On Crouching

“Pro tip: Some platforms can only be reached by staying ducked while jumping. That had me stumped for a while at first. You’re welcome.” I’m definitely showing my age, because when I read this sentence in SilverWolf’s recent article on Refunct I thought, “Wait, are there people who didn’t grow up on Source games?” Because years later I’m still struggling to unlearn the muscle memory of crouching during a jump for a free height boost. In modern games that tends to lead to crouch overriding jump and gluing you back to the floor. But that got me thinking about crouching as a… [Continue Reading]

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FPS Cliches Found on Only One TF2 Weapon

Hey look, a TF2 article! As a longstanding and proud member of the first-person-shooter genre, TF2 nevertheless stands apart from most other games due to its versatile array of weapon designs and its avoidance of most of the common shooting mechanics that permeate shooter games. TF2 is really amazing in just how simple they keep the core combat at its foundation, avoiding things like weapon stability, accuracy modifiers, tactical reloads, and other ‘realistic’ mechanics that complicate matters. This article is designed to showcase the few cases where these mechanics appeared, usually in subtle form. The scarcity of their presence just reinforces how… [Continue Reading]

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On Accuracy

Hitscan guns in shooters often have two major qualities that people care about; how much damage they do and how accurate they are. (How quickly they fire is also relevant but in this article I’m focusing on the first two.) Which seems simple enough, because at the end of the day you want to know how fast your guns can kill things. But lots of shooters have been making the question a bit more difficult by introducing accuracy-affecting mechanics. Ways for a player to use positioning, modifications, skills, or game mechanics to manipulate the likelihood of a fired bullet hitting the… [Continue Reading]

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