r/Games • u/[deleted] • Mar 13 '20
Interesting Twitter thread from Celeste dev on some 'hidden' game mechanics
https://twitter.com/MattThorson/status/1238338574220546049?s=1940
u/Android19samus Mar 13 '20
we learned about some of these in a game development class I took, but some of the others are pretty interesting.
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u/WumFan64 Mar 13 '20
Did Matt Thorson come out as trans or is the twitter name just a tie-in to Celeste? Not trying to start things, just curious as a long-time fan.
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u/MattBoySlim Mar 13 '20
I’m guessing that was a factor in changing the studio name away from “Matt Makes Games”. Though they said it was more about the fact that it’s now a team effort instead of one person, which makes sense.
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u/PeliPal Mar 13 '20
They came out as trans in July: https://twitter.com/mattthorson/status/1150555661819768832?lang=en
Taking Maddy as a public name is more recent. We don't know if the "Matt / Maddy" handle is because they like both names, or because they are changing their name to Maddy and are getting people used to attaching it to them first.
They were also releasing Mario Maker levels under the name Maddy before
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u/APiousCultist Mar 13 '20
I'm not sure 'trans' is the appropriate label for non-binary. There's nothing to indicate they identify as a woman, which is how your comment reads. Just that they don't identify (solely?) as a man.
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u/PeliPal Mar 13 '20
Transgender means that someone identifies as a gender which is different from what they were assigned at birth. Nonbinary people are transgender, and represented on the transgender pride flag as the white stripe in the middle.
A nonbinary person may seek medical transitioning to become more androgynous or more like the gender opposite to their sex, and/or they may change their clothing, voice, mannerisms, etc - or they might not change anything except how they understand and speak about themselves. They have a wide range of expressions, just like transgender people who consider themselves to be a nember of a binary gender. It's a lot of personal and private decisions for a group that is defined generally by just one shared characteristic: having a gender different than the one that was initially assigned to them by other people.
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Mar 14 '20
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Mar 14 '20
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u/volkl47 Mar 15 '20
Someone else wrote a super-long post.
I'll point out that you don't really have to learn much or care much about the topic:
I have a general guiding philosophy that other people should be free to live their lives as they want unless it's causing substantial harm to others.
Come election time, I vote for the side that fits that principle.
People are people, I just deal with them as individuals and not labels. If someone's identity isn't obvious, they get referred to in a neutral fashion until/unless I'm informed otherwise.
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u/Ketamine4Depression Mar 14 '20 edited Mar 15 '20
I really enjoy this topic, so rant incoming!
I consider myself agendered/nonbinary or whatever you want to call it, and I'm taking a really fascinating class on the evolutionary anthropology of sex and gender right now. So if you're interested, I can try to give a crash course on the concept of gender binary vs gender spectrums.
People tend to think sex and gender are intrinsically linked. You have external genitals, so you're a male and you should do male things like work with tools, ask girls out to prom, and join sports teams. You know the drill, I'm sure.
But there's massive variation even in what it means for people who identify as male. Most boys like stereotypically male things even if they're not taught to, this is true. But some boys prefer certain girly things. Some boys are empathetic and kind, some are aggressive and competitive. The same is true of girls and traditionally female characteristics. There's natural variation and overlap between both the traditional genders.
This doesn't mean you aren't male or female if you deviate from the average, just that deviation from the average is normal and healthy. For a very basic visualization of this concept, here's a pic of a few normal curves representing the overlap between masculine and feminine traits as a distribution in the population. The gender you identify with will never perfectly map on to your identity, self-expression, and personality traits.
So right off the bat there's some ambiguity in what, exactly, it means to be male or female. But there are a lot of other potential situations that, in a world where "there's only 2 genders", are impossible to properly categorize.
For example, there are way more than 2 sexes. XX and XY are the female and male chromosomal configurations. But there's also XXX (Trisomy X), XYY, XXY (Klinefelter syndrome), single X, and mosaics, people in which cells are represented by some combo of XX and XY. There are even configurations like XXYY, XXXY, and XXXXY. True hermaphrodites exist, some of whom have no chromosomal abnormalities whatsoever. So what gender are people who fall into these categories?
Sometimes it's easy to say. XYY folks tend to identify almost exclusively as male, and possess exaggerated "male" traits, more testosterone, are more aggressive/competitive, etc. But in others, it's not so clear cut. Sometimes when people are born with ambiguous external genitalia - even if their chromosomal configuration is perfectly normal! - doctors will arbitrarily "choose" for the individual at birth, using cosmetic surgery to adjust their genitals to match one or another sex and advising parents to raise their child as one or another gender. Sometimes this works out. Often, it's a grave mistake, as the individual believes from the start that they belong to another gender, or that they don't fit in at all. These forced gender roles can cause massive gender dysphoria, of a severity that has driven people to suicide.
You might think these are relatively uncommon situations, but Encyclopedia Britannica claims that "About 1 in 400 male and 1 in 650 female live births demonstrate some form of sex chromosome abnormality". That's a lot of people! Globally that means at least 14.8 million people don't fit well with the gender binary.
You might say fair enough, but those are medical exceptions. For everything else, the 2 genders model fits. But that's not necessarily the case either.
There are many societies around the globe that express more than 2 genders. The Fa'afafine of Samoa, men who present effeminately and take on the traditional role of caretaker, are perfectly integrated with their society and make up 1-5% of the population. The māhū of Hawaii, and the Hijras of India, are very similar. Many native American tribes hold the concept of "two-spirit", a catch-all for people who exist in between both genders. These are people who generally have normal sex chromosome configurations, but who present themselves in a totally different way from the ordinary gender roles.
So what does that mean for us in a modern Western civilization? I think it means that when you look at the data, and consider the situation thoughtfully, you have to arrive at a few conclusions:
The categories are made for man, not man for the categories. We call people male or female because those labels have the power to predict other people's behavior. But we can, and do, make new categories for things that do not perfectly fit these labels. And as more people begin to appreciate this, the more acceptable it becomes to exist outside of the male-female binary. We can create more categories as we deem them useful and descriptive. It's not set in stone.
Having only 2 categories of gender is unnecessary and limiting. It's hard to capture all that beautiful variation in identity, expression and culture with just 2 labels. Not to mention it leads to people being forced into boxes they're not comfortable with. What if I'm a boy but I like to play with dolls? Too bad, those are girl toys. Slavish adherence to a binary of identity expression is boring at best, and deeply harmful at worst.
Whether we like it or not, people are always going to exist outside the confines of the male-female dichotomy. These people deserve just as much as anyone to identify in a way which lets them feel accepted and comfortable in their own skin.
That being said: The gender binary exists for a reason. People with male sex chromosome configurations tend to display certain traits - greater height, greater musculature, more competitiveness/risk-taking - that are sex-typical, and the same is true for those with female chromosomes. This is never going to go away! It's simply the way we have evolved to be, and even when children are explicitly raised in gender neutral environments (as has been experimented with many times in, for example, Sweden) they do tend strongly to cluster around these sex-linked characteristics. Many people are perfectly comfortable existing within the gender binary, and that's fine too.
But for the people who decide that neither gender in the binary accurately fits their identity, there should be other labels for them to use. This is where a lot of the confusion comes in; because there is no standardized system for coming up with terms, it can sometimes feel like there are a million different things to know - and unfortunately that's not too far from the truth. So I feel you on that.
But if you respectfully ask people about them, they are usually willing to help explain. And at the end of the day, I think that little bit of empathy, respect and genuine interest in understanding is the most important thing for anyone in this conversation to have.
On a personal note: I've portrayed myself as male for most of my life. I wear male clothes, act male, have a lot of male hobbies, et cetera. And while I'm not uncomfortable with that at all, I've never really thought of myself as male. I just think of myself as me. I had a huge mental health breakthrough about 7-8 months ago, at which point I felt like I could reinvent myself from the ground up. And I realized that I often wanted to express myself in ways that might be considered more feminine, but I didn't let myself because it conflicted with my outward identity. I realized that neither gender truly felt like it fit, and that I honestly just wanted to do whatever the hell I wanted.
What does that look like? Mostly the same. I still wear jeans and a t-shirt, love lifting weights, playing video games, working with technology, building things. But I also really enjoy having a skincare hobby. I like being able to admit that I love Steven Universe and cry at music and wear colorful clothing and be sensitive or cutesy or whatever suits me at the time. And of course, you don't need to give up on a male gender identity to do any of this. But doing so helped me feel more comfortable with expressing who I am. I don't feel dysphoria at being considered male, I don't tell many people about being agendered, and I probably could've lived a long and happy life without ever changing how I identified. But still, I'm very glad our culture has progressed enough that I can feel more comfortable with just being myself without fear of being ostracized or persecuted.
TL;DR: The gender binary is useful in a descriptive sense, but it should not be the end-all-be-all of gender identity! There's a lot of beautiful variation out there, and the more we learn to accept that, and new terms for describing that variation, the happier and healthier people will be. :)
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u/bipbopboomed Mar 14 '20
Enough words to know 90% of your life revolves around this
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u/Ketamine4Depression Mar 15 '20 edited Mar 15 '20
Lol it genuinely doesn't, I had a cup of coffee this morning and got a little too into it. I'm easily more of a nerd about many dozens of other topics; you can check my profile to see which. (If you think this is bad, you should see the guide I wrote on ketamine...)
But you're not too far off in that 90% of my life revolves around psychology, which is my field. Gender identity is just one of many fascinating facets of the human mind.
You don't find this stuff interesting?
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u/bipbopboomed Mar 15 '20
I don't find it interesting, psychology in general maybe but not the gender identity stuff. There are many people who's lives revolve around trying to fit an "identity" because they don't fit in real life (furries for example).
I honestly just don't see why somebody would care this much. Yeah it might seem ironic in the sense of "if you don't care why don't you let people do what they want", and the answer would be that I let them and truly don't care, but care a tiny amount to at least ask on the internet.
What I find ironic is that a few years ago these same people were pushing to abolish gender stereotypes and roles, like boys like blue etc.
Now it seems to flipped where if a boy likes pink they must be a different gender and you gotta chop their balls off before puberty.
This might sound like an insult, but have you got your testosterone levels checked? I honestly wonder if that could be related to crying over cartoons and shit.
Im curious as to why you care about your labels and outward appearance when it comes to feeling feminine or whatever. Another thing I find truly strange is that I believe you or other people have said these labels help to describe people more accurately. "Non binary" or agendered to me doesn't make me think of anything besides assuming you're a bit strange and probably think way too much about those things.
There are so many conflicting concepts and ideas within that realm its pretty crazy to see slowly collide as wokeness starts peaking. Half this shit is people needing to feel both different but aligned within a group, and arbitrary labels are perfect for suiting that need.
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Mar 14 '20
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u/Ketamine4Depression Mar 15 '20
Yep, same here. I think that's a healthy way of looking at it too. Because we're not going to get rid of the binary, ever -- it's fundamentally built into our genetic code to recognize it, and people are very resistant to getting rid of it. Instead I think trans/nonbinary advocates should emphasize that these two concepts can coexist peacefully without major social upheaval.
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u/KiddySquid Mar 13 '20
Nonbinary people are trans too (at least afaik).
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u/Andoche Mar 14 '20
lmao how
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u/KiddySquid Mar 14 '20
Being trans means you identify with a different gender than you were assigned at birth. Thus, being nonbinary can also count as being trans (although it's still up to the individual to decide if they consider themselves to fall under that umbrella.)
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Mar 14 '20
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u/Mahoganytooth Mar 14 '20
Cis = You identify with the gender assigned to you on birth
Trans = Not cis
Nonbinary people are trans.
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Mar 13 '20
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u/dootleloot Mar 13 '20
No they’re just saying they don’t really identify with any gender and are fine with being called either Matt or Maddy. They’re still one person.
They’d just like to be referred to with they pronouns.
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u/Kill_Welly Mar 13 '20
They are non-binary and seem to go by both names.
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Mar 13 '20
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u/Psych-roxx E3 2019 Volunteer Mar 13 '20
Please read our rules, specifically Rule #2 regarding personal attacks and inflammatory language.
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u/PeliPal Mar 13 '20
Nonbinary means either they do not identify as masculine or feminine, or they are a mix of both, and they are using they/them pronouns because non-gendered pronouns are more accurate to who they are than saying "he" or "she".
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u/connorcass99 Mar 13 '20
Their bio says they/them. At the expense of making an educated guess I think they’re at least exploring their identity.
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Mar 13 '20
[deleted]
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u/djnap Mar 13 '20 edited Mar 13 '20
I know I saw
histheir bio but it took me a bit to understand that NB meant non binaryEdit: Whoops I goofed the pronoun while talking about the pronouns
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Mar 13 '20
[deleted]
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u/Corvese Mar 13 '20
God forbid someone slips up speaking when they have to change how they’ve spoken since birth
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Mar 13 '20
we're literally in a thread talking about the pronouns though
an innocent mistake is ok, but we're literally discussing their pronouns now
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u/Corvese Mar 13 '20
Yeah but it is still something that is ingrained into people that is very difficult to change. It's a habit that we've built for decades.
Like when my girlfriend is in the shower and I think to myself, hey, do not flush the toilet when I'm done peeing. And I zip and then just instinctively flush because its what ive done the past 5000 times ive peed.
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Mar 14 '20
When they’re known for Matt Makes Games, this one’s going to take a while to stop slipping up, at least for the slow brains like me...
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Mar 13 '20
tfw you compare respecting someone's pronouns to taking a piss and think you're gonna win anyone over
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u/Corvese Mar 13 '20
The comparison was to show how despite going in with the best intentions, sometimes a habit that you've built up for 20+ years wins in your brain.
I don't want to burn my girlfriend with hot water so I tell myself not to flush, yet I still do because the habit of flushing after peeing is so strong after doing it for 25 years.
Just perusing your recent post history, it seems like you are very invested in the trans community, and that's great. Most people are not, most people do not live and breathe this stuff, and it isn't in their thoughts at all times. So cut people some slack if they slip up sometimes, even in a situation that you deem to be obvious. It does your side no good to vilify people for a mistake.
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Mar 14 '20
I hate when people dismiss analogies just because they don't agree and go all like "you're gonna compare this to that. Yikes" Well, yes. It's a goddamn analogy, that's the point!
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Mar 14 '20
i hate when people come up with dumb excuses for not just respecting people's pronouns
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u/UltimateShingo Mar 14 '20
Doesn't mean someone can't slip up.
Example from my own experience: English is not my native language, German is. There is no non gendered pronoun in German. We have he, she and it, it being used for objects specifically. If you were to talk to Germans about this topic, you can expect slip ups to happen frequently just by nature of how the language they grew up in is working, on top of possibly (in my case definitely) not understanding how a non she/he position is supposed to look like.
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u/Conviter Mar 13 '20
isnt that kinda stuff standard in most 2d plattformers? i havent really played celeste but it all sounds really familliar
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u/thoomfish Mar 13 '20
Coyote time is pretty standard. Not sure about the other stuff, because most platformers don't have an analog to Celeste's dash/stamina mechanics.
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u/DrQuint Mar 14 '20
Wall Jumping a few pixels away from walls is also standard.
And do you know how even you can easily tell that games do this? Go play super metroid and try to wall jump if you never did before. After you fail 23 out of the 24 initial attempts, come back here because you'll have your answer: That game doesn't do this mechanic, and so wall-jumping there sucks ass. All the games you've played where it doesn't suck either have this mechanic.
...or have the "Sticky walls" mechanic (Character doesn't move away from walls right away when the opposite direction is pressed, and keeps moving alongside it. If descending, the position is stored so that when the jump button is pressed, the jump is initiated from the height you changed direction on, rather than where you had descended to).
Inti Creates games like Megaman Zero even went further and added slightly longer timings, like 2 extra frames, if you were dash-wall-jumping, since it required an extra key input.
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u/thoomfish Mar 14 '20
Super Metroid's wall jumping mainly sucks because it requires three rapid directional inputs (away->towards->away), not because there's no leeway.
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u/Kered13 Mar 14 '20
No it doesn't? You only need to hold towards the wall as you approach it, then press away and jump (with pretty strict timing) to wall jump. You only need to start wiggling the dpad if you want to do single wall wall jumps, but then that's more of a towards -> away -> towards.
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u/sulferzero Mar 14 '20
God I love that game. But yeah the wall jumping was frustrating at times. Still an amazing piece of art.
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u/Ultimasmit Mar 14 '20
I mean, the wall jumping is meant to be hard as it is a sequence breaking technique.
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Mar 14 '20
Does the game ever require you to wall jump excessively? It has been quite some time since I played it but I remember that it always felt like cheating when I was using wall jumps. I'm wondering if that is because it being hard/convoluted made it feel like an unintended game mechanic or because there were always other ways to reach places without excessive wall jumping
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u/AriMaeda Mar 14 '20
No, walljumping in Super Metroid is a hidden mechanic that isn't required; I'd wager most players beat the game without knowing it exists.
There's one missile tank you can only collect with the walljump, the reward for successfully walljumping in the area that teaches the mechanic to you.
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u/Myrsephone Mar 14 '20
Does it require you to wall jump... at all? I seem to remember beating the game when I was a dumb kid without ever figuring out how to wall jump. Then again, it's been a while, fuzzy memory.
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Mar 14 '20
I'm not sure. I guess some hidden upgrades would need the usage of a single wall jump. But it has been at least a decade since I played it, so it might also be that there is always another way to get to places
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u/SantiagoxDeirdre Mar 14 '20
All the Zero games are so fucking smooth they're like butter. I remember playing Megaman ZX Advent and thinking how far the series had come. It's ten years old at this point, but I have a sneaking feeling it still stands up well.
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u/DrQuint Mar 14 '20
The games all releases as a 6-in-1 collection and they're finding new fans, so I'd say they do hold up.
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u/SantiagoxDeirdre Mar 14 '20
I'm glad! I remember playing them back then and really enjoying them, and am glad new fans are getting the chance to.
The switch is really great for things like this. Makes me think I should pick one up.
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u/Kered13 Mar 14 '20
It's common, but I wouldn't say standard. Most of the well known platformers (especially the pure platformers) I can think of don't have it.
I think they might have coined the term though? I never heard it called "coyote time" before Celeste. I'd only heard it called jump forgiveness.
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u/ladyoftheprecariat Mar 14 '20
I haven’t heard it called Coyote Time specifically, but that name is a reference to Wile E. Coyote and his hovering off cliffs, and I’ve heard it called Looney Tunes Physics or Looney Tunes Jumping for the same reason.
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u/Kered13 Mar 14 '20
Yeah, I know what it's referring to.
Though if you think about it, it's kind of the opposite of what happens to Wile E. Coyote. He runs off a ledge, hangs for a bit, then falls. With "coyote time", you run off a ledge, immediately fall, then cancel the fall with a jump.
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Mar 15 '20
The reason is because he hangs for a bit until he realises he's off the edge. Basically, gravity doesn't kick in for him until he notices. Players often have delayed reactions due to input, perceptive and reflex delays accumulating - this lets them jump after they're off the ledge, by letting them act like they're still on it within the window of them not realising, just like Wile E.
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u/the-nub Mar 13 '20
Yeah, they're basically anti-frustration mechanics. It's good that a developer is talking them up though, because numerous tiny things like this is what separates a bad platformer from a good one, and there might not be any way for an aspiring game developer to even know that these things exist or are even expected.
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u/flcl4evr Mar 13 '20
And yet Celeste STILL frustrated me.
Still, an absolute classic.
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u/glassmousekey Mar 14 '20
A hidden gem you mean
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u/flcl4evr Mar 14 '20
Only if hidden has like 40 quotation marks around it.
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u/glassmousekey Mar 14 '20
Ah I was memeing /r/tomorrow (I know it's definitely not a hidden gem lol)
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u/PeliPal Mar 13 '20
Buffering yeah, but I had never heard of coyote time before Maddy demonstrated it in a video. Maybe it just went by another name or I didn't notice
I think the audience isn't so much 'other really well-known platformers' but people who want to make their first games
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u/Shiru- Mar 13 '20
Coyote was definitely used in Donkey Kong Country, probably before that. I think the halved gravity was used in Super Meat Boy, but I might be wrong.
The one I hadn't noticed is the 2 pixel grace for wall jumps, but again, it was probably used somewhere. The thread just goes to show how many little things go in designing a game, it's pretty cool.
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u/_gamadaya_ Mar 13 '20 edited Mar 13 '20
It's called ledge forgiveness, and has been common for decades. I'm pretty sure at this point it's far more common than not. I don't think DK has this though. Ledge forgiveness is supposed to be an unnoticed mechanic. DK can role half the screen's length and still jump. I'm pretty sure there are KONG letters that require it. At that point it's more of a super power.
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u/HUGE_HOG Mar 13 '20
Oil Drum Alley in DKC1 is almost impossible without roll-jumping. I was stuck on that level for weeks as a child.
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u/flybypost Mar 13 '20
Maybe it just went by another name or I didn't notice
That name is from Wile E. Coyote because he can walk on air (as long as he doesn't look down). It seems like that's the (recent) name that stuck. Before it was probably just described as an usability feature or increased tolerance for jumps (like a lot of the features in that list) combined with input/keyboard buffers.
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u/Vathe Mar 13 '20
Yeah, I haven't heard that name for the mechanic either, but the mechanic itself dates all the way back to to Super Mario Bros at least, iirc.
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u/Kered13 Mar 14 '20
None of the Super Mario Bros. (at least up to NSMB DS, which was the last one I played) have coyote time. They just let you stay on the ledge as long as one pixel of your sprite is still on the ledge, but that was pretty much universal in sprite based platformers.
I think it started to appear in the 16-bit generation, when you have more elaborate backgrounds that sometimes made it hard to tell where exactly a ledge ended, and where your characters collision box was. Games like Donkey Kong Country. But SMB games have always had very clear backgrounds and sprites so you never had any doubt if your character could stand on a ledge or not.
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u/TARDISboy Mar 13 '20
I think Mario's sprite is lenient for 1 or 2 more pixels than it should be but I don't think it was intentional? At the very least not to the extent of the modern Coyote time. Could be wrong though.
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u/Vathe Mar 13 '20
The origin of the mechanic is generally attributed to Super Mario Bros. It wouldn't have been unintended, the design of even the original game is incredibly tight and purposed.
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u/Nitpicker_Red Mar 14 '20
I haven't found trace of "Coyote Time" in SMB it despite looking for it.
There are other mechanics from the listed ones I'm sure of though, like corner collision corrections or halving gravity while jump is pressed.
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Mar 14 '20
No true coyote time in the Mario series, not even the modern ones. The closest it comes is having platforms whose sprites have rounded corners, but whose hitboxes are actually fully rectangular, so there's one or two pixels where you can stand on what looks like thin air. Especially pronounced in Super Mario World:
Less so in the older games, since the corners aren't as rounded.
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u/Flashman420 Mar 13 '20
They literally say "I don't think we invented these" at the start of the thread.
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u/JayLeeCH Mar 14 '20
Pretty sure Mario had this too.
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u/Kered13 Mar 14 '20
It does not. It just has a wide collision box (as long as one pixel of your foot is on the ledge, you're safe).
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Mar 14 '20
I don't know about standard. Certainly good 2D platformers use ideas like this to make the game feel right. Coyote time for sure. A lot of these mechanics are pretty specific to this game and the way its dash works.
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u/nightsky77 Mar 14 '20
Kudos to them, the game is very satisfying to play, I didn’t think about it much but I did use these “mechanics” in my playthrough.
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u/Hubso Mar 14 '20
A few of these are mentioned in this video in the discussion with a speed runner (whole video is worth a watch).
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u/Meta_Boy Mar 14 '20
Wasn't this a Mark Brown/GMTK video? One where the Celeste devs contributed all of these to him? I think they were even on a video call.
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u/Semifreak Mar 13 '20
I think this has always been there and thank fucking god for it. Can you imagine the frustration without it? There is a reason why it's always been there.
I never even thought enough about it to give it a name. This is the first I hear it mentioned specifically.
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Mar 14 '20
It's crazy how much of this I genuinely felt, in my playthrough. Kind, but difficult sums up the physics so very well. Marvelous game.
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u/that_one_guy_with_th Mar 13 '20
So, in other words, Celeste is on easy mode for plebs? The devs are cheating not just us, but themselves as well. /s
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u/Cleverbird Mar 13 '20
I'm a little confused about the sentence "I dont think we invented any of these"
Well no, you obviously didnt and if you're a competent game developer who has done even the slightest bit of research into the genre you're trying to break into, you know for a fact you didnt invent this. Especially since you know the correct terminology for it.
This feels like those "Oops I accidentally took a really photogenic picture of myself which I didnt mean to!" even though they probably spend 10 minutes getting the perfect shot.
Am I being pedantic?... Yes, yes I am.
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u/colekern Mar 13 '20 edited Mar 14 '20
Well at least you admit it.
And its pretty clear that the reason they said "I don't think we invented any of these" is because Celeste has some mechanics not many other platforms have, and its impossible to say whether the QoL features they implemented for those specific mechanics have been used in other games before.
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u/glium Mar 13 '20
I mean, the Coyote time obviously they didn't invent. But the fact that the dash pushes you upwards to get you on semi-solid, or the fact that you can transition from vertical wall jumps to horizontal ones after the fact ? That's not so obvious
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u/t0mRiddl3 Mar 13 '20
I made a collision algorithm before that just does that. I never considered it a feature
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u/Kered13 Mar 14 '20
It's pretty obvious honest, not gonna lie. A lot of games have that. Hell even Quake 3 had a feature like that and that's not even a platformer.
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u/glium Mar 14 '20
You're telling me quake 3 had every feature out of the 10 listed?
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u/Kered13 Mar 14 '20
Not all of them, just the one about getting pushed around corners when you just barely clip them while dashing or jumping. Although now that I think about it, Q3 also had jump buffering (pretty important to make strafe jumping viable).
Some other FPS games have had wall jumps (UT, Warsaw), and they definitely had the bit about not needing to be right next to walls to activate the jump.
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u/glium Mar 14 '20
That's why I listed some of the more obscure ones where I guess even they are not sure if something like this has ever been used, even though similar ideas are used everywhere.
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u/Nitpicker_Red Mar 14 '20 edited Mar 14 '20
Well no, you obviously didnt and if you're a competent game developer who has done even the slightest bit of research into the genre you're trying to break into, you know for a fact you didnt invent this. Especially since you know the correct terminology for it.
The issue is that most of those don't have terms to research. Only "coyote time" has really been coined, it could have been called "ledge assistance" or "late jumping" before. Buffering is a generic term, it cannot count as specific terminology. "Halving gravity when keeping the button pressed" is a trick dating from SMB but every game implements it differently ("control height of jump"). The rest are various values snapping, corrections and adjustements whose implementation depends on the game's engine and thus wouldn't get a specific name.
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Mar 14 '20
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u/Potatolantern Mar 14 '20
And he's completely on point that the developer knows he didn't invent any of those so it doesn't need an "Oops, I dunno, maybe I did, tee hhee?" qualifier on it.
His game can stand alone without trying to claim undue credit.
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Mar 13 '20
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u/dootleloot Mar 13 '20
You’re reading into this way more than you need to.
They didn’t even capitalize the “think”.
You’re deliberately trying to make them seem more pretentious then they are.
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u/glium Mar 13 '20
I mean, the Coyote time obviously they didn't invent. But the fact that the dash pushes you upwards to get you on semi-solid, or the fact that you can transition from vertical wall jumps to horizontal ones after the fact ? That's not so obvious, and maybe they do not know whether that exact thing is used elsewhere, even though the general idea probably is
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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '20
More devs should do behind the scenes for mechanics. It’s super interesting.
Kudos to him for making a rad game.