Blurry vision problems

[Polar Bear]

Hi! So, I love this game soooo much! But I noticed a problem with it. I know that there is a warning at the start about epilepsy etc., the standard deal. Thing is I don't have any of that and never had a problem with any game. But for some reason when playing this game for longer then 10-15 min my vision becomes blurry. I never had anything like that happen to me before. And it's only this game which is strange since it doesn't really have any flashing bits, especially if you turn it off. My vision is so blurry that I can't even read after. It takes about half an hour to go back to normal. Anyone has this issue or maybe has some idea what could be causing it so I can stay clear in future or maybe even mitegate it somehow because I love the game. As I said I don't have any healt issues related to epilepsy or seasuers. Thank you.

[Mccoone]

you should prob get that checked out by an eye doctor

[ZeppMan217]

You can turn off flashes in the settings.

[deepseaSunrise]

I haven't had that problem. It sounds kind of concerning, though? You should probably stop playing the game and/or get yourself checked out professionally.

[Ser Lagsolot]

I'm no doctor, but doing a bit of looking around online; you could be experiencing "computer vision syndrome" (CVS) I get dry eye and eye pain playing for long periods of time myself.

Recommendations are to keep the screen 4-8 inches below eye level and make sure the screen is at least like 2 feet away from your face.

There are a ton of issues related to too much screen time- including depression and other long-term effects. (It's to do with some neurological effects from looking at flashing objects for long periods, remember that screen is a 60 FPS strobe light, you don't notice but your eyes definitely do)~ so you may want to ease off a bit.

If it's a persistent issue see an expert.

[Polar Bear]

Thank you everyone for concern but I saw that some others have the same problem here on the thread. If it was something that happens with all the games I would def think it's worth to visit a doctor. But since it's this specific game I really think it's something to do with this game that does it for me. Maybe how pixels are arranged or idk... Something visual.

[Ser Lagsolot]

Well you know neurological issues are rare but to quote my my eye-doctor, "It's not rare when it's you."

be safe out there, good luck.

[Polar Bear]

I think I discovered what the problem is. As mentioned before, this is the only game that is giving me that kind of a problem. IMHO its the blurr of the character when it is moving that is the issue. I wish there was a way to disable it so I could test it out.

[Shahared]

This game is good at accidentally creating a type of physiological illusion when all the enemies are swarming in towards your character. This creates a kind of visual "tunnel" of monsters.

It's very similar to a type of illusion where you stare at a moving tunnel of black and white stripes. After staring at the tunnel, when you look away, everything you look at will continue to move the same way for a short period of time.

This can occur in lots of normal situations where you stare at something that is moving for a long period of time without moving your eyes. It used to happen to me, and everyone I worked with, when we did quality control on a manufacturing line. The job was to stare at a conveyor belt full of rotating deodorant sticks and look for drips. If you didn't occasionally glance around when you looked up from the line everything would be spinning.

I experience the same thing when playing the game if I am staring directly at the character and enemies are swarming in like a tunnel. The solution is to glance away or at different parts of the screen occasionally. It should go away after a few seconds. It can lead to an increase in eye strain, but if you keep your eyes moving around it should be ok.

[Rhonox]

Def should prolly get your eyes checked, better safe than sorry

[llammahed]

Hi OP. I found I had this issue too. Turns out, I just don't blink while playing this game. I don't know of any other game I have this problem with. I have to think about blinking and take breaks every 10 minutes in each run. This has resolved the problem for me.

[Vexleigh]

Originally posted by Polar Bear🐻‍❄:

I think I discovered what the problem is. As mentioned before, this is the only game that is giving me that kind of a problem. IMHO its the blurr of the character when it is moving that is the issue. I wish there was a way to disable it so I could test it out.

If it is the character movement blur that's causing the issue, you could try getting items that allow you to stay still more. For me, movement becomes difficult in the last few minutes of a run due to my old PC's performance issues, so I prefer such builds. There are ways to essentially make killboxes in the Inlaid Library; try that for starters and see if it affects your symptoms in any way.

[Zethell]

Sounds like it could be CVS (Computer vision syndrome) or more likely, occipital lobe epilepsy. Try lighting your room better, and increase the distance from your screen.

[Shahared]

I really think anyone jumping to the conclusion of epilepsy is overreacting. Considering you have no prior history of epilepsy and it only occurs with this game.

I wanted to expand on what I mentioned in my previous post since everyone seems to have glossed over it, and I really think this is what you and many other players are describing.

I looked into what the illusion is actually called: the "Waterfall Illusion". It was popularly described by a man named Robert Addams, who noticed the effect after staring at a waterfall and then looking at the rock face next to it. The illusion can occur whenever you stare for a long time at something that is moving in one direction. The effect is even more pronounced if all the movement is directed into a central point. Like all the monsters that are constantly moving at the "central point" of your character on the screen.

The cause of this effect is physiological, meaning it occurs because of how our vision works, not because anything is wrong with you. The simplest explanation is that our neurons change their sensitivity to a stimulus, and the ones responsible for detecting motion in one direction will become less sensitive to that constant motion the longer we stare at something moving in one direction. But as soon as we start looking at something else neurons that detect motion in the opposite direction take over, and they have not been desensitized the way the previous neurons were, and so we continue to see motion.

Now I can't say with 100% certainty that this is what you experience, but I know I have experienced this playing the game. And the descriptions of others on the forum match this phenomenon very well. But you can test the idea. If you google "waterfall illusion" the first link should include an example with instructions on the right hand side on how to experience the illusion. Try it out, and let us know if this is a similar experience. If it is, then the solution is to simply not stare intensely at the gameplay for very long, and to exercise your eyes occasionally while playing by looking at something else.

If this isn't what you experienced, and especially if this is something that persists, then there is no harm in asking an optometrist about it. I'm going to guess that it's far more likely to be computer related eye strain than a spontaneous, previously undiagnosed, occipital lobe epilepsy though.

[Zethell]

Originally posted by Shahared:

I really think anyone jumping to the conclusion of epilepsy is overreacting. Considering you have no prior history of epilepsy and it only occurs with this game.

Epilepsy is extremely complicated.
Not everyone has the same triggers.

For example, my brother has epilepsy and it is triggered by 1 song, from 1 old SNES game.
No other song does this to him.

It's this song if you were wondering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fN752KQbes

[Brando]

You can try to turn off damage numbers to see if less pixels/effects on the screen helps? I normally turn off damage numbers on some runs so that I don't lag. Turning them off can stop like 30-40% of lag once you get past 20-25 minutes.