Mario Kart with Switches!

A year or so ago I wrote a blog sharing our family's excitement about the release of Mario Run and how my son was able to play Mario for the first time ever.  Last month saw another huge mobile release for any Nintendo fan: Mario Kart Tour, but for my youngest it isn't just any game...  It's the first Mario Kart game he's been able play himself.  

Macsen has a very rare genetic condition called GRIN2A which means he has profound disabilities meaning that he is unable to play games on a standard Nintendo console.  That hasn't stopped him falling in love with the Mushroom Kingdom, the Mario family and especially Mario Kart; he's cheered on his dad and brother as we raced in our family living room and at school his teachers play Mario Kart videos on the big screen during chill out times.  This game has been a big part of his life so you can imagine how excited Macsen was to finally play it himself.  Please take a look and hear the pure joy as Macsen plays Mario kart with his big buttons:

 

Mario Kart Tour is ideal for simplified disability access for lots of reasons:

- The karts auto accelerate, so there's no need to hold a button to keep driving forward

- There's a smart steering option, which works like bumpers in a bowling alley to stop new drivers spending all their time in the rough

- The auto item feature allows the driver to focus on moving left and right while the game activates the items for them

- The simplified controls of swipe left to move left and swipe right to move right is very easy to simulate using accessible switches

I've written a quick how-to below walking through setting up an iPad, which I hope will help families like ours.  Please let me know how you get on and hopefully we'll see your names popping up in our Mario Kart Tour races very soon!

How to

Here's a list of the items you'll need if you want to get it up and running:

- An iPad or Android tablet

- 2 or more switches - there's a big selection here: http://www.inclusive.co.uk/hardware/switches-and-switch-mountings

- A Switch interface to connect the switches to the tablet, we use: http://www.inclusive.co.uk/switch4apps-p5978

Once you've got your please follow these setup instructions:

1 - Connect the switch

Connect your switch to your switch connector, turn on Bluetooth and connect to the connector.  We use these switches and connector:

- Switch (Smoothy Switch): http://www.inclusive.co.uk/smoothie-switch-p2533

- Connector (APPlicator by Pretorian): http://www.inclusive.co.uk/switch4apps-p5978

 

2 - Register the Switches

You will need to follow these steps for each of your switches.  The ideal setup is 3 switches and we use:

- Port 1 - swipe left (move kart left)

- Port 2 - tap (use item) - this is optional as the game automatically uses an item when you pickup your next item block

- Port 4 - swipe right (move kart right)

To setup the switches goto settings and navigate to General > Accessibility > Switch Control

 

 

Tap switches and choose Add a new switch:

 

 

We have an external switch, so we choose External:

 

You are then prompted to activate the switch.  This basically means Push your button.

  

You wil be prompted for a button name.  I called mine Port [number] for simplicity 

Every switch must have a default action assigned.  Choose Tap (we'll override this later).

 

When setup your list will look something like this:

3 - Assign Mario Kart Actions

At this point the iPad is aware of the switch, but doesn't know what we want it to do with it.  We need to define a 'recipe' to tell the iPad to press the screen when the Switch is pressed.  You can setup different recipes for each game or activity.

Back at the Accessibility settings page choose Recipes and then new:

 

Given the recipe a name and assign each of your switches to the following actions:

The next step is very important, make sure you set the launch recipe to be the one you just created.  If you don't do this it won't be activated.

4 - Turn on Switch Control

The final step is to turn on Switch Control:

 

This is the same place to turn off switch control once you've finished the game.

If anything goes wrong with the setup just come back here and turn the switch control off and on again.

 

5 - Install and setup the game

Download the game from here: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/mario-kart-tour/id1293634699

When the game is running open the settings and choose these options:

- Manual Drift off works best with switches and shows a nice direction arrow

- Smart Steering on will keep you on the track and works like bumpers at the bowling alley

- Auto Item on will use the items automatically, which is ideal if you are working with only 2 switches (our current setup)

6 - Race!

You'll need someone to navigate the menus and options who is able to use the touch screen, but once you're on the track you can use the switches to move left right and shoot!  Hopefully you'll come first in your first race just like Macsen!

Emergency Information (EmergencyID on iPhone)

At least once a week my wife and I meet with health specialist for our son.  Without even thinking we can reel off a list of his symptoms, conditions and complex medication.  He has a very rare genetic condition (GRIN2A) which causes every nerve in his body and brain to pass on messages incorrectly.  

As my son's condition is so unique his medication and treatment is very unconventional.  When we call ambulances we explain all of this, but what if something happened and I wasn't able to explain?  What if I was involved in an accident while caring for my son?  Who would tell the emergency services about my son?  How would they know how to look after him?

Firstly we worked with our NHS palative care specialists to create a PAC (Pediatric Advanced Care) Plan, which details his conditions, medications, treatment plans as well as recommended emergency approaches.  A copy of this plan is available to ambulance drivers and a copy goes with him everywhere he goes : 

 

I then setup an EmergencyID on my iPhone.  It's a little known feature, which allows the emergency services can see key medical information and can call your emergency contact without unlocking the phone.  It looks like this :

 

 

 

From here you can see the most important information,  a pointer to my son's PAC plan and a button to phone my wife with a simple click.

Awesome isn't it?  This is how you can set it up :

1 - Open the Health app

 

2 - Select MedicalID from bottom right:

 

3 - Select 'Show When Locked' and complete the relevant fields

 

4 - That's it, you're done!

Everyone can Mario Run

The Williams family is a Nintendo obsessed family.  Between us we've owned a Gameboy, SNES, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, Wii U, DS, 3DS, NES Mini and we have a Switch on preorder!  The male part of our family is made up of a geek dad and 2 geek boys aged 9 and 5.  They've watched all of complete back catalogue of Mario cartoons on Netflix, have a huge Amiibo collection and had lots of cool soft toys for Christmas. Unfortunately one of them has never ever actually played a Mario game; this is because my youngest has a severe disability that restricts his physical movement and control.  That is until today!  Today we played Super Mario Run: the first disability accessible Mario game.

Apple have included a lot of great accessible features into the iPhone and iPad iOS, which allows users to interact with a huge range of external devices.  The feature we used today was Switch Control.  We used it to connect a big button (known as a Switch) to Macsen's iPad to simulate a screen press.  There are a huge range of switches available including foot peddle, head switch (like Stephen Hawking uses), a hand grip switch, finger movement switch, a joystick and lots of others (here's a very Large selection: http://www.inclusive.co.uk/hardware/switches-and-switch-mountings).  We currently use a big easy press button yellow button with the excellent APPlicator connector from Pretorian http://www.inclusive.co.uk/switch4apps-p5978

 

 

Here's a video of Macsen's first game of Mario:

If you would like to have a similar setup, here's a how to guide :

How to

1 - Connect the switch

Connect your switch to your switch connector, turn on Bluetooth and connect to the connector.  We use this switch and connector:

- Switch (Smoothy Switch): http://www.inclusive.co.uk/smoothie-switch-p2533

- Connector (APPlicator by Pretorian): http://www.inclusive.co.uk/switch4apps-p5978

 

2 - Register the Switch

In settings navigate to General > Accessibility > Switch Control

 

 

Tap switches and choose Add a new switch:

 

 

We have an external switch, so we choose External (if you are bored later, you should try Camera.  It means you can control the game by tilting you head; it's very cool!) 

 

You are then prompted to activate the switch.  This basically means Push your button.

  

You wil be prompted for a button name.  I called mine Yellow port 4 (as it's a yellow switch in port 4 :) )

Every switch must have a default action assigned.  Choose Tap.

 

3 - Assign the switch with a screen press

At this point the iPad is aware of the switch, but doesn't know what we want it to do with it.  We need to define a 'recipe' to tell the iPad to press the screen when the Switch is pressed.

Back at the Accessibility settings page choose Recipes and then new:

 

Given the recipe a name and choose Assign a switch:

 

You should see the switch we registered earlier, select it:

 

When asked for an action choose Hold at Point.  This will tap a specific point on the screen and also allow you to perform long presses for bigger jumps, just the same as using the touch screen:

 

When you are asked to choose the point on the screen make sure you rotate the iPad to portrait orientation as this is the way you play Super Mario Run.

The best position I've found is Close to the bottom and in the centre, this works for jumping and choosing Retry of a Continue throughout the game:

 

The next step is very important, make sure you set the Lunch recipe to be the one you just created.  If you don't do this it won't be activated.

 

4 - Turn on Switch Control

The final step is to turn on Switch Control:

 

This is the same place to turn off switch control once you've finished the game.

If anything goes wrong with the setup just come back here and turn the switch control off and on again.  I've had problems when the screen locked, but this fixed it instantly,

 

5 - Play the game!

You'll need someone to navigate the menus and options who is able to use the touch screen, but once you're in the main gameplay you can use your button to jump, spin and smash goombas!

 

Making the iPad Bashable

iPads have become must have equipment for every school class, every physiotherapist and disabled child at home.  It's also amazing to see how many apps are on the app store designes specifically for our kids!  What's really cool is seeing how standard (and cheap) apps can be enjoyed by our kids.  Have you ever played with a standard app and thought: "this would be perfect for my child" but when you try it out you have problems?  They hit adverts by accident, open settings menus, 3 finger swipe into your emails or keep hitting the home button?  Hopefully I can help.  There's a hidden but very powerful feature on the iPad called 'Guided Access' which is exactly what you need.

I'm going to walk you through how to setup guided access for the amazing garage band app from Apple (link).  Here's our favourate instrument: the electrical guitar:

With this instrument you can play 48 different key sounds by moving your fingers across the screen.  You can make a really cool tune very easily.  The only problem is the top half of the screen is full of menu options!  So let's get on with turning those off.

Enabling Guided Access 

The first thing we need to do is to enable 'Guided Access'.  This can be found in the General/Accessibility section of the settings:

To enable 'Guided Access' you need to switch on the top and bottom options (if you don't have a passcode on your iPad then it may prompt you to set one up).

Using Guided Access 

Turning on Guided Access is really easy.  You just hit the home button 3 times really quickly (in an app, not the home menu).  This will turn on 'Guided Access' with the default settings:

- sleep button disabled 

- home button disabled 

- multitouch features disabled

Already it's solved half our problems, but there's more!  Hit the home button again 3 times and you will see the 'Guided Access' advanced options:

From within here you can decide if you want the Home button, volume buttons and switches (classified as keyboard) to work while 'Guided Access' is turned on.  You could also turn off touch if you want to show a video without screen touches interfering.  The final feature is my favourate.  

You can setup block zones for areas that should not be clicked.  These can be adverts or in my example the settings on the top half of the screen.  To do this you draw either a box or circle around the area you want to block and then resize the shaded box to cover the area.  

When you're done click Resume in the top right hand corner.

Now you're free to bash the screen as much as you like!

Ending Guided Access

To turn off 'Guided Access' and get back to your normal iPad simply click the home button 3 times and chose End.

Here's a quick video is my boy enjoying playing the guitar thanks to 'Guided Access':

Drop Proof

I'd also recommend making your iPad drop Proof.  These are the covers we use which are both brilliant!

Mini - http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=221655447926

Standard (not air) - http://blossomforchildren.co.uk/at-home/88-tabtoob-tabstrap.html