It’s a notoriously shitty game, but I was surprised when I saw that, despite being a side-scrolling “action” game, it uses WASD for movement on the Amiga and Apple IIgs.
Isn’t that because the arrow key layout on the Apple II/GS was, like many 8 bit home computers, famously awful and also batshit insane?
IBM had the lock on the inverted T layout for a long time, and others had to find creative ways to follow suit.
Notoriously shitty on the Sega Genesis, because only an idiot would think you could port this fantastic game to a console with a d-pad controller.
On a system with a mouse, this game rocks.
Why is this game everywhere all of a sudden? Article in Retro Gamer, YouTube videos, Lemmy posts… Did it have an anniversary recently or something?
No idea, I stumbled upon it today while looking for something unrelated (a list of platofmer/action games released for PCs in the 80s)
I’m glad there are still other DC fans out there. I love the game but it’s so tough. I swear I’ll finish it one of these decades.
Who remembers OPQA for movement? I hated it as a kid.
That looks awful, wtf would lead someone to come up with that kind of scheme?
What we think of as normal and obvious is only that way through decades of experimentation.
If all you had to do in a game was move and nothing else, then it would seem desirable to choose four keys where you could use four fingers all at the same time. An arrow shape like WASD doesn’t do that because your middle finger does double duty for both up and down.
So, having decided on one fingrer for each direction it makes sense to use two hands. And using two hands it makes sense to spread the keys out so your hands can be apart on the board, not cramping each other.
It seems terrible in retrospect, but you can appreciate there must have been some logic behind the choice at the time.
I also hated it when playing on my ZX Spectrum.
This game was really tough! Possibly because I was like 5 at the time…
Same
I loved it, but i was like 6 and didn’t really understand it. I never made it very far.
Nah I replayed it not long ago, it was quite a tough game.
I believe the AVGN was right in calling it a fucking piece of shit, because it looks like it’d be too asinine even for adults
Haven’t played it, eh?
I had the displeasure of playing the mega drive version many years ago
It’s a notoriously shitty game, but I was surprised when I saw that, despite being a side-scrolling “action” game, it uses WASD for movement on the Amiga and Apple IIgs.
Ah, dude, I love your comics, but you are so WRONG in so many ways upon the above, that it’s hard to even know how to address all that load of BS, haha.
In reality, DC was a friggen’ MASTERPIECE that totally re-energised a major segment of the computer gaming industry. And no-- WASD (or IJKL) movement was nothing new at that point, c’mon now.
Did you just get riled up by some fictitious nonsense? Because almost everything you state here is hilariously WRONG. So make it a comic…?
My comics? 🤔
Oh… waarom moeten we daarheen?
OMG, I love your comics, which is part of why I’ve included those in my ‘must read’ list, over at my place.
Just that… I guess we all have our sensitive points?
you’re mistaking me for someone else, i don’t draw comics, i only ever did like 2 ms paint things for lemmy
Oh shit, I’m sorry. I thought you were my dear CUSTARD FIST.
Yeap, seems clear I need a vacation, stat…
I also was confused the same way so don’t feel alone
Look at this old shit game hahaha
Wait, I recognize that wall with the mace on it(I loved this game as a kid despite not ever really understanding how to play it)
I remember loading up the old Doom a few years ago, and being upset the arrow keys didn’t work.
I thought WASD came well after that.
You could fiddle with the key bindings in OG Doom using the setup program, albeit not in game, which is the fate that may have befallen you. OG Doom’s default controls have the arrow keys for moving forward and backwards and turning, and you strafe by holding down Alt and using the arrows or via the undocumented at the time period and comma keys (or < and >, if you care to think of it that way).
It was pretty common for deathmatch nerds to make left and right or possibly A and D the strafe keys, and use the mouse for turning. Pushing the mouse fore and aft also moved you forwards and backwards which was nonsensical in hindsight, but vaguely understandable for a game that has no vertical aiming. A popular hack at the time was a mouse driver patch which essentially nullified your mouse forward and back movements to near-zero while leaving left and right intact, so mouse users wouldn’t be always be backpedaling off of ledges or mashing their faces into walls inadvertently.
Doom was arrow keys, I spent too many hours playing Doom and Doom2.
I even know people that started playing Quake with arrow keys before realising they could use the mouse, they used QS to look up and down and hold the shift key to strafe.
Everyone played Quake with arrow keys at first because its controls were still archaic and mimicked Doom. Mouselook had to be enabled with the +mlook console command, and otherwise holding / would allow you to “mouse look” but only up and down, and only as long as you held it, and it would spring back when you let go and moved. Thus nobody was likely to figure out mouse aiming by accident just by messing with the mouse, or even by exploring the available in-game options.
Quake’s controls did not define the standard FPS layout going forward, rather the modifications people made to their setups for deathmatch did.
I knew a guy who used the mouse for movement in Quake. Vertical movement to go forward. But that would only get you so far until you reached the top of the mousepad, so he had to pick up the mouse and move it back down to the bottom.
CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK
Lol that’s insane
I M M E R S I O N
I used to use arrows plus zx to strafe in doom. One strafe key felt limited in wolfenstein
I used edsf and hate that wasd became the standard. Bah.
ESDF gang rise up!
