BIT LIT

The Left Paradox
Democratic D-Pads

From the beginning of gaming time, progress has consistently moved forward. Innovation after innovation raised the bar repeatedly, constantly pushing developers to 1Up each other while furthering the business. However, as all of these advances have been made, one thing has remained consistent, for no apparent reason: Movement from the left to the right.

To be fair, with the advent of three-dimensional gaming back in the late 90's, movement has been opened up considerably. This is not an argument of direction, though. It is an examination of progression.

From the offset, a game progressed from left to right out of a necessity for simplicity. Early game systems such as the Atari 2600 didn't have the power to handle many commands, so a basic framework was employed. This right-moving technique allowed the companies to pre-program situations that would be encountered endlessly, no matter what. "Right" became the standard in gaming direction. Games that followed, followed suit. However, some games offered up variations on the formula. What can be said about these games and their employment of disparate methods?

Super Mario Bros., easily a benchmark in gaming, stuck to the right-movement strictly. As players worked through various worlds, they were able to change direction at will, but could not go back to an area they had already visited. The frame of the screen covered a certain area, and it only moved forward. Once you had left a section of the level, it was considered to be gone. There was no recovering anything missed. This creates a dilemma in the mind of the player, especially for those who consider themselves perfectionists. Were coins missed? Was a power-up lost? Not being able to return to a past area potentially leaves the player in an existential dilemma. Not being able to go back also eliminates even being able to see what you've just seen. So did it ever exist?


This was a bit of a departure from an experiment that had been attempted previously in the game Pitfall on the Atari 2600. In Pitfall, the progression begins moving to the right, hopping from the right edge of a screen (if you get that far) to the left of the next, creating a seemingly direct path of point A to point B. The reality is that the course is really a circle of 254 screens, meaning you could potentially end up right back where you started the game. What this circular system also creates is the possibility of progressing through the game in reverse. The overall goal of the game is not akin to that of Super Mario Bros., which has a definite end: Find the princess. Pitfall's goal is to get rich while not dying. This gives the player more control over their course, but still jolts the user out of their comfort zone, as moving against the natural reading flow also jars the safety of the player. The eye naturally moves from left to right, so moving to the left to encounter something that is likely moving to the right is an uncomfortable feeling.


The two previous examples have shown what happens when you give a user no control over going left, and what happens when you give the player either option while keeping constants. Next is the idea that a player is supposed to move to the right, but can return to the left if they so choose. The Sonic The Hedgehog series from SEGA illustrates this principle. Players are to run as fast as possible to the end of the level, where the goal is located. The use of speed in this sense tricks the player into thinking there is nothing they are missing; the reality is that the level design is so complex that a player is missing half of the game.The third entry in the series, aptly-named Sonic The Hedgehog 3 was nothing short of a masterpiece that seamlessly integrated the speed necessary to push the Sega Genesis' Blast Processing and combined the exploratory elements first attempted at the series' birth. Once a player slows down and reverses their path, hidden bonus levels could be found hiding behind false walls. These levels offered special power-ups as they were completed, ultimately resulting in a Super Sonic version of the playable character. For a player who had no idea what to look for, these levels were not missed, as there was no added bonus overall. But for any player who knew the levels were out there, they provided an excellent number of side-quests.

The left-encouragement in the Sonic series is a new form of encouragement, one that exists in the form if IYK,YG: If You Know, You Go. A player can either go on the route they need to as fast as possible (a satisfying idea, if executed properly), or they can slow down and explore (making the experience deeper). The only catch is if the operator knows to explore. Is this fair? Or is it simply a matter of being informed? It's a system that rewards the knowledgeable, a convention that simply would not be allowed in modern gaming.

The implementation of LEFT in gaming opened up many doors. Areas that were once considered off-limits could now begin to be explored freely, and new experimentation was being embraced. From new level styles (such as, in Super Mario World, in "Vanilla Secret 1," where the player must navigate to the up and left to find a secret exit) to complete level skipping (as in Donkey Kong Country, on "Stop N Go Station," where walking back through the entrance warps the player to the end of the (very tough) level), using the left was only the start of a beautiful new approach to gaming. Exploration became a key element, rather than being guided along the pre-set path. These steps that were made were the first to lead to the eventual creation of full-range 3D gaming, the standard that so many try to improve on today. As stated earlier, this is not a debate on whether 2D or 3D games are better. This is simply a very small look at what paved the way for what we play today.