AYN Thor hemiplegia review (March 2026)
By the time you read this, I’ll have had the AYN Thor Max for just less than a month. I’m enamored with it, and it might be the last handheld I buy for a long time. More than anything else, I love that it does everything that I need it to as a person with hemiplegia.
When I talk about handhelds on here, I do so from a personal perspective; I have the use of one hand, and so my life is one long battle against the laws of physics. There are lots and lots and lots of reviews of this device from an able-bodied perspective, and so I’m going to write about it from mine instead. Ghost keep sending me e-mails about coming up with a unique niche, and this is probably mine.
So, in my specific position, the AYN Thor is the handheld that I’ve had to tinker the least with out of all of the ones I own to work the way that I want it to, and then for it to be easy to use.
The Steam Deck required a kickstand case so that I can stand it up and use it akin to the Switch’s tabletop mode, and custom plugins to turn the internal controls off; the Legion Go has a kickstand built in, but needed Bazzite on it to turn the controls off. Against all this, The Thor’s clamshell design is the kickstand, and turning off the Thor’s in-built controls is a simple menu toggle.
Any Android-compatible controller should work just fine with it; my 8BitDo Pro 3 (that I’ve reviewed on here, also from my hemiplegic perspective) connects effortlessly to it, and I can use the 8BitDo Ultimate Software V2 from the Play Store to remap the controls to my liking across three profiles.
There are two design flaws in the Thor that affect using it as a tabletop thing. The first is that the fan is on the bottom, so, yes, it can sit on a desk, but you’re obstructing the fan and the screens can get hot - just about painfully so - if you’re pushing it with something on high performance. That’s not a huge problem using an external pad, but I’m, rightly or wrongly, concerned about the thing overheating, or at least hitting the thermal throttle of the chip.
The second flaw is that the headphone jack, single USB-C port, and AYN button (pressed a lot to access settings such as the aforementioned controller configuration quickly) are all along the bottom, so when I want to stand up the Thor in a regular phone stand (very doable) to give the fan room, I don’t have access to these.
I’ve given some thought as to how to solve this problem. The Thor has two lanyard slots, and I had the idea to hang it from my neck at a playable angle so that I can play it anywhere without having to physically hold it; except that the angle is all wrong and unless I’m sat down all it does is make the Thor wearable. Could I strap it to my non-functional arm and pretend I’m Batman? I also find lanyard clips tricky to operate with one hand, so one of my lanyard holes has a hardly perceptible dink on the outside from when a lanyard broke off in a cramped bag. My fault, and I’ve learned my lesson.
I had some other ideas. Rubber feet for the bottom to raise it up? Physically moving the fan to the lid? The fan obstruction isn’t an immediate concern, but I do want, with the help of Dr. Margaret Downs PhD., to tackle it at some point. A wrist strap may help to just keep it secure on my lap on a bus or whatever, and let’s not forget that I only got into the handheld game because of someone posting about playing Burnout Revenge at the DMV, but I’m concerned that a wrist strap on the hand that I don’t use would put the console at a strange, non-functional angle. I may try it in conjunction with what I’ve gone for at the moment, which is another neck lanyard, but keeping the Thor in a more spacious bag so that it can all stay attached and not see damage. I still have gross motor function in my other arm, so I’m using that to hold the Thor while wearing the neck lanyard to play games on the move, and it works very well. I thought that my arm would complain about this, but it’s surprisingly comfortable. The addition of a wrist strap might make it more stable in a moving vehicle, but, on a recent car ride with it, it was very playable without one.
Why I bought an Ayn Thor as a person with hemiplegia and what I’m getting out of it
It’s a 3/DS form-factor but with Bluetooth, which is something I’ve wanted since I watched a relative play Mario Kart DS in 2005. The Thor has opened up those libraries to me, in the form-factor that they’re supposed to be in. I’ve heard a lot of stuff about the input lag on either screen being poor, but I haven’t experienced this. I’m playing the 3DS version of Layton’s Mystery Journey (2017, Level-5, N3DS, NS, Mobile, and yes that includes Android but I wanted to take advantage of the dual screens) and the Nintendo DS version of PopCap classic Bookworm. The capacitive touch screens feel responsive to standard rubber-tip styluses. I have no quibbles.
Steam games are running on Arm now; it’s early days, but Valve, the company behind the Proton compatibility layer for Windows software on Linux, has also recently copped to bankrolling the Fex compatibility layer that hopes to do the same for Arm chip devices, like phones, handhelds.
The fruits of this are clear; I have Slay the Spire, Balatro, and Alien Hominid HD running with my Steam cloud saves well enough. These aren’t hard games to run, and there have been some PC games that I’ve tried to get going, that haven’t worked (like the Steam version of any PopCap game), or run poorly with glitches, like the GOG version of Doom 1 + 2 using GameNative, that haven’t worked even when EmuReady (a website for user-submitted compatibility reports). (As of version 0.8.1, Doom 1 + 2 works wonders now with a configuration on the GameNative website that you can download and import directly into the game settings from the GameNative app. It’s still experimental stuff, but the software driving Steam games on the AYN Thor, and Android generally, is maturing.)
Even though I’m impressed at what something this small and pocketable can play well, it’s not quite the everything console. That remains the case even for emulation; Super Mario Galaxy on Switch is ropey, although you can play the Wii version fine. Playstation 3 emulation on the Thor is also described as experimental and I haven’t tried it; I have the real thing, plus more powerful PC handhelds that are a better fit for it, so fine, BUT.
With Fex, I’m remembering that the Steam Deck’s release had Valve testing 100 games that were guaranteed to work with it, and now thousands of games are Steam deck verified, and even ones that aren’t verified run flawlessly on it. It’ll get there in time.
I am very excited for the next Steam Deck, which is rumoured to use an Arm chip, but the AYN Thor is far more portable, even considering the fact that I cannot hold it. Even with a neck lanyard fitted, the unit fits in my pocket, even with a small controller, and I can throw it in a bag without needing a travel cover. The battery life beats any PC handheld I’ve used. It’s actually a tabletop/lapheld game thing that’s small enough to come anywhere even with me but also powerful enough to play a wide range of games that I’m interested in.
That it runs Android is a great benefit for game availability; games that I wanted to play but aren’t running well on Fex yet have Android ports. The Bully port is great, and hardly drains the battery. Minecraft on this gives it the pick-up-and-play quality that the game suits well. I can pick it up, do a bit of a treetop base, and put it down for later. It’s lovely.
One issue I’ve run into is that the Play Store complains that Balatro isn’t compatible with the Thor, and you can’t download it. It is compatible, you just have to manually acquire the APK that you legally own. This is the only game that I’ve run into this problem with, but it could be the case for others, and I don’t know why. I prefer having the Steam version, and said version runs great on the Thor,
Sometimes it’s not about power; Margaret and I spent some time playing through WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames (Nintendo, Game Boy Advance, 2003) together on our last trip, and I ended up finishing it on the train home. I loved being able to just pass the Thor to her and have her figure the game out, as well as me being able to play it with the Thor placed on the train seat tray with a gamepad.
A lot of retro handhelds out right now are “””””versatile”””””, but between the Bluetooth, video-out and dock capabilities via USB-C, and the dual screens on a device with an operating system that’s not a walled garden, it’s hard to really fault the Thor for what I want from it; a little box that can play most of the things that I want to on a plane or a train or in bed.
Playing games in bed on this is terrific. Cradling it in my other arm with a game guide or self-hosted video and audio streaming service Plex on the other screen has been my go-to set-up for playing single-screen games.
Here are some mini-reviews of the games that I’ve been playing on my Thor with motor accessibility in mind
Minecraft (2011, Mojang, every conceivable device on the planet but I’m playing the Android version obvs)
You probably know what Minecraft is; I have ancient relatives coming out of their tombs to ask me whether I can put it on their children’s devices. It’s like LEGO, but in your imagination. It has optional survival elements, if that doesn’t spark deep anxiety within (it’s not for me).
There’s a Nintendo 3DS version of this and I wanted that for the dual-screen element, but it hasn’t received content updates since 2019 and somehow they’re still adding shit to this so I thought against it. It runs great on this, though. I forgot how easy it is to get sucked in by it after not playing for many moons.
I like how the Android version just works with a controller, whereas before, on a Steam Deck or other Linux device, I had to modding the Java version, which can break after an OS update potentially, which I know because it happened once, and I had to go into some .ini for the mod (Controllify) and disable Steam Deck gyro support to get it working again. Whereas this is just like ‘yeah mate, you’ve got a controller? Come on in!!!’
I know that Linux not having an official version of Minecraft is because Microsoft employees (and employees of all Windows-centric game developers) are exclusively stinky rat cunts who drink piss for sex, but I can see the Thor being my preferred device for Minecraft in particular because of the controller support being baked in.
I don’t know why my go-to project in these is sort of a bio-dome across linking tree tops; a livable civilization based on the principles of ‘the floor is lava’, it just sounds good. I wonder if you can grow food in these now, and cultivate a society in the sky. Okay, yeah, maybe survival mode is for me, if you can do those things.
I played this fifteen years ago, and it’s still going strong with the amoeba. What am I?
Warioware: Mega Microgames (yes, again) and Warioware Gold (Nintendo, 2017, Nintendo 3DS)
An assault of hundreds of tiny games woven together into little short stories. Wario is still an utter bastard, but he’s also a game developer who hasn’t yet discovered micro-transactions and kernel-level anti-cheat, so fair enough.
Margaret played most of the GBA version of this, and I delighted in watching. I’d beat it before, and I dearly enjoyed seeing her discover it. It really is Neurodivergence: the Video Game. She may decide to write about this for herself. Oh look, she has:
I am on record as enjoying a minigame (see my Super Mario Galaxy review, but until Chief Raccoon brought me WarioWare, I had very little experience with micro-games. I wasn't sure how I'd get on with games that only lasted a few seconds, but it turns out they're sometimes exactly the right thing for my fried attention span. Some are easy (just spam A) while some require more finesse. It's extremely satisfying to figure out exactly what I'm meant to do from the very short instructions, and eventually progress to the boss fight. I also have it on good authority that there's lots to do after the few stages I played, and lots of new games to unlock, and I'm excited to delve in with encouragement and collaboration from CR.
While this isn't a game we can easily turn into a multiplayer experience, it can still be a shared one. (Even if I did at one point say, “I love you, I'm not listening to you.”) There are other games in this category, including within WarioWare, that are more of a traditional multiplayer experience, that I'm also eager to check out. But a shared game, where one person observes and offers encouragement, is a lovely experience in and of itself.
I think Mega Microgames is great, and it does seem to never end. Though I beat the short-story levels on the train home, I keep unlocking endless modes of various stripes and actual multiplayer modes that are played on the same unit that we’re going to have to try at some point. The endless modes are great, because I’ll be playing and come across a new microgame and be momentarily thrown. The official number of games is 200, and I’ll be coming back to this for more and more.
After superficially finishing it, though, I wanted even more than that. So, when I got home, I decided to try Warioware Gold (Nintendo, 2017, Nintendo 3DS), a fully voice-acted best-of collection of games from the Game Boy Advance original, plus gyro-driven Twisted (Nintendo, 2003, also the Game Boy Advance, and really cool; the cartridge had gyrometers in it, but also never released in Europe, and finicky on Linux emulators, so I still haven’t played that, and I’ll take Gold as a consolation prize), and the stylus-driven Touched (Nintendo, 2005, Nintendo DS).
I was surprised at how well it emulates on Android; the gyro and touch inputs just work, and it’s all responsive enough that I don’t feel like I’m at a disadvantage versus playing on a proper 3DS.
With hemiplegia, emulation actually makes this game playable, as it does for many games. Some of the gyro games still require you to press the A button, but emulating lets me move a on-screen A button over to the left side of the top screen so that I can press it while twisting the device as usual. I could still do with some non-slip feet for playing the stylus games in a tabletop configuration, but they’re still playable, and I do alright. Cradling the Thor as I do gets around this.
With the Switch and its largely traditional control scheme already being out by the time this game came out, Gold feels a bit like a final blowout for Nintendo’s weirder side. My condition gives me mixed feelings about this; a game like Warioware: Get it Together (traditionally controlled, with characters in the games controlled with the analog stick and face buttons) is more accessible to me and I can consume it, but it feels less inventive. And then you have Warioware: Move It, a direct sequel to Smooth Moves (a game I enjoyed a lot; motion control, but doable with one-hand). It uses two joy-cons at once, which is neat and makes it unique software for the Switch, but consequently means that I won’t be able to play until me and Margaret take joy-con each and carry on our tradition of turning single-player experiences into multi-player ones.
Warioware games are playable sketch shows; a massage for my single brain cell. Get them down you.
Gold is a lot of fun, and I’m going to rinse it.
Bully: Anniversary Edition (Rockstar New England, Wardrum Studios, 2016 Android, iOS)
The Steam version of Bully, one of my favorite video games, and one that I’ve reviewed on here, kind of works on the Thor under Gamehub, but it’s not plug and play, and there’s some screen-tearing when you get it running properly.
Luckily, there is a mobile version that’s a glow-up, as they say, of Scholarship Edition, the 2008 remaster of the 2006 original. It has controller support baked in, cloud saves if you can bear to log into a Rockstar account, and you can count on the cutscenes to work without modding it first, which isn’t the case on Linux.
Honestly, I just adore that this game now fits in my pocket. Between the native Android port, plus Scholarship Edition and the PS2 original being playable via emulation, I’m very happy.
The thing that’ll keep me coming back to Anniversary Edition is the autosave function. It runs like a dream on the Thor; Bully has always been a 30 frames-a-second experience, but it’s always felt weirdly smooth.
Anniversary Edition might be the ultimate version of it. And I can play it on the train!
Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo, 2007, Nintendo Wii)
There is a Switch version but it’s not there yet on the Thor. The Wii version has a classic controller patch, which is very workable, but my life isn’t long enough to try and get controller gyro working as the Wii remote pointer, so I’m playing this on actual Nintendo hardware now. I know, what a cunt.
This was a game that I could not play in its original form; the wiimote and nunchuk combo was useless to me, so I adore that emulation, and the original developers wanting to keep the game marketable, has helped me enjoy it again.
I love the music to the point that I have the soundtrack now. I love how varied the levels are. It’s reminiscent of latter-playstation 1 Crash and Spyro games, throwing new ideas and gimmicks (complimentary). Like Warioware, there’s always something new going on, and if you don’t like what’s going on, a new bit will be along soon.
I watched Margaret play this on our last trip, and we had fun! When you finish the game once as Mario you play a harder version of it as Luigi, and she’s on that now. I don’t know if I’ll get that far, but I find it a delight to watch and to play. We’ll see.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Eurocom, 2002, Game Boy Advance)
I have a vivid memory of buying this in a shop at the time and beating it. I also beat it on an emulator running on a computer hooked up to the big television a couple of years ago. All the Harry Potter games are different depending on the platform, and this one is an isometric platformer with stealth sections. It’s Super Nintendo-tier, which is sedate compared to the HARROWING PS2 version; you’ll be sneaking about and then a prefect will see you and then this awful string music will flare up. Sneaking around on the GBA ones is tense, but getting caught just restarts the section, so I can deal with that.
I have a distinct memory of getting stuck, way back when, on the near-intro section of cutting about the bank trying to collect gems to get into your vault. In going back to it, it wasn’t hard to get past at all. I’m glad I’m not as stupid now.
It’s one of those games that you beat, but also that you can’t beat, because after you beat it and reload your save, you go back to the final boss battle.
I like how contained it is; it’s easy to put down in between sessions and it’s also clear when you’ve rinsed it,
I never had the Prisoner of Azkaban GBA game where it becomes a turn-based RPG. Maybe I’ll get that on the go. I never played them, but the Game Boy Color Harry Potter games were also like that. They sound neat. This is all a great use of a device with these specs; Christ.
Ratatouille (Locomotive Games, 2007, Sony Playstation Portable)
This is the video game enthusiasm newsletter, and so the only thing I will say here is that there are no surprises; it’s a straight platformer.
Ratatouille is my favorite film of all time, and I do mean that. This game is a direct sequel to it. I was, previously, very happy to be living in a world where Ratatouille is not a franchise, where we’re not waiting for Ratatouille 5: Remy’s Big Win, and so I am depressed somewhat to find out that this exists.
The gameplay is serviceable; it hasn’t aged well, but it’s fine.
The most impressive part of this is that the film’s voice actors appear in it; I’ve watched the film more times than I can count, so believe me, it’s either them, or extremely convincing soundalikes. I think it is them. I checked online and it is them.
I had to stop for the night when I got to the hub world. The rat colony has a Crash Bandicoot Warped feel to it; you walk around and select levels in between buying power-ups and redeeming keys in a chest for something or other.
It all hangs together; I think my brain is resisting that it’s a continuation of the film, just with ropier animation where all the characters look even more out of a a Dolmio advert.
Unrelated to anything, Margaret and I went to see Unfortunate; a ‘this is how it really happened’ take on The Little Mermaid, at The Other Palace in London. As a slight spoiler, Colette from Ratatouille is a character in it. What started as a fun gag cameo spiraled into a really fun alternative arc for that character, and so if there has to be a Ratatouille 2, that’s the one for me.
Parappa the Rapper (NanaOn-Sha, 2006, Playstation Portable)
I’m talking about the PSP version specifically here, not the PS1 version.
Yeah, the songs are really fun, but fuck me the timing is absolutely fucked, no matter what emulator I use. It could be input lag, except I’m that much of an decrepit anorak that I’ve tried it on original hardware, and it’s just as bad.
It’s so odd; I beat Um Jammer Lammy (the spiritual sequel) on original hardware but I’ve only beat Parappa via the PS4 remaster, which I assume tweaks the timing to be workable because I did that in one sitting; it’s a short game when you take out the agony. That’s probably why they added the agony.
Impenetrable.
Motorstorm: Arctic Edge (Bigbig Studios, 2009, Playstation Portable)
There was a PlayStation 2 port, but I haven’t played that one.
In a bid to play a PSP game that doesn’t dull my heart, I’m here. I picked it up at random not expecting much, but it’s actually pretty good.
You play through events (sometimes races, sometimes speed challenges, and potentially more things than that but I haven’t got that far enough in it yet to tell) in snowy mountains and icy ridges with a boost mechanic against an iconoclastic rock soundtrack, and it’s all very Burnout. I love Burnout, so I’m pleased to have more of it. I had a very pleasant evening on this and I’ll keep going back. I probably will have done so when you’re reading this.
There’s some environmental destruction going on, which seems impressive to me for a machine released in 2004. At set points in the tracks, you (and your opponents) can cause avalanches that can wipe you (and your opponents) out. I haven’t figured out how to do them, but one triggered in the first session that I had and I had to dodge some debris. It sounds dull written out, but it was a nice thing to discover.
The music is just alright; the Horne and Corden theme music is in there, which was the point where I put Youtube on the bottom screen and turned the game sound off. This happens with every game with a finite playlist eventually, but it happened much quicker with this. Trying to imagine playing this on original hardware where you only have one screen and have to buy into Sony’s shitty proprietary external storage to use the media functions on it and realizing that I’m neurodivergent to the point of oblivion. Great.
I appreciate how simple the controls are. Right bumper to go, left to brake, circle for the handbrake, cross to boost. In an emulator you can put L and R on square and triangle and it’s workable just using the buttons on the face of your controller.
(There is an actual Burnout on the PSP; Dominator, and I haven’t played that one; I can confirm that the fabled ‘Burnout Revenge at the DMV’ moment is possible; the PS2 version is good fun on the Thor.)
Peggle Dual Shot (2009, Q Entertainment, Nintendo DS)
Q Entertainment being the original Lumines studio; I didn’t plan for that detail to come up, but it is nice, as Lumines is fucking brilliant.
They’ve ported perennial casual classic Peggle to the brand spanking new Nintendo DS. No, I’m being silly, we’re 17 years removed from the game’s release, but the port is real.
The Thor cradled in my otherwise useless arm plus lanyard round neck plus stylus plus this is extremely pick-up-and-play gaming in a way that as yet has been unrivaled by any other system. Peggle in my pocket, amazing.
It’s also a really good version; you get Peggle 1, Peggle Nights (the actual Peggle 2 from the time) and - supposedly, but I’m not there yet - exclusive levels by Q Entertainment. The whole thing can be played on the touchscreen, and it still controls accurately with a modern stylus on a modern touchscreen. You can zoom in with the stylus to fine-tune your aim as well; I haven’t been able to fast-forward using it so far, but that’s never been that important for me with Peggle, so fine.
It takes a considerable graphical hit versus the PC or console versions, obviously, but the Thor (Max, at least) can blow it up to 8X native resolution so the pixels glisten at you. The music’s still there, including your Ode to Joy, so it’s not compromised in any way, and I appreciate that it’s packed with content.
It’s still just as fun as ever on the touchscreen. You can’t get a version of vanilla Peggle on mobile anymore; just something called ‘Peggle Blast’, which is micro-transaction ridden guff. There is probably an old APK of the original lying around, but I like taking advantage of the dual screen setup as much as possible. It’s nifty.
This port also takes advantage of the dual screen well enough. The bottom screen is the playfield and the top is just your points and your combo meter and whatever Peggle master you’re up to. However, if you hit enough purple pegs in a level, there’s now an exclusive bonus round that becomes kind of like Pinball but controlling worse (though, to be fair, I’ve only run into it once in my brief time playing for now, so it could quite easily be me that’s the problem). The best thing about the mode is that the playfield uses the top screen to extend it.
I maintain generally that if you want intuitive takes on Popcap games, the DS versions are really good, with unique enough additions (and, obviously, a unique control scheme) that make them worth trying even if you’ve played them to death on other platforms.
Bookworm (Black Lantern Studios, 2009, Nintendo DS) (okay sorry)
Bookworm (a phenomenal casual word game that I find centering) is a really good example of a game expanded for the DS; it’s not simply Bookworm for the PC squished down.
The Thor might be the console on which I play Bookworm for the foreseeable future. I would have said before playing the DS version that this would only be because the Steam version doesn’t run on it, but there’s actually a whole lot of content not in the Steam version, like filling out themed dictionaries by playing specific words, and there is something satisfying about using a stylus with it as Gosh Nintended. I don’t really know where all of the extra house renovation and dictionary-filling guff is going at this juncture, but all of that keeps me wanting to play this version more. It fitting in my pocket (or a satchel, because of the neck lanyard, brrrrrr) would have been enough, but the extras are nice.
I’m getting a lot from playing it on a touchscreen; the Steam version on a Steam Deck also gave me this pleasure, but using the stylus on the DS version, even through an emulator on a device without a resistive touchscreen, feels more accurate; it’s a pleasure to play.
The Sims: Bustin’ Out (2003, Griptonite Games, GBA, and also apparently the Nokia N-Gage, goodness me)
This is the Sims but as a social role-playing Game; you only make and play as the one sim, and there’s a storyline.
It sounds blasphemous to the format, but I played this to death at the time, and it’s great fun.
It’s quest based; you do what characters ask you to do and then you progress to different houses. You do jobs to earn money (what a concept) that if you’re like me you save-scum in the emulator because you’re terrible at them, and skill up to earn promotions in them. It’s a satisfying number-go-up game. It exists in an alternate reality where mowing lawns for your uncle is lucrative enough to be your primary source of income.
It might be one of the best looking games on the Game Boy Advance, and the colors pop and the isometric perspective works unbelievably well.
The GBA’s color display has a memorable color palette that I always make sure to turn on in emulators now, and it looks beautiful and vibrant here on the Thor’s OLED screens. You can tell this is a game that I love, and that I have deep core memories of, because I’m talking about the colors, of all things.
Back then I had it because it was a Sims game and it was a known quantity, but then it turns out to not be a Sims game, but something pleasantly different. I’m playing it in current year and I remain fascinated with it, so it’s not all nostalgia.
The music is de-makes of the music from The Sims on the PC (complementary in the extreme). I have the soundtrack for this particular version for listening whenever; the music is that good.
It’s been compared to Harvest Moon, a game series that I haven’t played so I can’t expand further, but there is Animal Crossing DNA in it; no raccoon landlords, and no multiplayer, but there are many characters in a tight space to befriend and run around after and ask to move in with you.
Bustin’ Out has its hook into me, and it’s truly a Capitalist Overlord Raccoons-approved game in that sense. It’s also from the era of the Sims where Electronic Arts haven’t given up the pretense of the series being a consumerist satire, so you still have the items breaking and shocking you when you repair them, and one of your needs is being entertained. You’re a terrible dancer in this, but it’s fun to watch when you set the stereo in the uncle’s house to ‘disco’.
I don’t think me and my lizard idiot brain finished this at the time, but, just like with Chamber of Secrets, I hope to fare better now. The catch is that, because it’s a game with a storyline, it ends. I can’t tell you exactly how at this time, nor whether it locks you out of a save or not, or whether it just puts back to the point of no return like in Chamber of Secrets.
On accessibility; it’s a d-pad and the two face buttons; you only need L and R in the menus, so you don’t need to access them all of the time. It’s a game I could play on original hardware in my specific position, but it is also a great game. On an emulator, remapping it all to four face buttons is trivial, and even with the Thor’s bottom screen dividing the controls I can get by with this on the built-in controls; though I have mostly been playing it with a controller in bed.
I reckon that having this game stitched into my skin (not literally, although an Uncle Hayseed tattoo would be pleasantly peculiar) is why I’m pissing my leg off to play Witchbrook. You’d think it would have put me on for Stardew Valley, but I haven’t yet managed to get into that.
It’s a great Thor game; OLED screens help a colorful game look its best, and it’s a handheld title on a handheld, so the fan doesn’t run and the battery lasts and lasts with it.
The AYN Thor being convenient, even for a user with hemiplegia
My recent GBA period is helping me realize that even with the Max, modern games, for current PCs or more recent consoles, are better suited to other devices. The Thor is terrific; unique, and filled with a kind of wonder and an inherent versatility that makes this hemiplegic writer able to take it places that I can never take a heavier PC handheld; but tempering your expectations in terms of what you can or will play on it is good.
Even though there are games that I want to be playing on those systems over the Thor, because of screen size and the current state of X86 emulation on Arm chips, the Thor is currently my pick-up-and-play doohickey. It’s the closest I’ve been to actual portable gaming as a hemiplegic person since the Game Boy Advance SP, and it’s so versatile that I can play near enough anything; games that I was never able to play on original hardware. I keep writing this out because I can’t believe that it’s happening.
The way I have the Thor set up right now has set me up to play video games anywhere, and the Thor being so light and dinky has made that happen. It can sit on my bedside table with my Pro 3 and stylus and I can pick it up and start playing something in seconds. The Steam Deck, as much as I dearly love it, or even the Switch, is unwieldy and takes some time to prop up and turn on. They need storing in cases across the room, which means going to get them and then unzipping them, and my bed looking a bit like a space station all night.
I love how convenient it is to pick up, even for me. Just this morning, I woke up a bit early, sat up in bed, reached for the thing and my controller and was playing Lumines: Puzzle Fusion (Q Entertainment, 2004, Sony Playstation Portable) in seconds, just whiling away time with it for a cheeky hit. Warioware and Lumines with a gamepad on train journeys; yes.
THIS JUST IN
I was about to add that I’d tried to get the Steam version of Lumines: Remastered working on GameNative and it didn’t launch at all. HOWEVER, I did just install it using GameHub and it worked straight away without tinkering.
X86 to Arm translation is hard to recommend right now, and I think it’ll only be when Valve release a dedicated Steam ARM client (the first preview of which we’ll see when the Steam Frame VR headset comes out at some point in this year, memory shortage permitting) that it’ll becomes reliable. Said translation is moving at a considerable pace, though, and being able to have even light titles available with Steam cloud saves on this tiny thingy is a lot to take in.
Frontends, or not bothering with them
Coverage of the Ayn Thor on YouTube likes to show off console-like frontends like the dual-screen Cocoon, or the old-standard EmulationStation. I have EmulationStation on the Steam Deck, but on the Thor I’ve mostly opening emulators and apps in Android. This is partly because the most readily apparent (and very finnicky) way to change the screen that an app is on is done through the Android home screen, and also because I haven’t been bothered to get into all of that.
Android on the Thor feels immediate as it is, and once you start figuring out that EmulationStation being a single screen frontend but there’s an additional app that you can use to put a companion app on the second screen, I despair. I think ‘ohhhhhhhhh fuck’, so I’ve been alright with launching the emulators directly.
In my position, with hemiplegia, I think I prefer this approach, because I spend a fair bit of time tweaking controls in emulators, sometimes while they’re running. I might be sacrificing some personality in the device, but I’m enjoying just playing games on it for now;
EmulationStation is also a paid product on Android, and I suppose I’m feeling cheap, or maybe I don’t know why I should pay for this software that only complicates the setup and the experience for me in particular.
If Android gets something like EmuDeck, which automates the folder structure for organizing emulators, then I’ll look into frontends some more. Just now I don’t mind setting up what I want to use manually, and I’m enjoying exploring a few select systems.
Since writing the above, I’ve installed Cocoon and a ‘Wii U-inspired theme from the asset repo on project’s Discord server, and it looks good. It’s still in beta, and so there are bugs and annoyances with it (it won’t detect zipped PSP games for a start. However, because the AYN Thor handles disabling the internal controls as a simple ‘quick settings’ toggle, and because, unlike Linux, Android doesn’t have you managing the controller order, it’s a lot more pleasant to use with an external gamepad than other frontends on PC handhelds with internal controls. I still think frontends like Cocoon are a bit much, but if you’re into personalizing the look and feel of your device and you’re also using an external gamepad, you should have no problems.
In summary then wa-hoo
The AYN Thor is great, and though it’s not quite ‘all you need’ if you play a breadth of games that have been made in the past fifteen years or so. But, as someone with hemiplegia and motor accessibility needs, I’ve found that I haven’t had to go through any of the bullshit that I usually do with a handheld to make it work for me.
I can take it places and not feel self-conscious about it. Even if I still need a bluetooth controller and a neck lanyard, it’s been much less of a pain to setup than a PC handheld, and is less of a pain to set up for a gaming session than a PC handheld.
Even if those will play more games without complaint. I got the Steam version of Xenotilt running on it yesterday, so I’m very happy. I don’t play a lot of ‘heavy’ games, and all these games that are my go-tos for quick hits do very well on it.
Being able to wake up on a morning for a quick hit of Lumines or Bully or whatever is unparalleled; and the lightness and smallness of the thing really helps.
Thank you for reading this month’s Capitalist Overlord Raccoons!
Good one, this.
The AYN Thor is the last big hardware purchase I’m planning on making for many moons; I have enough devices that play video games, and enough video games to play, that I feel well-prepared to hunker down in a time of astronomic prices and, in all honesty, not that many new games that I’m dying to play now-now-now. Witchbrook obviously, and Slay the Spire 2 is coming out with online co-op in March and me and and a friend want to be in on that, but all the rest; Forza, Fable, um, third option, can wait. Oh, GTA 6, just so I can rinse it and sell it and the Xbox as soon as possible.
Margaret and I are still planning to make April a special issue, but if we write what it’ll be and it doesn’t happen it’ll end up being a massive letdown, so we’ll see.
As ever, the email to get in touch is please@makebad.games, and we’re really excited -
THE 8BITDO LITE SE JUST CAME THROUGH THE DOOR
I have bought a 8bitdo Lite SE now for the Android/Switch, which is all of the buttons on the face; the Pro 3 that I already have is good! I think I’m just feeling lazy when it comes to remapping; Android doesn’t have Steam input for starters, so you have to go through the Ultimate Software V2 on Android, which requires unpairing the controller from the Thor (or whatever) entirely first to get it to detect it and I’m increasingly not arsed.
Plus it is actually designed for people with dexterity issues, unlike anything else in the industry; it’s all extra sensitive, and there’s a non-slip surface on the bottom. It might end up being good for fighting games, which I remain shit at.
I also remain mad that the ones that work with Xbox, and presumably anything with the Brook adapters that I swear by, are entirely separate devices. I reckon it should work on the Steam Deck in the Switch mode, though.
(Future me: It does.)
First impressions; it’s TINY. No trouble slipping this AND the Thor into a pocket. It has a non-slip mat on the bottom, which is really good for it, er, not slipping when laid flat on a table / my lap.
Now, after a few days, I’m finding that I’m having to retrain my muscle memory because the buttons are so close together, but I’m getting there. I started playing Bully with it and was thoroughly incapable, but I just put it on again this morning (the AYN Thor remains the perfect pick-up-and-play for bite-sized sessions device) and am faring better; even though I’m still having to look down at the controller more than I’d like, I am, broadly, pressing the right buttons and being less befuddled by it. I was also playing Dino Crisis 2 with it yesterday and doing alright. (I want to write about that game in-depth but I need more time with it.)
I took it and the AYN Thor out of the house for an errand the other day, and the Thor and Lite SE together are super light and convenient together. A clamshell design plus lanyard hole plus bluetooth radio has made portable play a properly feasible reality for me, and they’re both really neat together. I’ve said it already, but why not again; the LITE SE is TINY, it surprised me how small.
One thing that is miffing me off about the Lite SE is that it doesn’t support the Ultimate Software app for remapping, so you have to do it manually on the controller. On Android, for me, remapped buttons revert to their original mappings when any of the sticks are moved on the axis. 8BitDo say that it’s a system issue, or some incompatibility with games; but I’ve run the Thor’s gamepad input tester and it’s a system-wide issue on it and also my Sony Xperia 10 VI, so I don’t know.
8BitDo; great products, rubbish customer service. If there’s any movement on this, I’ll add it on.
(I might be getting a replacement from the place I bought it from, so that’s good.)
(They won’t test it on an Android device if I return it, so the whole customer service project is useless. What a rollercoaster.)
(It might just be that the controller’s remapping function is borked on Android specifically? This isn’t clear in the literature. Pfft.)
(There may also just be an app that I have both on the Thor and my phone that’s causing a conflict, although I haven’t been able to suss out which one yet.)
Other than all this, the 8BitDo controller is very good; compact, versatile, and possibly the best layout of any controller if you’re using one-hand to play video games. It means I can use the AYN Thor as a portable, and so in that sense it’s invaluable.
See you next month.