September 23, 2025
4:30pm - 6pm
VR headsets, dual thumbsticks, mice and keyboards, smartphone screens—standard interfaces structure the way we design games and the way we play games, from the earliest project pitches to a product’s advertising platforms. But what if instead of “universal” designs targeting generic technologies and normative players, games were made for specific people with specific bodies and specific ways of playing? This presentation begins with a brisk survey of the history of hands-free video game interfaces—from Reg Maling’s POSSUM in 1961 to Ken Yankelevitz’s QuadStick in 1981 to Microsoft’s Adaptive Controller in 2018—before comparing and contrasting two devices that articulate two different design philosophies: the NES Hands Free and the Octopad. Rather than thinking about accessibility as a single-player problem, these controllers engage the social, political, and environmental aspects of video games to change the way we play.
Bio:
Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux are associate professors at the University of California, Davis where they make, play, and think about games together. Their research and teaching examine the community practices and material histories of play through the lenses of game design, media theory, and political economy. Some of their projects include Metagaming, a book about the games people play in, on, around, and through video games, and the Octopad, an eight-person NES controller.