Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd Edition

Level 7

The Three Cs, Part 3: Controls

WELCOME TO THE last of the “Three Cs”—controls. It’s worth mentioning that out of all Three Cs, only controls are universally applicable to every style of game. The first C, character, applies only when you have a character. Abstract puzzle games, vehicle simulators, and many sports games don’t have a distinct or playable character. The second C, camera, only applies to games that use a game camera: old school, fixed screen cameras don’t use any of the fancy camera moves we covered. This makes this third C the most important one of all. Which is why it pains me so much to recount this true story …

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 be defeated only with a quick-time event (see Level 8 for more details on these events), 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 ...