Level Up.pdf

T
Levei 7
The Three Cs,
Part 3 — Controls
Once upon a time, I joined the team of a console game that had been in
production for three years. I was asked to take a look at the current state of
the game and report back any issues I had. Overall, the game was really
good but there was one thing that bothered me. One of the enemies could
only be defeated with a quick time event (see Level 8 for more on these),
and even though I ’ m awesome at playing action games, I just couldn ’ t seem
to press the button fast enough to win the contest and kill the monster.
I went to the creative director and told him that I thought the controls for the
minigame were too hard. He asked me “ How did you hold the controller? ”
This is what I showed him:
He said “ Oh, no wonder. You are holding the controller wrong. ” Whaaa? As
far as I knew, there was only one way to hold the controller. Keeping things
respectful, I asked: how did he recommend I hold it? This is what he
showed me: