next game necessarily, even when it takes me much less sessions (maybe only one or two) to overcome the feeling that years ago.

MCC,

Do to the configuration of my desk, if I got high enough to look down on the monitor I'd risk a broken neck if I fell off the chair. I couldn't reach the mouse anyway. I did try standing up to see if that made a difference - about as much as the wrist band, not much. I never seemed to have "gotten used to" any games. (However that did work when we went boating, strange as that seems.)

I don't think actual motion sickness and the motion sickness you get from games are the same thing, even though they have the same symptoms. Motion sickness from a car or boat comes from unfamiliar physical movement. Motion sickness from a game comes from what you perceive through your eyes as movement. That may be why someone can get used to the physical movement on a boat and not the virtual movement on a computer screen. I've never "gotten used to" a game either.

If you look to the side really fast, do you blink while turning? In a game, you probably don't. In real life I usually do, so maybe others do too. So if a node-based game with panning is making me sick, I can either pan slowly or I can close my eyes or look away from my monitor during the pan.

With panning games, I carefully control the speed of the pan and only look away from the screen when that isn't working. But with real time 3D games, there's too much going on. The relationships between your point of view and objects on screen are changing... and the relationships between objects on the screen with respect to one another are changing as your character changes position and moves past them... and if they do so in an unnatural way, it may trigger motion sickness even if the movement onscreen is not fast. For games like that, I pretty much have to look away from the screen and close my eyes often. I remember reading a post from someone who said Frogwares' games gave him nausea even though the FPS games he played did not. He said it was because the field of view was too narrow and could not be adjusted (the way it could be adjusted in his other games). I've noticed something similar -- I can play games where my point of view is high off the floor (Uru played in 3rd person and the original Tomb Raider), but games where my point of view is close to the ground are going to give me nausea.

Sometimes I focus on something behind the screen and use only my peripheral vision to keep track of what's onscreen. Glancing back and forth between the screen (when it's stationary) and somewhere behind or beside the screen (when there's moving) is not the most immersive way to play a game. But if it helps slow the onset of motion sickness, it's worth it.


Do you use your laptop in your lap or on a desk. I imagine those big 17" gaming laptops would be kind of difficult to keep in your lap for long. And the smaller laptops with video cards would get pretty hot during gaming.