The short version
Ground Ops: Turnaround is a first-person game in which you walk around an airport and drive vehicles. That combination — a moving first-person camera plus vehicle motion — is the one most likely to cause discomfort, and the settings that help are listed in section 2. The game also contains flashing lights: rotating beacons on ground vehicles, emergency light bars, airfield and approach lighting, and fire.
Play in a well-lit room, sit back from the screen, take a break roughly every hour, and stop if you feel unwell.
1. Photosensitive seizures
A very small number of people may have a seizure when exposed to certain flashing lights, patterns or images, including those that appear in video games. People with no history of seizures or epilepsy may have an undiagnosed condition that can cause one.
Stop playing immediately and speak to a doctor if you or anyone playing has any of these while playing:
- lightheadedness, dizziness or a feeling of altered awareness
- altered vision, or eye or face twitching
- jerking or shaking of the arms or legs
- disorientation or confusion
- a convulsion, or any loss of awareness or consciousness
If you have ever had a seizure or symptoms linked to an epileptic condition, talk to a doctor before you play.
What flashes in this game. Rotating amber beacons on the ground-support vehicles; the two-colour light bars on the emergency vehicles; the airport beacon, the runway and taxiway lighting, and the sequenced approach strobes on a night shift; and the flicker of fire when there is an incident.
What you can turn down. The beacon on the machine you are driving has its own key and can be left off. Settings has brightness and contrast sliders, and turning both down takes a lot of the punch out of night shifts. If night work bothers you, set Time of day to frozen and start a daylight shift — it will stay daylight — and in Free Operations you can choose the time of day before you begin. Fire only appears in the scenarios built around it and in Free Operations when incidents are switched on, which is a setting you control.
Playing in a well-lit room, sitting further from the screen, and using a smaller screen all reduce the risk.
2. Motion sickness and comfort
This is a first-person game with a lot of driving in it, and some people feel queasy, headachy, sweaty or tired when they play games like this. That is common, it is not a sign anything is wrong with you, and it usually eases if you build up in short sessions rather than pushing through a long one.
Stop playing if you start to feel unwell. Take a break, get some air, and do not drive or operate machinery until the feeling has fully passed.
These settings genuinely help, and all of them are in the game:
- Field of view (65 to 105 degrees). A wider field of view is what most people need if a first-person camera makes them uneasy. Try raising it first.
- Reduce motion. Switches off the camera movement that exists only for atmosphere, such as the sweep across the field at the start of a shift.
- Camera view. One key cycles chase, close, cab and top-down. If the view from inside the cab is uncomfortable, drive in the chase or top-down view instead — they show the horizon and are much steadier.
- Look speed and inversion. Mouse sensitivity and controller look speed are separate sliders, and look can be inverted vertically, horizontally, or both. A slower look speed helps a great deal.
- A steady frame rate. V-Sync, a frame-rate cap, a graphics preset and a window resolution are all adjustable. A steady frame rate is more comfortable than a high one, so if the picture is stuttering, drop the preset.
- Brightness and contrast sliders, if the night shifts strain your eyes.
- Large UI, if you have to lean in to read the checklist. Leaning in is itself a cause of discomfort.
The camera in this game does not bob or shake — there is no headbob and no screen shake anywhere in it.
Beyond the settings: play in a well-lit room, keep some of the real room in view around the screen, sit a little further back, use a fan, and stop at the first hint of nausea rather than at the second.
3. Taking breaks
Take a break of ten to fifteen minutes every hour, even if you feel fine. Get up, look at something further away than the screen, and move around.
Do not play when you are very tired or short of sleep — tiredness makes both eye strain and motion discomfort noticeably worse.
The game does not punish you for stopping. A shift can be paused at any point with the pause key, and your career, scores and progress are saved for you.
4. Hands, wrists and posture
Hours of keyboard, mouse or controller use can make your hands, wrists, arms, neck, shoulders or back ache. Very occasionally that becomes a lasting injury.
Stop playing and see a doctor if you get persistent or recurring pain, tingling, numbness, burning or stiffness in your hands, wrists, arms, neck or shoulders — before, during or after playing.
To reduce the risk: sit supported with your feet on the floor, keep your wrists straight and relaxed rather than bent up or resting hard on an edge, hold the controller loosely, and stretch your hands and shoulders during your breaks.
5. Hearing and volume
Long listening at high volume can permanently damage your hearing, and headphones make that easier to do without noticing. Set the volume at a level where you can still hear someone speaking in the room, and turn it down rather than up if you find yourself straining.
There are loud, sudden sounds in this game: horns, sirens, engines starting close by, and incidents. Set the level with those in mind, not with the quiet of an empty stand.
Settings has a master volume and separate faders for world sounds, radio chatter, music and crew voice, so you can pull down whichever is the problem instead of muting everything. Music during shifts can be switched off entirely.
Radio subtitles are on by default, so nothing spoken on the radio is information you can only get by hearing it.
6. Playing with a controller
The game has full controller support, and menus and settings can be operated with a pad as well as the game itself. If you play with a controller:
- Hold it loosely. A tight grip is what causes sore hands, not the length of the session.
- Turn the controller look speed down if you are over-steering the camera; over-correcting is a common cause of both frustration and motion discomfort.
- Give yourself room. Keep the cable clear of where you will walk, and make sure nobody — and nothing breakable — is within arm's reach.
- The game does not use controller vibration, so there is nothing to switch off there.
Keyboard keys can be rebound from the Controls page in the pause menu, if the default layout does not suit your hands or your keyboard.
7. Younger players
Children and teenagers may be more susceptible to photosensitive seizures than adults. If a younger person is playing, keep an eye on them for the symptoms in section 1, and make sure they take proper breaks.
The game includes online play with text and voice chat between players. Chat is only available inside a private room joined with a code, but people you invite can still say things you did not write. Players can be muted individually.
8. Telling us something
If something in the game causes you discomfort and there is no setting that helps, we want to hear about it — that is how the list in section 2 got as long as it is. Write to support@arcadebox.ai and tell us what it was and when it happened.
This page is general information about playing video games safely. It is not medical advice, and it cannot cover everything about your own health. If you are worried about whether you should be playing, ask a doctor.
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