Friday, August 16, 2013

Free anti-suppression Tetris

A while back I discovered an inspired programmer and blogger had tried to build an anti-suppression Vision Therapy tetris game. Upon finding it I was very excited and set out to try it with my red green anaglyph glasses. The game itself is a normal tetris game and I suppose the coloring had already been changed but it still wasn't suited for anti-suppression play because I could 'cheat' my way through the game using only one eye.

Before I'd also tried squinty Josh's anti-suppression solitair game. He applied the right colors in order to make his solitair game 'uncheatable', meaning that you are forced to use both eyes. So similarly I made the Tetris blocks look red and blue and made sure the background was black so you can't even cheat using the edges of the blocks. Of course, red green anaglyph glasses are required.

You can download the anti-suppression Tetris game with a plain black background here.

For some people the black background has proven to be stressful to start out with. Because of this a more tech-savvy VT friend  of mine named Aaron added a couple of sliders at the top enabling you to adjust the background color to alleviate frustrations a little and ease into the game.

You can download the anti-suppression Tetris game with adjustable background here.

It's definitely good anti-suppression practice. I'm still very insecure about positioning my blocks!

To keep things interesting and visually more challenging you might want to turn around your glasses every so often (or interchange the colors in the html file). That way the eyes switch color and the amblyopic eye takes on different roles within the game.

Demo video



PS: If you have enjoyed or benefited from this and other blog entries, consider supporting my work of proliferating Vision Therapy as a vital treatment option for amblyopia and strabismus by donating an amount as small as 5$. There's no better feeling in the world than knowing that your hard work is being appreciated. In addition, I can use some encouragement and financial support to do an even better job and get through my own visual rehabilitation.



Last but not least, share this article on your favorite social network and give it a +1 on Google if you think other parents and patients should be have access to this low cost vision therapy exercise.

Good luck in solving binocular vision problems!

Other articles you might like:
- Free anti-suppression Solitaire

19 comments:

  1. Thanks Michael! My son loves playing this...it was hard at first but he has been improving rapidly.
    My son who is 13 has an esotropia of his left eye but he switches and sees double. We have done vision therapy when he was 7 right after the eye turn first developed and it straightened until two years ago. Recent vision therapy has been slow going and we are looking into syntonics and/or sensory learning. I am trying to contact Heather for info on that. Do you know how i can reach her? I messaged her from the Adult Vision Therapy Facebook page several days ago but have not heard back.
    Thanks much,
    Lynn

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    1. Great. That's a good idea, don't give up. I don't see you in our Facebook group though. Sure you are in the right group?

      Either way, if you go to www.facebook.com/scheelzien.be and like it I can easily connect you guys. I don't think she will mind talking about her experience at all.

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  2. Michael, thank you so much for this blog and for your version of Tetris. I am moderately amblyopic and have early onset cataracts. Any improvement to my amblyopic eye will have very positive consequences for the outcome of my pending surgery.

    I am eagerly awaiting to enter the trial for this discovery. It seems logical and easy enough but it will still take ages to be released. The original study, involved turning the contrast right down on the dominant eye, to even the playing field. This contrast then gets turned up as the weaker eye progresses. Is this something you can add to the almost perfect version above?

    Many thanks
    Jim

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    1. Hey Jim! In our VT group on fb, which you are welcome to join (https://www.facebook.com/groups/409530845760880/), are some tech able people. The thing you are referring to isn't easily feasable apparently, however someone did make a version with adjustment bars to change the background colour to easy into the game. Some people find the black background very stressful. I will put a second link up here.

      I do get the effect you are referring to by using Ryser filters (http://livingwithdiplopia.blogspot.be/2013/08/time-to-reset.html) on my glasses which blur out my dominant eye to some extent and that way level the playing field. It's not very high tech but it gets the job done. :)

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  3. Michael, I'm an optometrist and first let me say - Great program!!! I do have a question/request. Is there any way to change the blue pieces to green? I've having trouble getting good cancelation visualization using the filters that I have.
    THANKS
    Dwayne Yeager, OD, FAAO

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    1. It's not too hard actually. If you open the htlm file with notepad and change 'invisible right' or 'invisible left' (whichever one is the blue one) to #00FF00 (hex code for green).

      I'll send it to your e-mail.





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    2. Michael, thank you so much for this! It seems to cancel well with the R/G glasses from Bernell.

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  4. Hello I've been reading your blog for the last month or so. I'm a 62 yr old woman with a problem with stereo vision. I've been finding driving increasingly difficult and recognise the story related by Sue Barry of her driving problems. I've started to use a Brock string - early days! Also I've downloaded your Tetris game and have tried it with red/green glasses from Gulden Opthalmics. It works well and makes me work hard. I'd love to be able to use the game on my iPad. I've downloaded it there but cannot find a way of moving the tiles. Any ideas/help?? An interesting feature of my driving vision is that I find it much easier to drive with the windscreen wipers on!!
    Thank you so much for the blog - it has given me hope that I can begin to mend my vision without the surgery that my optician is keen to offer me.

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    1. Good job thinking for yourself and doing research! It's never too late. I myself don't have a tablet but I will look into the iPad issue.

      Interesting that you see better with the wipers on! I've talked to numerous strabismics but never heard that one before. :) If you have facebook we would be more than happy to have your perspective in our fb group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/559654807444686/.

      Thank you, it's always great to hear your work is appreciated! If you can afford it consider a minidonation. No pressure of course :)

      PS: Tell your optician you'll try surgery if he tries it first.

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  5. Great post if you would like to try it out on Windows Phone or Windows 8 then
    you can download the Lazy Eye Tetris application here
    http://lazyeyetetris.wordpress.com/download/

    in a very soon an Android version also will be available

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  6. Hello Michael, i am using the game with a red blue anaglyph glasses and magenta as background but the borders of the pieces are helping me cheating. Is there any way to remove those borders? Or maybe change the borders color from black to magenta or the same color as the piece itself?

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    1. Hi Andrei! That's one of the reasons why I liked the black background so much... The cancelling of the borders. I don't know how to change the border color though. You could maybe bring it up in our 'DIY Vision Therapy' facebook group. Some savvy chaps there just might :) Noroc!

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    2. Hi Michael! Thank you for quick response. Meantime i've figure it out. To get rid of the black line around the cubes that form the piece just comment out (double slash // at the front of the row) the line "ctx.strokeRect(x*dx, y*dy, dx, dy)" which is near the end of the file. Without the black line there is still a 1 pixel space between the cubes that form the pieces, but is the same color as the background. Now i think that you will share my opinion that magenta (full red and blue, no green) is the best color as background.

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  7. Hey this is great, I plan to use this a bunch, way better than the one on my tiny phone screen. I was wondering if I could flip the colors so that the red is the fallen blocks and the blue are the falling ones? I tried to open the html and look around but I have no idea what I am doing and I saw nothing obvious. Thanks for making this.

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    1. If you know the structure of hex color codes you can easily find them and switch in the html code by using ctrl + f. In fact I now also have a version with slide bars to adjust the colors of the pieces and not only the backgroud. I might upload it later. Good luck with your vision therapy! Small donations are optional but always welcome.

      Best regards,
      Michael

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  8. Wait, I just downloaded the one with the black background and it has the colors how I would like. Maybe a cool feature would be a button to invert the colors? Great job on this man.

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  10. Awesome. Any suggestions on how to map the arrow controls from a keyboard to my phone? I'd love to play this from my phone hosted online.

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  11. Can't wait to try this. I wonder if I could hookup my computer to my tv and do this in real space? I have been doing vision therapy among other therapies and have been blogging about it over at journeythroughthecortex.blogspot.com

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