Video game trouble

[ilovetochat87]

Hi there. I did where else to post this not here. I have trouble with any type of video game. Like Mario cart I have trouble controlling the cars and keeping them on the track. And it's a lot of why I can't drive in real life bc I can't stay in my lane. I have no special awareness and some trouble with depth perception. But I've been told that video games don't reflect the wall thing so if I can't play driving games that mmmdoesn't necessarily mean I can't in real life.

I can't figure it out. Ppl have to be VERY good at literal explanations and break it down at my level so I can understand. And if I play them I have to ask every move bc I don't know what to do and they have to explain the buttons so I know what does what.

I am just horrible at video games. I can't play Spyro but I like to play against the computer with computer player on easy so I can learn. And I can't play Mario party bc the battles are hard. My hand eye coordination or whatever is bad. I can't do stratagy either not my best area.

I was tested at 15 for ASD and one thing was a picture of blocks that were half black and half dark green so it looks like triangles bc the blocks were half green and half black. So I look at the pic of the blocks assembled a certain order and I'm timed on how fast I put them like the image. It was HARD bc I have Aspergers. She said alot was common for ppl on the spectrum but it was also a test for Sevant skills and other things I got tested with for Sevant skills and I do not have that but I find the puzzles and visual games like this are hard bc of my AS.

I was playing a Naruto game where we battle each other I didn't know how but my friend showed me that I hit triangle for my chakra and got triangle triangle circle for a super power by chakra and punch and it super punches. It was easier then but I kept forgetting. I kept losing bc I think it's my hand eye coordination. Idk. I would think ppl with ASD would be good at video games.

My cousin Johnny has Semesters and ADD poor thing. He is 16 now. He was diagnosed when he was 8 or something. He played world of warcraft ALL the time and is VERY good at it. That would be confusing for me to understand bc it's an advanced type game. Board games are confusing if there is a lot of times so I NEVER be the boss of games and dole out cards to players and handle money in monopoly or whatnot.

Why is it so difficult. Does anyone else share same issues?

 

[Jet Weiss]

I feel your pain... I am so horrible at video games!
My spatial awareness is not good either.
People always think I'm stupid because I can never understand the game no matter how many times it is explained to me.

 

[Questella]

Just keep practicing. The beauty of video games is you can just keep trying.

 

[Tyrantus1212]

I simply have no patience when it comes to video games. Yes I love playing them - but if I go into some sort of big losing streak or get stuck in one spot without being able to proceed, I start panicking. I might scream and hit objects around me - and unless I take a really long break I'd just go on a tilt and play worse, making myself even more stuck. People told me that this is not a normal reaction and I would just use "being a big fan of this game" as an excuse. Now that I think about it, I'm wondering if these types of gaming reactions are common to Aspies.

 

[Bolletje]

@ilovetochat87 I'm not having the trouble you're describing. My spatial awareness is quite good (or at least above average, haha) and doesn't hinder my capability for gaming. I played hardcore World of Warcraft for years. Still spend most of my spare time playing video games.
@Tyrantus1212 I don't like losing, obviously, and I get increasingly frustrated when I'm stuck, but I don't scream or hit things. I just play until I'm too frustrated, then I quit and go do something else.

 

[Tyrantus1212]

@Tyrantus1212 I don't like losing, obviously, and I get increasingly frustrated when I'm stuck, but I don't scream or hit things. I just play until I'm too frustrated, then I quit and go do something else.

Lucky duck! I wish I could be like that. I don't just scream, I yell out swear words.

 

[Bolletje]

Lucky duck! I wish I could be like that. I don't just scream, I yell out swear words.

Haha, I sure as hell feel like that sometimes. I'm not all Zen though, if my boyfriend talks to me while things are not going my way in-game I usually snap at him.

 

[Soona45]

Me too! Ilovetochat87,
I'm terrible at video games. I tend to stick to RPG games like final fantasy, dragon age, mass effect. Where it's mostly story based. I spend ages levelling up on these games so I can just ease through them. I play all my games on easy or very casual.
My partners an Aspie, but he's brilliant at them. He does all the hard bits for me. But if we play Mario cart or something, he always wins.
Don't know bout the hand/eye coordination? Struggle with that myself sometimes.

 

[Soona45]

I simply have no patience when it comes to video games. Yes I love playing them - but if I go into some sort of big losing streak or get stuck in one spot without being able to proceed, I start panicking. I might scream and hit objects around me - and unless I take a really long break I'd just go on a tilt and play worse, making myself even more stuck. People told me that this is not a normal reaction and I would just use "being a big fan of this game" as an excuse. Now that I think about it, I'm wondering if these types of gaming reactions are common to Aspies.

Tyrantus, I experience exactly what you describe with games also!
I get really nervous and shout at the game as if the boss/character is actually trying to hurt me in real life. This makes me perform worse and worse each time. Then I have to have a break, and my partner will complete the bit I'm stuck on while I'm in bed. ( it's really sweet of him).
I do still enjoy games, I don't care if I have to play easy and still need help sometimes.

 

[kay]

I haven't played a video game for more than 30 seconds other than Pac Man one afternoon when I was in the 7th grade. Never played any computer games at all. Except maybe a math game in school once, but I don't remember it; a friend told me we played it. Board or card games are either too complicated or too boring or both unless it's a game like Scattergories or Scrabble. I tried D&D once. I never understood it and most of the game I spent under a blanket trying to nap. I don't even want to play anything electronic and no have idea why most games are so difficult because I prefer just to avoid. D&D I want to avoid the most. Only good thing about that experience was the vegetarian chili.

 

[Questella]

I've always wished I could have friends to play D&D with!

 

[xudo]

I would think ppl with ASD would be good at video games.

Some of us are, but we are all inherently different. One thing to remember though is that the more you play a game, the better you will get at it. My niece was painfully bad at Mario Kart when she first started playing it, but the more and more she's played it, the better she's gotten at it (still can't beat me and my husband though).

@Tyrantus1212 I don't like losing, obviously, and I get increasingly frustrated when I'm stuck, but I don't scream or hit things. I just play until I'm too frustrated, then I quit and go do something else.

I get frustrated, then swear a bit...then get more frustrated and the swearing goes up exponentially. Then I have to stop before I throw a controller. It used to be better when controllers had wires, because they didn't travel as far

 

[ilovetochat87]

You guys all have very good answers. When it comes to gaming like Mario kart or Mario party or things like that where you have multiple players or you have the choice of multiple players or yourself in the computer you know like I said Mario party or Mario kart those kinds of games like that it tends to be frustrating for me because I try to drive in the middle of my lane but I go too far left or too far right and end up falling off the track and dying and then it takes me back up and puts me on the track again and I can start from where it puts me back to but because of my horrid zigzagging around the track I never seem to hit the right targets and I always hit the TNT or bombs or banana peels and cause myself to be slowed down or cause myself to be shrunk by hitting a bomb or something and then I play really slowly for 30 seconds until my character comes back to regular size things like that.

And it gets frustrating and I don't know why other than that it must be horrid spatial awareness, I don't know. I mean if I don't look where I'm going in real life I tend to bump into things . Like if I'm coming in the house after work and I have my phone in hand and I'm not looking I bump into that end table by the door with my hip bone and I'll immediately say oh **** and get kinda mad for 30 seconds and then I'm over it and I tell myself that I have to be better at looking where I'm going and it kinda makes me mad at myself for 30 seconds and then I'm over it.

I never stay mad for too long because I remember that it's not my fault because I know it's an aspergers thing to not have good spatial awareness or depth perception but it's frustrating as Frick that I don't and I wish that I did so that I would quit bumping into things it's frikking obnoxious as frikk!!!! but I wonder if that's not the reason for why I zigzag horrendously on video games like Mario party or Mario kart or crash stuff like that because when I play anything with multiplayer where I'm in a vehicle and we are raising each other that's my typical thing I just zigzag like crazy and when I fall off the side I say dammit stay focused Lara.

I used to be obsessed with playing need for speed on the Xbox when the Xbox first came out and I just can't play any kind of driving game I always bump into the other cars . My favorite game in the world is a game that you play on the Xbox where you intentionally hit other vehicles and the more that you bring into your opponents the more you get crash points and you get boost points so that you can go faster or whatever else and I like that because I can't drive to save my life so I like that the game intentionally makes you hit your opponent to get points because then you'll never know if I can or can't drive . In that case you never know if I'm horribly playing on accident or if I'm trying to hit the cars . but I don't scream and throw things I just don't have confidence in myself when I play games like that and so I just end up zigzagging around and fall off the track and say dammit I just seem to have a big huge love for the word dammit and **** and like to see them often when I make a mistake even if I'm not like during a tantrum if it's more like just a word I say I do it when I make a mistake because I don't have confidence in my playing skills and I want myself to be better and it's just more of like a default word that I always pick to say when I make a mistake .

And everybody always tells me that controllers are sensitive and it only takes a tiny little tap to the left or right that I don't have to go all the way left or all the way right with my joystick. and so I tried to do that where I ever so gently tap to the left and ever so gently tap to the right and it does cause me to stay more centered and then I get more confidence but I still zigzag even if it's less zigzagging it still is zigzagging nonetheless and I less likely hit the TNT or bombs or banana peels but because I am trying very very very much so to not hit those things and I'm focusing on just staying in the middle of my lane I cause myself not to hit the good things like apples and berries that give me boost and I try so hard to just focus on staying in the middle and driving better without falling off the sides and dying that I drive slower than the average player and I end up staying in last place but at least I'm playing better where I'm not falling off the edge of the track and dying every three seconds because I'm staying more centered and I'm avoiding the banana peels or bombs that slow me down but I'm not hitting the level up or boost objects tho. end I always have really good friends that tell me I'm making progress and that at least I didn't hit any bombs this time and that I stayed more centered and that that's progress and the more I play the better I get but even though I had progress and a did not hit any negative objects and I stayed in the middle of my lane I was slow and remained in last place and still zigzagged no matter how little the zigzagging was I still did it .

So I don't play very often because it's frustrating and I don't throw a fit or tantrum but I just eventually give up due to frustration and it not being fair I just feel burned out and it doesn't seem fun anymore so after a while the other people are tired of winning and they gets kind of boring if they are the only ones winning all the time and that I'm not so they just ask if I want to do something else and I agree yes please. but if I play by myself against the computer then I make the computer at the easiest level and I make myself as easy to but even though I'm at easy I can usually beat the computer when it's just one-on-one with me racing against the computer alone because they usually are pretty dumb and do stupid things like hitting walls or trees and don't know how to turn themselves around and always hitting the bombs and then when I focus on not doing those things and just trying to stay centered I usually can still beat them because they sometimes hit a wall and just sit there because they don't know what to do now . So it makes me feel kind of better about my gaming skills that way.

I don't know why but I am not the typical Aspie when it comes to things like Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft or magic the gathering things like that. Because I think those are all stupid and I think of them as super nerd and I'm not really big into nerd things and I don't like to do nerd things and I don't like to hang around super needs.

but if I am all honest here I like to watch Star Trek and Star Wars and I like Doctor Who but as far as nerd goes that's where it ends I never understood the whole magic the gathering crap or Dungeons & Dragons crap . I never understood the whole appeal . It just seems really nerd and I don't think of myself as nerd I'm more on the high functioning side so maybe that's why .

But I do love love love to play the Sims that's about the only game computer wise that I spend hours and hours on . I like that I can make the character look like me and have my personality traits or I could be whoever I wantedand named him Sally McDougall and be part alien if I wanted and marry a stranger in the town and have a child that is half alien half human and half fairy and I can have three dogs and I can make the game go however I wanted and therefore there is no failing or not failing because it's not that kind of a game .

Maybe that's why Dungeons & Dragons is fun because it's not a game of winning or losing it's just a game but it does in my understanding or what I think I understand is that you have to have some kind of a strategy in the gaming.

 

[ilovetochat87]

Like you have a story and you have to follow clues and you have to know fighting skills to beat your opponents and I don't know anything about following clues because I suck at those kinds of things and I'm not very good at strategy. and I'm not very good at learning how to fight like when you play games where you and your opponent have to do ninja type battles and at the end the announcer says K.O.!! meaning you knock your opponent out or they knock you out I usually just hit random buttons as fast as I can over and over I hope that I do something that knocks my opponent out because I don't know what I'm doing and I can never remember the buttons fast enough so I just hit every button over and over as fast as I can even though people always remind me that the X button is your kick and the O button is your punch and if you hit the combo X-O- and down right then you can kick punch and duck like in martial arts and I just get so many things I have to remember that I forget what button does what and I have to ask over and over for my friends to remind me what button does what because I can never remember there's too many things to keep track of with all the buttons and what they do. I usually prefer to watch others play instead of actually playing and people always try to tell me that's boring and have confidence in me and say I know you can do it you just don't play very much so it's not your fault get in here play with us . but I always tell them it doesn't bother me to watch and I like to be a cheering section while they play . And it's also kind of a nonsocial thing as my reason for why I like to watch as much as it's about not being able to play as well. because like, I get nervous about playing in it gets kind of overwhelming to the point that I'm scared and I almost want to go home and I know that I can't because I can't drive therefore one of those people had to have driven me there and they want to stay so I'm stuck until they want to go home so to make it less socially scary I choose to watch that way my anxiety level is down and I can be more comfortable and laid-back by just watching but I also know that I can't play very well and it becomes boring to play because I know that I can't play very well so I get bored of just losing so I prefer to watch for that reason too. But I'm not really that worried about videogames. As much as I always wish that I could play them that much better I don't really worry too much about it when I lose but sometimes I like I said before swear at myself mildly and feel embarrassed that I can't play and people tell me it's just that I don't play much and that once I get playing more I will get better but in my heart I know that's not true but at the same time I feel like even people that don't play much are still somewhat better than me because it's not that hard to stay in the lanes because people drive everyday and they have to learn that skill and they're already pretty good about tapping the steering wheel and not turning too hard left or too hard right and things like that because they can drive so they're already good at that and so it's not that much different when it comes to the joystick and not hitting the joystick too hard and staying in your lanes and things like that and I technically failed driving . I was taking a six-week course training thing with a woman from the hospital that specializes in teaching people with learning disabilities to drive and what happened was she gave me a basic test much like in aspergers diagnosis test but it had a few extra things like seeing how my spatial awareness is and seeing how my depth perception is and seeing how well I can see at night time or not and seeing how well I can dodge things that are coming at me and that determines if we're ever going to get out on the road to begin with and she discovered that my spatial awareness is a little impaired and my depth perception was a little impaired but she had a board with buttons over and over and over the board and whenever the button went up I had to smack the button to make the light go off and she starts out slow and steady and then gets faster and faster and faster and I have to hit the button as it lights up to make the light go out each and every time and they have those types of games at arcades like Dave & Buster's if you have Dave & Buster's in your state I don't know but they do in Kansas/Missouri. and it's a lot like whack-a-mole. and she found I did that really well and I was very quick about that and it was just to test me on how quickly I can respond to the stuff around me but when it comes to actual driving I wasn't very good at catching all of that going on around me. and I just can't stay in my lane and I have this thing about veering left and not going fully between the double lines and being both in my lane and opposing traffic on my left it wasn't that bad but I would have trouble with getting a little too close to the double yellow lines and my instructor would have to remind me that I'm getting close and I need to back over to Mylene and I sometimes get a little bit too close to the cars next to me and I don't stay in my lane as much and I have to remember . Or I sometimes get a little too close to the curb because I don't see that the curb is over there. end I know everybody says those silly Mario kart games or need for speed games do not really reflect true driving but if you think about the parallels there with my swerving around on the screen and swerving on the things in real life and not being aware that there's a curb on my right or that there's cars and I just cannot seem to stay in my lane or I blare out into the intersection without looking for traffic first like I sit at the end of the street and look left and right and then put on my signals and then go into the intersection no no no not not me . I sometimes forget my signal before I go into the intersection and sometimes I floor the intersection so quickly I'm not paying attention to anybody being on my left or right before I go in the intersection and sometimes I cannot gauge how long I should wait for the cars because of that spatial awareness I don't always have a way to know how far of a gap I should put so that I know when the cars go is it okay to go now into the intersection or should I wait for the next car first or should I wait for three cars to go past before into the intersection it makes it difficult because of the spatial awareness problem how many cars should I let go past before I turn into the intersection? Will it depends on the gap that the cars have between each other how far back each car is from the car in front of them and how big of a gap there is between the car that just went past and the next cart ? Those things tell me how much time I have two make the turn into the intersection but I panic because I don't know how to gauge that very well and so I always think I'm gonna go now and it's too early because there's another car coming or it's too long of a wait and I think okay now I'm confident in going but it's too late now because I waited too long. So of course my instructor told me she knows how badly I want the driving and I am so trying to do what I'm supposed to and I'm still trying to get better but she needs to tell me the truth that I'm just not. She says she knows how badly I wanted and how badly I try so hard but it's just not for me . And that's like with video games no matter how much I try I will always improve a little but I don't think I will ever improve fully . But that's okay that's just who I am and that's just how I am and I don't get too frustrated with it . If I get to that point where I'm getting tired of losing and it's boring then I do something else.

 

[Soona45]

Sims that's about the only game computer wise that I spend hours and hours on .

Omg! You've just reminded me I love the sims. Yeah spent plenty of time on that(by which I mean too much time) I loved creating little families. I normally create two people who are complete opposites and force them to be house mates and enjoy the destruction. I like how you can plead with death not to take the person who just burnt in the fire, then you have a zombie walking around, who you can still woohoo with!.lol.

 

[Momo]

I'm a complete gaming nerd, and my spacial awareness must be relatively good if I manage to compete in sports like cycling, karate, boxing, triathlons and so on at the state or national level. I just have to imagine things as being an extension of myself, like when I'm driving I'll picture what it would be like to be the car, and it's easy. I do this with swords, nunchucks and whatever weapons we do at training for tournaments (HEMA is great). Just imagine the weight and the length and it's like a dance (did a lot of that during childhood), it's really all just math and patterns really. But that might just be me.

 

[Bolletje]

I have a lack of spatial awareness IRL, but in game I don't have any trouble. The only thing that I really don't do well is racing games and timed jumping puzzles.

 

[Momo]

I have a lack of spatial awareness IRL, but in game I don't have any trouble. The only thing that I really don't do well is racing games and timed jumping puzzles.

And for all the RPG games, you don't need any spacial awareness, just need to know the best character build and when to use what certain ability. All my mage builds on Dragon Age suck though! So bad... Should've stuck to stabby fun time.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

My hand eye coordination or whatever is bad.

Sounds like you have problems with fine motor movement.

Like Mario cart I have trouble controlling the cars and keeping them on the track. And it's a lot of why I can't drive in real life bc I can't stay in my lane. I have no special awareness and some trouble with depth perception.

Maybe you could have dyspraxia, were you ever checked for it? And maybe hyposensitive to sight if you have problems with depth perception.

 

[xudo]

I go too far left or too far right and end up falling off the track and dying and then it takes me back up and puts me on the track again and I can start from where it puts me back to but because of my horrid zigzagging around the track I never seem to hit the right targets and I always hit the TNT or bombs or banana peels and cause myself to be slowed down or cause myself to be shrunk by hitting a bomb or something and then I play really slowly for 30 seconds until my character comes back to regular size things like that.

This sounds exactly like how I was when I first started playing Mario Kart. Over time, I've become used to how it controls and this doesn't happen any more. Maybe try turning the wheel (if that's what you're using to play) less and see if that makes a difference.

And it gets frustrating and I don't know why other than that it must be horrid spatial awareness, I don't know.

As @Southern Discomfort said, it could possibly be dyspraxia, but to me it sounds like how most people are when they start playing Mario Kart. I've seen people who are hardcore gamers have the exact same issue with it when they start.