Electronic Epileptic

Category: Visual Triggers

  • Static Image Visual Triggers

    So today I have a special treat for my wonderful audience. This article features a collaboration with internet celebrity Howard Tayler, known for his outstanding webcomic Schlock Mercenary. Howard has been working on a fancy print design for a character of his and while showing his progress, he has also provided me with an excellent…

  • Let’s Talk Disclaimers

    This is going to be a talk that centers around the usefulness of disclaimers and using Vampire Survivors as an example. So full disclosure, I haven’t played it, nor have I seen anything of it, but from the description given me by friends, this is for the best. Even getting the link to an example…

  • Jets’n’Guns Gold Edition Visual Triggers

    So Jets’n’Guns (gold edition, this matters due to some new weapons being added in that version) is a rather old game by now. I haven’t played it for at least 14 years by this point, but I still remember the vast majority of the game. The weapons, map, enemies, plot and music all stand out…

  • Photosensitive Gaming and Accessibility Tekken 8

    I’ve been talking at the internet again. This time about Tekken 8

  • Glaring Flashing Gif

    I don’t know what went through the mind of the person who made this. I don’t know why they thought it was a good idea to make it. I certainly don’t know how they could look at the finished product and go “hmm yes, this is a smart thing to put on the internet”. I’m…

  • The Doggy Driven Orb of Nausea

    This is a pretty good source of energy if we ever figure out how to generate clean energy from nausea. The bouncing certainly doesn’t help me, but the absolute heavy hitter is the fish eye effect you get from the panorama style camera while the scene rapidly changes due to the speed of the dog.…

  • Dyson Sphere Visual Triggers

    For the last 4 months, I’ve been on medication for my epilepsy and as such haven’t had any runins with any serious issues in the games I’ve played. All that finally changed when I decided to do another run in Dyson Sphere Program. As it turns out, the warp effect is quite detrimental to my…

  • Valheim Triggers

    So lets talk about Valheim. Valheim is a game that I have spent just over 200 hours playing, which might sound foolish considering the fairly long list of trigger issues I’ve have with the game. The reason why I’ve managed to put that many hours into something with so many triggers is that each trigger…

  • Pit People Visual Triggers

    I’d like to preface this entry with stating that I’ve started on medicine to combat the severity of my epileptic seizures. I don’t really get the seizures now, but I certainly get all the warning shots from what used to be triggers. So really what the medicine does is help me survive the smallest triggers…

  • Valheim A

    So lets talk about Valheim. Valheim is a game that I have spent just over 200hours playing, which might sound foolish considering the fairly long list of trigger issues I’ve had with the game. The reason why I’ve managed to put that many hours into something with so many triggers is that each trigger is…

  • Valheim B

    10 days later, the devs had pushed a patch to their public test version that added an epilepsy safety button.Clicking that button affected the reported issues for me in the following ways: 1) No noticeable change on the Portal Effect. 2) Eikthyr is massively improved for me. I can actually stand looking in the direction…

  • Valheim C

    I wrote those reactions to the patch, see the Valheim B post, in the Valheim discord and caught the attention of another fan who happened to be the person who is keeping the wiki page up to date. This quickly evolved into a testing session where the wiki editor would suggest objects or monsters in…

  • Geometric High Contrast Trigger

    This image is very much like the one from the Rosetta stone article. Its not crossing the line into triggering territory, but looking at it gives me an instant tingling sensation in my hands and arms. I’ve learned to associate that with a final warning from my body’s epilepsy response. If I block off the…

  • Twitter Gifs

    Recently two neurologists each posted an animation (animated gifs) in Twitter posts. The first one was a CGI of brain activity in a patient having an epileptic seizure (or at least, that was the context in which the gif was posted). That one was uncomfortable but doable. I did write her a message asking her…

  • Blood Bowl 3 User Interface Visual Trigger

    So Blood Bowl 3 is out and seeing as I spent way too much time playing Blood Bowl 1 , Blood Bowl 2 and the original board game, It should be obvious that I’d be interested in this installment as well. However, before even noticing that it was getting released, I came across a video…

  • Visual Triggers In Games and Trailers

    So I have two visual examples for the topic of games that are exclusive by design and games that are exclusive by accident. This video of a game project still in development perfectly demonstrates a genre of games that are just not for photo-sensitive people. Whereas the game Wasteland 3 has a steam store trailer…

  • Strobe Lightning Visual Trigger

    You know how I talk about lightning being a common source of bad times? Well if you’d like an example of just how bad those times can be, look no further than the lightning in Riftbreaker. My roommate started playing it and when the lightning/strobe light effect lit up the wall behind him a few…

  • Waves of Steel Game Effect Visual Trigger

    Welp got a new one for you and this one actually scared me since I haven’t run into this reaction before: Trust me on this one, its really creepy for an epileptic WARNING: If you have epilepsy or similar sensitivities DO NOT USE LINK BELOW. To view the content, please copy and paste the following…

  • ZX Spectrum Vintage Video Game Visual Trigger

    This one is a real killer: So someone sent me a video to check out of the very old ZX Spectrum cassette-loading border flicker. I had fortunately never experienced those things as a kid and I am honestly not sure I would have made it through such an experience unscathed. This thing kills epileptics DEAD:…

  • Optical Illusion Visual Trigger

    Next up: the wonders of optical illusions. Someone sent me an image depicting a pattern that continues into infinity. Harmful links are intentionally made unclickable, copy/paste them into to an address bar to see them. WARNING: If you have epilepsy or similar sensitivities DO NOT USE LINK BELOW. To view the content, please copy and…

  • Stellaris Visual Triggers

    I do love me a good game of Stellaris. I do not love the fact that almost every time I’ve gotten to the endgame, the big bad endgame crisis has been an AI related enemy. This is relevant because their home systems look like this: WARNING: If you have epilepsy or similar sensitivities DO NOT…

  • Swirling Animated Gif Visual Trigger

    Sometimes, gifs just shouldn’t have been made. This was just linked in the cute thread of a web forum of all places. Its not super bad yet, but man is it also not entirely safe. Head feels somewhat….floaty…right now. Okay, yeah no. Dizzy town, here we come. Swirling background, not a good time. Do not…

  • Web Comic Visual Trigger

    For those of you out there doing webpage setup, I have a great example of how not to present text. Should be fine to watch, just hard to actually read WARNING: If you have epilepsy or similar sensitivities DO NOT USE LINK BELOW. To view the content, please copy and paste the following link into…

  • James Webb Space Telescope and Subsequent Conversations with NASA

    So usually I love space stuff. Can’t claim to be able to follow the science talk beyond the starting line, but the space images are always cool. Except for this one. This is an awesome new image from the fancy new space telescope. It is also making me dizzy when I look at it. Not…

  • Rustler Medieval Game Visual Triggers

    So Rustler is a great game, basically the medieval version of the original Grand Theft Auto. Does not take itself seriously in any way. Absolutely loved it. And then I got to the prison break mission. A long running fight with an escort quest while the screen wobbles and swerves as it changes from magenta…

  • Per Aspera Visual Triggers

    Per Aspera is neat little game about terraforming Mars. It is very relaxed and the biggest challenge you face is your own ability to plan out a road network.Epileptics get a little bonus challenge though. Whenever you try to place a water treatment plant, you get this graphical overlay that shows you the area that…

  • Lighting Effects Triggers in Dyson Sphere

    For those of you out there, working on lighting effects, I have a very nice “how not to draw lines” example. I’m back to being just fine after less than a 2 hour recovery period and it was never in the severe end of the spectrum when it comes to damage done, but it sure…

  • Red Solstice 2: Survivor Triggers

    Welp add Red Solstice 2: Survivor to the list of games that don’t play nice. There are a couple of maps (including main plot missions) that apparently needed some good old fashioned lightning going on in the background (as opposed to their regular “actually has an effect on the gameplay” lightning strikes). This background lightning…

  • Pattern Based Visual Triggers

    Someone asked me about patterns also being potential triggers and I gave them sort of an “it depends” reply. Well I’ve found a good example of something that messes with your brain courtesy of a developer post in the Awful Jams Discord. This one had a quick and painful response as well as leaving a…

  • Twitter Trigger EA Games Accessibility Blunder

    Ah the minefields of accessibility. So EA is doing a big push on accessibility specifically aimed towards colorblind players. So far so great. Unfortunately their 20 seconds long video announcing it triggered my epilepsy. This link SHOULD take you to the reply I made to their video post. Specifically between 0:13 and 0:15 was very…

  • Contrasting Colors Visual Effects

    First up, I’ve got a very nice example of a very nasty effect. Some very unlucky subset of photosensitive sufferers can get blind spots, akin to looking up at the sun, from looking at just the right combination of contrast colors. For some, it leaves an imprint that lasts for a few minutes. For others,…

  • Sandstorm Effect Triggers

    Next up, a series of very similar looking videos that show the dev progress of a sandstorm effect as we try to narrow it down to stop hurting me. After each video link I’ll be posting the relevant chat log between myself and Shinmera the dev. I’ll add a total elapsed time for the effect…

  • Nova Drift Triggers

    So I’m just having one of those weeks where the hits keep on coming.On the plus side, that means lots of new content. Downside is a bit more obvious of course. Anyways, I was shown a video of game called Nova Drift and it really reminds me of a game I used to love, called…

  • Deep Rock Galactic Triggers

    Found another wonderful version of [headmessing]. My friend bought me Deep Rock Galactic and I just went through the tutorial. The cutscenes and the in-mission map both have a visual effect going that mimics the old CRT screens. Specifically the lines of static travelling across the screen. I managed to complete the tutorial, but had…

  • X4 Scanner Trigger

    So having finally gotten myself a new pc, I’ve finally been able to play some X4.Couple of issues with that unfortunately. 1) Using the long range scanner will send out a blue pulse wave which looks great, and makes me turn into a drooling idiot for several hours. 2) There is a mission regarding the…

  • Fog Implementation Trigger

    Moving right along, I’m not hunting for examples anymore, but I’m not passing up the ones I come across either. With that in mind here is an example of two view modes of the same image.A dev friend of mine is working on err…something related to the fog implementation I think? Anyways, said dev posted…

  • Penny Arcade Website

    This post covers changes made to the Penny Arcade website on March 19, 2022. Penny Arcade have a new fancy site that launched today. Every time I mouse over a button, a white flashing effect appears around the edge of the button. My epilepsy is not amused. I’ve sent them a polite mail asking them…

  • Valve Photo Sensitve Issues

    This post regards an advertisment posted in March of 2022. Turns out that Valve also don’t know how to act around photo-sensitives. Their store page currently has a “fancy” banner going for their “Simfest”. Don’t know what it is about, but I do know that making me think they are trying to kill me is…

  • Waves of Steel Video Effect Trigger

    I had made an epilepsy triggers channel on the Waves of Steel Discord server so I had a place to archive all these kinds of images and videos and so I could direct people to one concentrated location of information when they asked me about various potential triggers. Naturally people were welcome to post spoilered…

  • On Epilepsy Warnings

    Sometimes there really isn’t any way around the “Do not have epilepsy or be photosensitive when using this program” warnings. A game developer I know is working on a game that pulses a shape into fractal patterns while it changes color. All set to the beat of whatever song you tell the program to play.…

  • Gameplay Loop Visual Trigger

    WARNING: If you have epilepsy or similar sensitivities DO NOT USE LINK BELOW. To view the content, please copy and paste the following link into your address bar. Note the spacing after https:// will need to be removed for the link to work. I was asked to test a game for a developer and encountered…

  • Lightning Effects and Might & Magic

    Lightning Effects I got a good example of the starting point of the lightning sliding scale of harmfulness courtesy of TooMuchAbstraction. This one took about 15 minutes before the punch hit me and it only made me a little lightheaded as well as making it hard to read longer texts on discord. Font size was…

  • Lost Ark Chaos Dungeons

    Got another one for you via a friend of mine. This one I will not be testing since it sounds absolutely horrible just from her description. Good Friend:So, regarding flashing stuff. In Lost ark when one go in Chaos Dungeons and such the likes. [Oh man] the flashes and blinking. I [do not have epilepsy]…

  • Earth Defense Force 5 Triggers

    Okay so the second to last mission in Earth Defense Force 5 (EDF 5)? Mental state at the end of the mission: Description of the moment: Yeah. We made it through the mission but I took a couple for the team in that fight. I started to overheat suddenly in middle of the fight. This…

  • Ian Hamilton on Cyberpunk 2077

    I ended up having a very nice chat with Ian Hamilton where we talked about this thread and how to present the information stored here in a more professional manner. During our conversation he also went through some of earliest posts in this thread and set me straight on the story of Cyberpunk 2077 as…

  • Rosetta Stone for Graphical Effects on Epilepsy

    I just had a fellow game tester post the absolutely best image ever.Seriously its like finding the Rosetta Stone for graphical effects on epilepsy. WARNING: If you have epilepsy or similar sensitivities DO NOT USE LINK BELOW. To view the content, please copy and paste the following link into your address bar. Note the spacing…

  • Game Trailer Triggers

    Here are two examples of game advertising that can cause issues for people with epilepsy and sensitivity. One is the logo video for Red Dead Redemption 2 and the other is from Borderlands 2. Many many games have had me forced to cover my eyes and ask a roommate to tell me when the cutscene…

  • Magic Eye

    I can now tell you that the Magic Eye stereograms that actually move? Those make me nauseous realy quickly. Such nausea, cannot recommend! WARNING: If you have epilepsy or similar sensitivities DO NOT USE LINK BELOW. To view the content, please copy and paste the following link into your address bar. Note the spacing after…

  • High Contrast Color Combination Issues

    Then we get into the less obvious stuff. At one point during the development of TooMuchAbstraction’s game Waves of Steel (check it out on steam, its something really special), one of the other testers made alternate flags of real world nations. This resulted in a bunch of really great flags for a lot of different…

  • Android 12 Update Issue

    Then we got the normal day to day stuff everyone and their dog uses in their lives. Mobile phones and similar gadgets. This is how protected epileptics are when it comes to consumer electronics: Also known as either no one has a clue about what is dangerous or no one cares if their product causes…

  • Video Example

    Not long after the previous video had been linked, I was sent another one with the warning that this one was quite likely going to be a problem. It certainly was, but curiously it was on something of a delayed timer regarding the actual backlash I suffered. I would not recommend looking at this thing…

  • Design Example Game Effects

    Here is an example of an in game effect on a ship that causes issues for those with Epilepsy. WARNING: If you have epilepsy or similar sensitivities DO NOT USE LINK BELOW. To view the content, please copy and paste the following link into your address bar. Note the spacing after https:// will need to…