Motivation

Video games have been a part of my life forever, I’m 32 and have been playing since NES. Recently, my girlfriend has been getting into games with me. I realized that many of the cues and controls that I take for granted are completely foreign to her. It reminds me of programming, where understanding the motivations and mindset of other programmers helps in understanding. The conventions of video games are native for me, but not everyone. This guide is an attempt to make explicit the tropes of video games that are so implicit for lifelong gamers.

Mario for Basic Controls

Mario appeared on the NES, but my experience with Mario mostly involved the SNES so this section will focus on the SNES Marios (Mario Maker and the New Super Mario Bros. games share mostly the same controls). The SNES has 4 face buttons, a control pad, 2 shoulder buttons, and a start and a select button. This introduced me to the importance of hand position and optimization of button presses.

  1. Learn the Controller and Controls
    Spend some time learning the name and position of the buttons on your controller. This is simply memorization, and just takes concious effort. Additonally, learn the specific controls for the game you are playing. This seems obvious, but you need to take the time to connect your brain and hands to actions in the game.
  2. Hold “Y” in Mario!
    This is completely second nature to me at this point, but non obvious to beginners. Holding “Y” makes your character run, but it also performs actions like fireball and pick up item. This is a strange hand position, because you are using the tip of your thumb to hold the “Y” button, and the joint of your thumb to press the “B” button to jump. The rationale for this is that holding “Y” to run makes you go faster, and it also feeds in to the next tip…
  3. Keep your fingers close to the buttons!
    This is another tactic I take for granted, but I noticed my girlfriend held her fingers away from the controller and jabbed at the keys. Jabbing at the keys is imprecise and slow, causing input errors and delayed reactions

More to Come!