World 2
Feel
Why one jump feels like a promise kept and another feels like wading: the words for control, weight and impact.
Players decide whether a game is good in the first ten seconds, before there is any story or strategy, by pressing a button and watching what happens. Most of what they are judging is a handful of small numbers and tricks that nobody sees. Learn these and you can say exactly what is wrong with a jump, instead of saying it feels off.
- Game feelThe physical sensation of controlling something in a game: how directly it answers you, how much it seems to weigh, how its impacts land. Steve Swink named its parts in his 2008 book Game Feel.
- AccelerationThe time a character takes to go from standing to top speed, and its partner deceleration, the time to stop again. Short feels tight. Long feels heavy or slippery.
- Coyote timeThe short moment after running off a ledge when a jump still works. It is named after Wile E. Coyote, who hangs in the air until he looks down.
- Jump bufferingThe game remembers a jump pressed just before landing and performs it on the first frame you touch the ground.
- Variable jump heightA tap makes a short hop, a hold makes a full jump. In practice, letting go early just increases gravity for the rest of the rise.
- Fast fallStronger gravity on the way down than on the way up. A real thrown ball has an even arc; a good video game jump usually does not.
- Apex hangGravity eases for a moment at the top of a jump, so the character hangs there briefly. It buys time to aim the landing.
- Air controlHow much you can change direction while in the air. Physics says none. Most games give nearly all of it.
- Corner correctionWhen your head clips the very corner of a block during a jump, the game slides you sideways around it rather than stopping you dead.
- Squash and stretchA shape flattens on impact and pulls long at speed, and keeps its volume while doing it. It is the first of Disney's twelve principles of animation.
- AnticipationA small movement the other way before a big one: a crouch before a jump, a pulled-back arm before a punch. Another of Disney's twelve principles.
- Follow-throughLoose parts keep moving after the main body stops: hair, capes, a tail, a scarf. They arrive late and settle slowly.
- ParticlesMany small, short-lived sprites thrown off by an event, each with its own speed, fade and gravity: dust on a landing, sparks on a hit.
- Hit stopThe game freezes for a few frames at the moment of impact. Fighting games have used it for decades, and it is among the strongest tools for making a blow feel heavy.
- Screen shakeThe camera jolts when something big happens. Good shake is driven by a "trauma" value that decays, with the offset following trauma squared, so small hits stay small.
- JuiceAll the extra feedback that makes a small action feel big: sound, particles, shake, flashes, bounce. The term spread through the 2012 talk Juice It or Lose It by Martin Jonasson and Petri Purho.
- Camera lookaheadThe camera leans toward where you are heading, so you see more of what is coming than what you have passed.
- Camera dead zoneA box around the middle of the screen in which the player can move without the camera moving at all. The camera only follows once they push against the edge of the box.
- Platform snappingThe camera follows up and down only when the player lands on something, not during every jump.
- Input latencyThe time between pressing a button and seeing the result on screen. Every stage adds some: the controller, the game's frames, the display.
- Frame rateHow many new pictures the game shows each second. Higher looks smoother and also shortens the delay before your press can show up.
- HitboxThe invisible shape the game actually checks for contact. Strictly, a hitbox deals damage and a hurtbox receives it. Neither has to match the art.
- Invincibility framesA brief window in which you cannot be hurt. After taking damage it stops one mistake killing you twice. On a dodge, it is what makes rolling through an attack possible.
- Frame dataAny attack can be measured in three stretches: startup before it can hit, active frames when it can, and recovery before you can act again.
- Animation cancellingCutting one action short by starting another, skipping its recovery. Some games forbid it, some allow it, some build everything around it.
- Aim assistThe game quietly helps you aim. Usually friction, where the cursor slows near a target, and magnetism, where it pulls gently towards one.
- Stick dead zoneA small circle in the middle of a thumbstick's range where movement is ignored, so that worn sticks that do not centre perfectly do not make your character creep.
- HapticsFeedback you feel through the controller: from one spinning motor to precise actuators that can suggest texture and resistance.