Cheats/hacks/exploits to make the game more accessible to a disabled player? (no spoilers please!)

[[HGS] Narameh]

This is going to be an unpopular thread, I feel it in my bones. Please leave your flamewars at the door and comment something helpful.

Hello! I am a disabled player with issues with muscular control and timing. I'm in love with the exploration and lore aspects of Hollow Knight, but I don't think the game is forgiving enough for me to make it through unaided. I desperately want to experience this game blind, but I could use some hints and tips to make it more accessible (if they exist), as the game does not come with an easy mode.

I've been playing in little sessions (15-60 minutes ish, 1 or 2 times a week) and that is all I can manage. I am unable to play for long stretches or often due to my health issues. I've been doing this for a few months, and have explored the first area, got a map, freed some bugs in glass containers, killed one of the normal enemy big bugs with a plank on the way to the false knight boss after a LOT of grinding (easily over 50 deaths there over multiple sessions), unlocked the stag beetle. Now I've been throwing myself at the false knight, and having very, very little success. Yesterday, I saw one of my favourite streamers do in under one hour what has taken me about 3 months to accomplish (I then quit the stream because I want to remain blind to stuff I haven't seen yet).

My issue is not that I cannot see the patterns of the enemies, I can. I know roughly what I have to do, but my hands won't obey, or they will obey, but not at the right time, and so I die, and die, and die, and die, and die. I know all the arguments about a lack of easy mode, and although they are nice for able bodied folks, for people with a disability, this makes the game incredibly inaccessible.

I like the game enough I am willing to just take 9999 years if I have to, trying to just repeat the same area forever and taking a lot more deaths than I have to until I hit a point of practice where I am competent, and the luck of a run where my hands obey for long enough that I don't make random mistakes and die. However, I am sure you can see this is extremely tedious. I'm used to the frustrations of my chronic illness (you don't want to know how many cuts, bruises and burns I take in a regular week just doing normal life), but if I can find a better way, I'd love that. If anyone knows of ways I can cheat/hack or exploit the game to make it easier/the combat more forgiving so I can go lore hunting and enjoy the absolutely gorgeous atmosphere and exploration, I'd be extremely grateful!

[Desticler]

https://radiance.host/mods/ModInstaller.exe
Here you can download mods for the game. Just look for mods that make it easier. You can find summaries of mods on this link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cz5tcggpGofrBcM90XyTkMWjMelDHzugvQM6HpB13Ew/edit?usp=sharing
I personally recommend Infinite Notches (Allows you to equip as many charms as you want) and Benchwarp (Allows you to teleport between bences you already sat on, massively reducing backtracking). Also Debug Mod but only if the other 2 mods weren't enough for you to continue playing, as this one can literally make you invincible if you want.
I really hope you can continue enjoying the game with these mods!

[[HGS] Narameh]

Desticler a écrit :

https://radiance.host/mods/ModInstaller.exe
Here you can download mods for the game. Just look for mods that make it easier. You can find summaries of mods on this link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cz5tcggpGofrBcM90XyTkMWjMelDHzugvQM6HpB13Ew/edit?usp=sharing
I personally recommend Infinite Notches (Allows you to equip as many charms as you want) and Benchwarp (Allows you to teleport between bences you already sat on, massively reducing backtracking). Also Debug Mod but only if the other 2 mods weren't enough for you to continue playing, as this one can literally make you invincible if you want.
I really hope you can continue enjoying the game with these mods!

Hey thank you so much! That's amazing! I'm running Hollow Knight on Linux so I will have to look into if/how to mod under linux. but the fact this exists in and of itself is such a massive help! Thank you so much for pointing it out.

[[HGS] Narameh]

Anienonimowa a écrit :

A huge portion of the game can be skipped or sped up or out-right requires you to pogo - jump (down-slash at the right time continiuosly), wich was a hard challenge for me at the beggining. It become a gimmic only in the fourth area and later (with a side - challenge in the second area, wich you can later easily skip), and even later it wasn't commonly used. If you get a hang of it, not only will you be able to get lots of secrets and skip stuff, but it will also help you in late game. It probably is gonna be hard/impossible, becouse, as I mentioned, i had trouble with it too, and I have no disabilities, so if you cant master it - don't worry! Its fine to go through the game normally/with mods as previously mentioned!

Hey, I really appreciate you took the time to comment! I am really very much not looking to skip any of the game though, just to make the fights more on par with the difficulty curve for a non-disabled gamer :). I very much want to explore every tiny nook and cranny of this game, trying to extract all it's little bits of environmental storytelling. That's the whole draw! That said, I have tried to do what you call pogoing - on top of an enemy, and bounced back up once or twice, but I thought I had failed anyway and that maybe this was a power you got later? Seems I was wrong and I just have to git gud ;). (Or cheat :P).

I've ordered myself a different controller, which should be coming in today, which hopefully should hurt less to use and that should help accuracy a bit (the more I am in pain doing a thing the less my muscles will obey what I want them to do). Hopefully that will help enough with practice. We'll see :D.

[Anienonimowa]

A better word would be "shortcut" (my mistake there), but the game IS worth the time and its fine to take it slow. I didn't really use it in my first playthrough either. There are a few secrets you can unlock this way, too ;)

[Sirbuddyguy]

me after playing path of pain (not trying to be disrespectful)

[[HGS] Narameh]

@Desticler Thank you so much again for suggesting the mod installer and mods! After a fair bit of hassle I managed to get the mod installer to work. Bench warp is recognised and works fine. The Debug mod does work partially, but not all of it, however, enough to set a an invincibility trigger on caps, which is great in those situations where I really cannot proceed. Sadly infinite notches is not recognised by the game and does not work at all. I might fiddle with that a bit more to see if I can create a low grade easier mode rather than having to go full invincibility. Regardless, I'm psyched I can continue now :D. Thanks so much!

[Desticler]

You are welcome!

[wally]

Bench warp is a thing? That's just what I need to get back into the game. The last set of % points are so spread out over the map it' such a chore to even start an attempt.

[[HGS] Narameh]

wally a écrit :

Bench warp is a thing? That's just what I need to get back into the game. The last set of % points are so spread out over the map it' such a chore to even start an attempt.

I'm pleased this thread has been helpful to others, too :D!

[SilntSspectre]

It’s great to see someone who’s disabled take interest in the game. I can see why many would turn away from it based on the challenge it would offer (timing, attacks, spells, ect). I hope those mods help you out and good luck!

[a.lion]

I don't have a specific answer re: the control issue. However, I have a disability where I lose my concentration at random times. Often, by the time I realize it is happening, I have already died. What I did to get past this is to backup my game save files once I get past a previous point of difficulty. If I die in a way that I feel messes up my game progress, I slip back to the backup copy of my save file.

The save files are in C:\Users\(username}\AppData\LocalLow\Team Cherry\Hollow Knight. user1,dat is save 1, user2,dat is save 2, and so on. Copy the appropriate file to a temp location. If you do something that blows your progress, quit the game, copy the temp save file to the location above, restart the game and you are back where you were when you copied the save file. If you make progress that you want to keep, make a new copy of your save file.

Also, if you want to practice beating a specific boss, you also can use the debug mod console to start the fight without having to make progress in the game upto that boss. Fireb0rn has a video (on setting up for speed running) that explains very well how to do this.

I hope this helps; being able to play this game despite my disability has made a big difference in my quality of life. I hope it does for you, too.

Also, not sure if this helps, but you can get foot pedals that can be mapped to specific controls. I know some disabled peopled have had great luck playing games with these.

[[HGS] Narameh]

a.lion a écrit :

I don't have a specific answer re: the control issue. However, I have a disability where I lose my concentration at random times. Often, by the time I realize it is happening, I have already died. What I did to get past this is to backup my game save files once I get past a previous point of difficulty. If I die in a way that I feel messes up my game progress, I slip back to the backup copy of my save file.

The save files are in C:\Users\(username}\AppData\LocalLow\Team Cherry\Hollow Knight. user1,dat is save 1, user2,dat is save 2, and so on. Copy the appropriate file to a temp location. If you do something that blows your progress, quit the game, copy the temp save file to the location above, restart the game and you are back where you were when you copied the save file. If you make progress that you want to keep, make a new copy of your save file.

Also, if you want to practice beating a specific boss, you also can use the debug mod console to start the fight without having to make progress in the game upto that boss. Fireb0rn has a video (on setting up for speed running) that explains very well how to do this.

I hope this helps; being able to play this game despite my disability has made a big difference in my quality of life. I hope it does for you, too.

Also, not sure if this helps, but you can get foot pedals that can be mapped to specific controls. I know some disabled peopled have had great luck playing games with these.

Hey thanks a lot! I really appreciate your input. I'm afraid foot pedals wouldn't much help for me as I cannot sit upright ot with my legs down for more than a few minutes. I sit reclined leaning back with my legs supported, so nothing to put the pedal agaist :).

For the moment, I have decided to just play in invincible mode, as this gives me access to all the bits of the game I enjoy (exploration, platforming, lore) whilst taking away the bit I don't enjoy, and that was making it impossible to play (combat). I have found that with loads of practice, I can manage the platforming sections quite well, and have been getting better at combat also. The other day I was having a really good day and was backtracking and accidentally played for 25 minutes without realising I was not in invincible mode and could get hit. I have this plan of finishing the game on invincible, and THEN trying to play in normal mode from the start, in which case your trick with the savegame might help! I'm playing in Linux, so my paths will be different, but I'm sure I can find them just fine. I kinda feel like a second playthrough will be needed anyway to puzzle out the lore, and I am utterly in love with the game, so none of this is a bad thing in my book :).

[[HGS] Narameh]

Cyberctf346 a écrit :

It’s great to see someone who’s disabled take interest in the game. I can see why many would turn away from it based on the challenge it would offer (timing, attacks, spells, ect). I hope those mods help you out and good luck!

Thanks a heap! I've not always been disabled, and clealy, since becoming disabled, my interest in games has not changed. I have found playing on invincible works great for me. I get all the bits of the game I like, but not the bits I don't like and cannot do properly. IT's fantastic this thread has allowed me to play this game as I am completely in love with Hollow Knight. Everything about it is wonderful now that it is accessible to me :). As I wrote to someone else, practice has improved me a lot, and I might well have another go at a non-invincible playthrough once I am through :). Perhaps the practice of a full run will help enough that I can heal through my random muscle fails? We'll see. It'll mean more time with this game, so I'm game ;).

[neio9927]

{LIEN SUPPRIMÉ}https://mrantifun.net/threads/hollow-knight-trainer.12589/
you can use the Infinite HEALTH...

[Mako]

Hey, hope you're enjoying the game. Just throwing my two cents here, because I think this is such an important discussion to be had in gaming spaces. I too, am disabled, to an extent that seems to match pretty well with yours, and I too, couldn't keep playing the game after a while without mods. So you can imagine that I relate a lot to what you're talking about here. I can only commend you for the willingness to speak up when, unfortunately, other players have been known to be horrible to people like us just because we experience games differently.

For a happy story though, let me tell you about the time I emailed Hinterland, the studio behind The Long Dark (my second favourite game of all time, so you can imagine my joy when they replied), to ask them if they'd ever consider adding an auto-walk key, because their game is all about walking, which is achieved by continuously pressing on a single key. That caused me so much pain I couldn't play the game for long. They answered, very kindly, that they understood my problem and were looking into it.

Imagine my excitement when an update was released a couple of months later, and they added the auto-walk! So I emailed them to thank them profusely, explaining that I could finally loose myself into hours of playtime in their game, and I got such a lovely response that I, no joke, printed it out and pinned it above my deck: they told me they were so glad I liked it and could enjoy the game without pain, and that my message made them so happy they read it out to the entire team. Can you imagine that?

And I cherish this, because it shows such a willingness from indie studios to work out solutions for their disabled playerbase to enjoy their games even more. I wish Hollow Knight had something like that. There isn't even an accessibility menu, where you can adjust things. I truly wish there was. It would have made my first 40 hours in the game so much easier, and so much more pain-free. So yeah, all that rambling to say, I feel you. I understand your pain, frustration, and deep want to still be able to enjoy games. I understand what it's like to dread a reaction when you post online about this. You have my best wishes, and I hope you'll find many more games to enjoy.