I need to lie down: A Thread for and about Motion Sickness

Let's use this thread to talk about motion sickness, your history with it, and possible ways to mitigate it.

Obviously anything in first person is a huge contributor, but I've noticed for me that if it's a slower paced non-shooter (Obra Dinn or Outer Wilds), then I can manage it OK. And while the speed of your typical FPS is cracked up a lot more, I think another important factor is the possibility of me dying AND not knowing or not being able to see where the damage is coming from. I actually got a little bit dizzy with a 3rd person game where I couldn't figure out how to access a certain area in a level, so I think I have some kind of hang up about needing to know where I am to feel secure.

Also, when games give you a slider to adjust field of view, I have absolutely no clue which direction is supposed to help with motion sickness.

I get it when taking off/landing in a plane or when there's a lot of turbulence. I don't like spinny carnival rides. Closing my eyes and focusing on my breathing helps. My kids get motion sick and I keep some of that crystalized ginger around for them to chew on. There was an episode of mythbusters where they kept making Grant get sick to test different cures. Ginger was the most effective.

I remember that episode! However, I don't tend to get motion sick IRL, mainly in games.

I don't typically get motion sick, but the OG RE4 (or at least the PS4 port) made me too dizzy to play. That's the only time that's happened, though.

I get motion sick from many first person games. Worst was Talos Principle 1 where you are constantly running around walls. They added motion sickness settings in a patch.

The third person game Spyro the Dragon on PS1 was also terrible. Days after playing it, I could get sick from just thinking about it. They even changed the later Japanese version because playtesters were getting sick.

I have heard that with field of view, increasing the default setting is better, with 90 to 100 degrees being the best, although it depends on the game. If it's set so high that everything looks warped, it's too high. Having the screen use up less of my visual space, either by using a small screen or by sitting far away from a screen, seems to help.

Regarding ginger, most brands of ginger ale don't have ginger in them. I don't know what the best way to consume ginger is.

Years ago, my wife and I got to go to the Great Barrier Reef. On the way out they offered us all ginger tablets but we, having never gotten seasick or had ginger as a nausea suppressant, skipped it. By around the 2/3 point of the trip into the open ocean my wife was barfing over the side of the boat, and I could barely move for fear of doing the same. On the way back: ginger, and no problems.

Fresh ginger in tea with lemon and honey maybe, or crystallised ginger as noted above.

I get motion sickness from most first person games, which I'm usually fine with bc there are so many games out there that being able to filter out a bunch by default helps narrow the options. However, i was bummed that I couldn't get through obra dinn, and Indiana Jones has been a challenge. Sgt Biscuits has had to do all the controlling with me attempting to backseat drive puzzles or navigation by sneaking glances at the screen :/

Seems to just be a thing with modern games; I've never had nausea from stuff like goldeneye or perfect dark or 90s wolfenstein.

Goldeneye single player gave me mild nausea, but multiplayer was fine, probably because the screen got divided into really small sections.

I tried a virtual reality roller coaster thing at a Dave & Busters. I don't think I made it through a minute, I had to take it off. Instant nausea. The kid liked it just fine.