Level Up.pdf

Dance, Monkey, Dance 161
• Clasp your hands together and turn your hands away from your body
and extend your arms forward. Hold for 10 seconds and repeat eight
times.
• Fold your hands together; turn your palms away from your body and
extend your arms overhead. You should feel the stretch in your upper
torso and shoulyders to hands. Hold for 10 seconds. Repeat eight times.
However, not all button mashing is bad; you may be able to use it to your
advantage. I have observed that the first thing a player does when they start
a game is to press all of the buttons on the controller. This is because (a)
players want to see what happens and (b) no one ever reads the game
manual. So how do you get a player to learn if their first instinct is to just
mash buttons?
Simple. Have the character do something cool whenever they press a
button, even if the player doesn ’ t understand how they ’ re doing it. God of
War does this fantastically well: Kratos pulls off some awesome attack
moves even when you just mash buttons — and it ’ s completely intentional.
Once the player sees these moves happen a few times, they will slow down
to try to dissect how they pulled them off.
Never have a button do nothing when pressed. Here are some ways to deal
with this: