
Movement Mechanics in “The Legend of Zelda” - fogus
http://troygilbert.com/2006/10/the-movement-and-attack-mechanics-of-the-legend-of-zelda/
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Tyheam
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.

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city41
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.

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ubernostrum
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...](http://www.asktog.com/readerMail/2000-07ReaderMail.html#Anchor6)

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diN0bot
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
I was kind of hoping for a video by that point.

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matthew-wegner
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/>

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

Oddly, I was not confused.

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viggity
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.

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jacoblyles
Could really use a screenshot or two.

