Movement Mechanics in “The Legend of Zelda”

http://troygilbert.com/2006/10/the-movement-and-attack-mechanics-of-the-legend-of-zelda/

by fogus • 17 years ago

102 10 17 years ago

Tyheam• 17 years ago

These small things show why Nintendo is where it is today. Very subtle decisions which improve the gameplay experience a lot.

This is similar to the momentum in Super Mario Bros. A simple idea and yet it made the game much more playable compared to other platformers at the time.

city41• 17 years ago

I am currently writing an iPhone game where the user must move objects around on the screen by dragging them with their finger. The problem is with my game, and just about all iPhone games, is this isn't as smooth as one would expect. Your finger gets caught up in the friction of the screen often, and often the screen doesn't recognize your finger at all.

I am experimenting with ways to fix this, most notably giving the objects a tad bit of momentum such that they slide just a tad after the user is done moving them, making them more likely to go where the user actually had in mind.

ubernostrum• 17 years ago

Mac OS (not just OS X, earlier versions as well) menus deal with this in an interesting way:

http://www.asktog.com/readerMail/2000-07ReaderMail.html#Anch...

matthew-wegner• 17 years ago

One of my friends wrote a book about game feel, for anyone interested in many, many words about the subject: http://www.game-feel.com/

diN0bot• 17 years ago

minor nitpick:

> "In case that description doesn’t make sense, here’s an exercise to help demosntrate the technique: <more text>"

In cases where a description doesn't make sense, a visual example might help tremendously. As soon as I saw <more text> I was disappointed. Pictures really are worth a thousand words. They're faster and more efficient, especially for examples that are already describing pictures!

elblanco• 17 years ago

I was kind of hoping for a video by that point.

jacoblyles• 17 years ago

Could really use a screenshot or two.

nazgulnarsil• 17 years ago

I thought this was going to be about Ocarina. Building on Mario 64 it pretty much set the standard for 3d combat that is still used.

RevRal• 17 years ago

I didn't realize that was about Ocarina until he started talking about the Zelda sequel toward the end.

Oddly, I was not confused.

viggity• 17 years ago

CoD: Modern Warfare 2 could learn a trick or two from this. It is incredibly frustrating that in a game made 23 years after LoZ, I still can get stuck on a stupid piece of debris 6 inches high. I know it is probably a map issue and not an engine issue, but I don't know why the engine couldn't figure it out.

Movement Mechanics in “The Legend of Zelda”

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