A game helped defined by the lack of 30 milliseconds of button pressing

In my many travels through the virtual realm, I often have to ponder about a great number of realities that affect the entirety of the interplay between player and avatar on a regular basis, and what kind of disruption it can mean for the experience in general.


Some glitches being more rowdy than others

Other times, the difference between what works well and what doesn’t can be the difference of as little as 30 milliseconds, as Naughty Dog co-founder Andrew Gavin detailed on Linkedin the other day. In parsing through some of the randomly interesting tidbits of the gaming news today, I stumbled upon Gamespot’s mention of one of the original creators of the Crash Bandicoot games, who took a frank approach when addressing the remade N.Sane Trilogy, and how something as little as the minutia of how long a button is pressed down can drastically alter the entire experience.

Gavin gave some pertinent thoughts on the control machinations of the remade trilogy:

“….(they) completely botched how jumping works.”, in reference to the new games altering how long a jump is held to function in a particular fashion. Originally, the Crash games would read how long the jump button was held down by the player; the longer a player held the button, the higher Crash jumped. This seemingly trivial (but would turn out to be pivotal) detail was not accounted for in the remade Trilogy, with the new team opting to utilize a system that every jump is always the maximum height possible, something Gavin alludes to as a head-scratching oversight.

“The remake developers either didn’t notice this system or thought it wasn’t important,” Gavin’s post said. “They reverted to simple fixed jumps, [and] then realized Crash couldn’t make half the jumps in the game. Their solution was to make all jumps maximum height.” Gavin would continue, discussing how this fundamentally changes how the games function. “Now every jump on the remake is huge and floaty. Those precise little hops between platforms are awkward…“The game’s fundamental jumping mechanic feels worse than the 1996 original despite running on hardware that’s 1000x more powerful.”

Another example of how gameplay can be affected in unattended ways by an aberration in programming, and possibly also how Andrew Gavin looked when realizing they had changed the game he worked on so drastically

Just goes to show you how much of a difference 30 milliseconds can make in forming the entirety of reality…it’s the small things that count, and reminds me of many other times throughout gaming history players have seen similar moments of design irregularity impact their entire playing exprience.

I generally like to use Active Time Event as a repository of sorts; a conglomeration of informative reference points for the gaming industry at large, in detailing the importance of fundamentals of game design that otherwise get swept under the rug as non-important, but are otherwise vital in showcasing just how important the metaphysicality of something like “fingerfeeling” can be, in relation not only to the intimacy of game design, but in a sense, gaming preservation and an archivist sense in maintaining “what was” of virtual realities from era’s past.

I recently wrote about a similar notion, involving the metaphysicality of “fingerfeeling“, involving System Shock, in illustrating subtle differences between game series. That post was more so in detailing how small intricacies can make a world of difference when approaching what seems to be similar games, but the gulf of difference that can occur when tackling the differences between Doom and System Shock in terms of navigation, and how much of a stark notion of differentiation it can make to the players as they interact with the titles.

I think one great historic example of the “fingerfeeling” distinction in how a game functions is the infamous difference found back in the day, and how players felt about the radical points of variation between how the OG Counter Strike played in version 1.6 vs the source engine, and the endless debate the followed suit. The debate itself about which felt better or worse, in attempting to find a definitive, objective answer, was never really the crux of what mattered, but more so that the difference itself did matter, and was an excellent early example in informing a young gamer me on why such things like engines, patches, updates, and the fundamentals of game mechanics mattered so much in the grand scheme of things.

Kind of broadening the picture a bit in terms of just what and how the metaphysicality of “fingerfeeling” can relate to gaming, but there are many different aspects of this phenomena that can be found throughout the industry worthy of discussion. I know in nerdier moments of gaming chatter, other games within similar mentions, much like the original Deus Ex, or even Unreal Engine overhauls can totally alter how a game can feel and function, just based on how continued iteration or adapting “newer and better” technology does not always translate thusly.

Fighting games go through similar areas of translation disruption, with any long term Street Fighter 2 fan having serious notions on which ports/re-releases work, and which ones really, really dont work, ala HD Remix, which some players do not like, as it emulates the Dreamcast version, which affects movement. Sometimes, even outside of straight up adaptations, and more akin to player bias with successive entries, you can also look at the Super Smash Brothers series for another example of the underlyind pertinence of the metaphysicaliy of “fingerfeeling”, with almost any old school Smash player swearing by Melee, while completely dismissing even the vanilla version of Brawl out of hand.

An interesting topic of conversation to be had, and one that will no doubt continue to come up as the years drag on.

~Pashford