Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

"You're going to get rid of the joystick?"

Gerald frowned slightly. That seemed like an overcorrection.

The joystick certainly had its flaws, but it was also a crucial part of the fighting game experience. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that with Street Fighter dominating arcades, the joystick had become one of the defining symbols of arcade culture itself.

As the company that had first popularized the joystick plus button control scheme, GAMENOVA had built no small amount of influence around it, and now Ethan wanted to abandon it and return to an all-button setup.

"Wouldn't that be moving backward?"

"Not at all."

Ethan didn't bother explaining. Instead, he walked over to the workbench, grabbed an arcade control panel, and immediately started desoldering components.

The joystick was removed and replaced with four large arcade-sized buttons. Then he quickly cut matching holes into a wooden enclosure and mounted everything in place.

But when Gerald and Vivian saw the layout Ethan had chosen, both of them twitched.

The Left, Down, and Right buttons were arranged horizontally in a slight curve. Meanwhile, the Up button had been moved all the way to the lower-right side.

This bizarre horizontal arrangement wasn't completely unfamiliar to Gerald; he had seen similar setups on PCs before.

But from his own experience, horizontal layouts felt far worse than cross-shaped ones. After all, the traditional cross perfectly matched human intuition.

That was one of the main reasons he'd fought so hard to include the split D-pad on the NovaPocket. Then a thought suddenly struck him, his eyes lit up.

Rushing into the equipment room, he rummaged through a pile of keyboards until he found a particularly sleek model.

"Ethan, look at this, IBM's Model M mechanical keyboard."

He placed it on the table.

The Model M had only entered production in mid-1985, at least for this era, it was arguably the best keyboard in the world.

But Gerald wasn't trying to show off its industrial design. Instead, he pointed toward the arrow-key cluster beside the numpad. The inverted-T arrow key layout inspired by DEC's LK201.

"I think this layout would be excellent for gaming too. You could use your index and ring fingers for left and right, and your middle finger for up and down."

"I've tested it myself, it feels fantastic."

"Model M?"

Ethan raised an eyebrow. Looking at the keyboard, he couldn't help but notice how strikingly similar it was to modern layouts, especially the standard arrow-key arrangement.

You could practically trace the future standardization of video game controls, and even WASD movement, back to this design.

"The layout is excellent. But it isn't suitable for fighting games."

Ethan immediately placed both hands on the makeshift Hitbox he'd just assembled.

"With an inverted-T layout, you can't press Up and Down at the same time."

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He demonstrated. Whether using his left hand or right, his thumb could comfortably reach the Up button. But rather than clearing things up, his explanation only made everything seem more absurd.

"Press Up and Down at the same time? What would that even be useful for?"

Ethan grinned.

"It's Guile's ultimate weapon."

"Huh?"

"To put it simply, this is a mechanic designed specifically for fighting game players, especially charge-character players."

"I call it SOCD."

He walked over to the whiteboard and wrote a long phrase.

[Simultaneous Opposite Cardinal Directions]

"All we need is a specific rule programmed into the controller chip to determine what happens when opposite directions are pressed simultaneously."

"For example, Up and Down could cancel each other out and return to neutral."

"Or we could use last-input priority, where whichever direction was pressed most recently takes precedence."

He paused.

"Actually, the more I explain, the more confusing it'll get. So, I'll just implement SOCD before Sam gets back."

Something this fun deserved to be experienced by Sam first.

When Sam finally pushed open the door carrying a stack of miscellaneous paperwork, he was greeted by several people staring at him with unsettling enthusiasm, especially Ethan.

Holding what looked like a freshly assembled keyboard-like controller, Ethan wrapped an arm around him and cheerfully dragged him toward the television.

"Sam! Come on! Let's do a Guile mirror match!"

"Huh? Street Fighter?"

"I thought the new King of Fighters demo was ready."

Sam knew Ethan far too well. One look at that grin and he knew something was wrong, that smile meant trouble. The guy had definitely cooked up some new cheap trick and was itching to use it on him.

"Ethan, if you think picking Guile too means you can beat me, you're dreaming."

These days he practically lived in the arcade. He wasn't the clueless beginner he used to be. After countless matches against local veterans, he'd learned spacing, punishes, frame traps, the basics were finally becoming second nature.

If Ethan still thought he was the rookie who only knew Sonic Booms and Flash Kicks, he was in for a surprise.

"Fight!"

The instant the round began, both players threw a Sonic Boom simultaneously.

"Hm?"

"Huh?"

The projectiles collided and canceled each other out in midair. Sam just blinked, no wonder Ethan suddenly wanted to challenge him.

Looks like he'd joined the Church of Projectile Spam.

"Fine. If you're throwing projectiles, I'll throw projectiles."

Completely unhurried, Sam prepared another Sonic Boom. But the moment he pulled back to charge, Ethan moved an entire cycle ahead of him. The second Sonic Boom was already flying across the screen.

"?"

After a lifetime of playing Guile, he'd somehow gotten out-Guilled.

His projectile speed couldn't keep up with Ethan, a player who normally preferred hyper-aggressive rushdown characters?

Sam hurriedly pushed forward and released his own Sonic Boom before instantly returning to a charging position, yet within those few brief moments, Ethan had already launched two more.

"Man... what the hell is going on?"

Sam had no choice but to block several projectiles while sneaking a glance at Ethan's setup. Only then did he notice the strange controller.

Ethan wasn't using a joystick at all. A cluster of buttons had completely replaced directional inputs. The most ridiculous part was that Ethan wasn't even performing any complicated motions.

One finger remained firmly pressed on the Back button. Then he mechanically alternated tapping Forward and Punch. Each tap produced another Sonic Boom.

There was no need to release charge and start over. The moment one projectile was fired, the next charge was already complete.

"Fuck! I knew you were up to something! You're literally cheating!"

Now he understood everything. Ethan had built himself a one-button cheat device. This thing was a dream come true for charge-based characters

"Fine! Stop using charge characters!"

"Let's play Fei Long instead!"

"Okay, fine."

Ethan didn't seem bothered in the slightest.

He casually reached over and flipped a small switch on the upper-left corner of the Hitbox. The setting changed from L to N and then he smiled.

"Let's continue."

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