An Experimental Fighting Game Strategy Guide, Chapter One: Basic Strategy

[Trigger Warning] Fighting Game Strategy Guide, but my methods require that you giggle. I will be attempting to shape into you a prizefighter mentality.

Header Image is a Composite; Image by catalyststuff on Freepik, Image by starline on Freepik

Do one of these attitudes fit you? If you read none other of this article, read this survey: through it I will prime you briefly on what I’ll be supporting herein.

There be griefers in those waters; but this attitude is holding unrealistic expectations about what a community can be. Its important, and rare to acknowledge, the skill of cherishing the ones who pay you a wage for your association.

Lab monster practice isn’t a life skill. This attitude isn’t difficult to compose, after-all time never makes a repeat performance, so who gets an intuitive experience with practice; but doesn’t the attitude just make practice difficult? Love the lab monsters, that’s my opinion.

The fgc doesn’t have better social skills than everyone else. The internet is full of awkward social groups teeming with griefers, but the attitude here makes community itself an unwelcome grief in almost every internet circle. FGC is the amicably embraced name for the fighting game community culture; and the culture is responsive and in that way beautiful.

You will be judged on if you can win against other humans online, which creates a comfort control-zone space that supersedes the joy of being able to speedrun the AI. Admittedly, that sounds pretty bad; however the griefers themselves speak through this principle intuition, and it is commercially popular to say ‘I believe in you.’

Before you start, you feel angry at yourself feeling weak and unsure. This is a very natural attitude, hypothetically; all it does is reinforce your obsession with using tools that you know how to use. However the biggest change you seem to need in start with fighting games is building the confidence to make yourself a part of the stage atmosphere while giggling about it.

You find yourself frustrated when nothing seems to work the way it promises; everything seemingly falling short of the desired response or moving slower than it looks like it should. Nothing can replace good, honest practice; but a good plan can get you there, and a good mentor is a pillar the fgc is built on. Of course, I also welcome you to petition me to release the findings of my study, and you could pay me for the pleasure through patreon.

You find that fighting games could change your life for the worse because they take a plan to learn but they are difficult. This is a widely popular attitude, or it was before I became a recluse. However I would ask, because I am a recluse, do you mind becoming a lab monster so terribly in other aspects of life? Something that doesn’t see much practical use is more valuable for practicing valuable skills, in my opinion, because challenging your established abilities in new ways appears to be refreshing for gamers where others modes of life engagement struggle. A little hypothesis of my own is that practicing valuable skills in ways that challenge you is a healthy response to burnout from stress and repetition.

Fighting games, I predict, should seem terribly obscure, and they are still in an awkward phase; an awkward phase for which I blame the strategy gaming sector, as there are no RPG mechanics in fighting games. It has been said that to become good at fighting games, you need to workshop and burn midnight oil at your drafting table. It was once called the PHd. However if you develop good planning methods, you can savor the fighting game like you might savor any skinnerbox; and the difficulty will make community building possible, if we share that interest and you too have a napoleon complex.

Through the course of exploring fighting game strategy in this article, I will attempt to help you build a prize fighter’s psychology. As long as you understand this, watch the video below and get in the ring. We have exercises to work on.

Am I alone in saying that fighting games look cool?

Packing for the Trip — An introduction to fighting game strategy basics

We can start here, with getting a preparation bag packed for going forward; from the eight attitudes I presented already, I will draw what I expect to be your most intuitive notice, my dear reader. If I cannot relate to you, do not fret; the world has not changed, those other than you normally cannot read the minds of others. I will hope to make tingle those attitudes that you might already possess, and hopefully give you a start on skills you already have. If I can do this for your relation to fighting games, I would be delighted.

There will be heavy things to say, so I hope to open doors as I go and give you a perfectly good reason to approach the otherwise horrifying space in-between with a reckless self confidence that breaks the border on arrogance. I will attempt to keep my points straight, with the introductions always preceding the conclusions, but otherwise I will attempt to paint comparisons that measure the subject of fighting games for you.

You signed the waver already, but the harsh introductions part is also almost done.

So have you heard the good news? I intend to share some.

Fighting games themselves are fairly grim in tone, being universally about killers. Life is grim in this way, powerful governments always seem to defy the best sensibilities of the sweetest of people, and personally I’d choose the people. There is expected, from a fighting game perspective, that there will always be some abusive governor or power-seeker looking to apply subtraction onto everyone else and willing to put the fighter in peril to do it. Fortunately the experiences of fighting games are made with voxels and pixels and points of data too; no threat of powerful governors or strong-bads coming from there. The other grim thing is more of an attitude. Fighting games can get more simple; but they never become more intuitive when you love how they feel, because the fighting game thrives in a space where intuition is the very barrier to entry. The greatest pleasure to be found in fighting games will be found in the phase of preparation, and maybe I can draw your agreement. Do you have a memory of playing one? On some halcyon day, when you owed no other person a competition, when through the course of play: you found one or two sequences of advantage, and massaged your way through to a tower series victory? I think, in my own eccentric way, that you enjoy planning.

Don’t be ashamed. Its healthy, even if you would never hear it to be so. It is just proof that it is alive.

So it is good news that you are alive; but my good news I intend to share is that the knowledge of fighting games can be divided into three distinct categories: Space, Time and Practice. Practice is a dirty word, and I said above, but I’m going to attempt to provide a strategy guide that gets philosophical with you, providing flavorful material to graze on opponents with.

Lets begin:

There are two ranges in a fight that are safest to occupy: touching and retreat. The real life choice wouldn’t normally be so easy to make that it can be procrastinated on, and the conditions of fighting game design have forced the decisive choice just as much. However in the already existing fighting game strategy, these two points would translate into zoning and rushdown.

Spacing is a word that means ‘The environment should be an extension of the fighter, and the fighter should be comfortable.’

You want to expect to tolerate chaos within occupied spaces, because you want to harvest there but it is not sterile. The environment is always ready to accept intake and output, but the competition of a fighting game is a competition to control who averts that ruling and creates the forbidding.

Use your spaces by practicing your spaces. This is where there is value in practice, something that can be made more sociable with quick introductions into FGC channels. FGC community spaces are bursting with people taking lessons on intersectionality to heart. Practice with the friends and the game developer’s included tools and the lab monsters helping you to discover your character where you can. They aren’t just human, they are human like the rest of us; but with appropriate expectations set, they are friendly as relativity goes.

As suggested by the previous description, space refers to opportunities that it would benefit one to monopolize, but there are times that benefit one to visit and control in brief shutters. This is referred to as time, or as that impossible to grasp opportunity that always appears to be teasing you.

As time passes, dangerous influences gain the chance to fill spaces with dangers things against you; and in a fight, dangerous things certainly do find purchase and grow. Because of these two conditions, these time spaces must be filled in brief opportunities: the fight must be managed at a leisurely pace of assault and domain. …but when opportunity affords: the fight must be put down hard, fast and nasty. These things are not a contradiction within themselves and to the spaces if you only occupy their spaces briefly, so lets break some rules!

The fighting game design is founded on advantage being determined and given as advantage. The opponent should be expected to give over a major loss once advantage has been won. Winning as quickly as possible satisfies the desire for fewer spaces to contest the ultimate gain and makes the most of the resources available, so fight dirty; however the fight is not usually won by burning your candle on both ends, so take the fight so lack-a-lackadaisically and slowly that if you had time to talk, you would have brought a table. I mean this last part: big moves are slow and small moves are nimble. Build a war machine.

The comfort zones in a fighting game should be prepared ahead in chunks, and so preparations should be rigorous in the intent to follow strictly. The moves have balances, and the balances counter each other. Fairness seems an awkward topic if we’re talking about beating someone to murder victimhood before they can beat you to unalived, but its a videogame; and you could be on the receiving end of unfairness as easily as you could give the giving end. Detailed intricacy is the closest thing to fairness since randomness.

Although the default environment will change from game to game, the default state of the fighting game is that the environment isn’t immediately useful; but it should be, and that’s Setplay. So remember that the goal of a fighting game is to win; which is surprisingly easy to forget with how satisfying it can be to take advantage. Obsession with your tools would be an easy fumble to develop.

Finally: Strategy. In a fighting game, you want to force both of those figures of time and space out of dodge and just as well out of ability to influence. Assault, Domain, Relief and Setups — The fighting attacker has to split their time between the conflict and nursing their well being. In a smaller view, this would be support and attack (or attack and more attack) when RTS was the cutting edge of video game conflict. The subjects of space and time aren’t simple separate phenomenon; they overlap, and overlapping with them is the technique prepared before it is to be brought. The moves are knowable, but they should not be an end in and of themselves. A fighting game keeps you guessing. Giggle when surprised and prepare your kit in chunks. To develop your conflict, try taking these real world figures seriously: Bread, News, Bullets and Support. These were Niccolo Machiavelli and Ho Chi Minh (I think?) Deny them dodge, remove their influence repeatedly, and forage on the enemy whenever possible. Remember the new Kids in the Hall: Slow means smooth, and smooth means fast.

Ultimately: relating this strategy to you is all I can do, and if you’re happy with what you’ve read you’ve come to a stopping place. If you aren’t happy with what you read, I would have recommended the above stopping point, where I offered you a list and didn’t try to make you stay. If you stop reading now, you will not miss out on the context of this article; however if you choose to continue, I would recommend you begin the practice I’ve handed you: start giggling. I am going to structure the article from here on into a workbook, and I have more chapters if it becomes interesting to me to do. During the workbook content (and there will be future reminders), I want you to work on finding the fun with me. I will give you instructions, and they will entirely focus around giggling.

Now, I will introduce the context content the workbook will be structured on.

Simulations: Building on the Basics

From here on, I will be assuming that you are in the business of canning whoop-ass, and that business is good. The important thing for you to focus on is creating a place where you keep more than just your stuff, but where you keep your dreams for happy and slow day to day living. We want to work on building your plans into chunks, creating scrutinizing methods for discovery, and how to transform your fighting game learning into a part of a plan for working on a self-care life. Furthermore, I’d like to work on some soft and social skills, some making the most of a vacation theories, and work out a plan for getting this workout comfort-zoned.

I’d also like to talk about the games some. We should talk about that the opponents are not trying to survive with you, but against you; and how you can understand the survival motive to get your first advantage on the mind games. We should talk about the same being true in establishing a comfort zone. We should talk about failing faster, and how you can use it to learn from your losses. We should talk about making the best of a washed out match, and how to make the most of match up learning, and about after match griefing. We should talk about poor sports, and honestly we should talk about the truth — which may not be a subject featured.

By the time we’re done, I would like to talk about how awesome you are for taking this journey, and how awesome I am for sharing what I don’t really know. How I happen to be sharing the material I created to learn fighting games because I thought designing one was a challenge I wanted, which makes me awesome. You are also awesome, and I would like to talk about that the journey is rough; but the tough in the FGC keep saying it: Keep believing in yourself. I would like to talk about what I think positive anger looks like, and what I think neurotypicability looks like from where I’m sitting. I’d like to talk about making the best of knowing yourself; and really, like that big lovable ogre we all hate to love but love to hate, I’d like to talk about what my own studies in communicating past my disability have taught me about being more like Ryu.

To say all of that, I’m going to ask you to test yourself in that last section. I will give you two quizzes, with the purpose in the first being to complete it as quickly as you can, and the second being a knowledge check in this non-competitive space. You came this far on your own motivational persuasions, so I think you’ll do just fine.

The IDOM v DUALKEVIN match above is a personal favorite of mine between two rushdown characters. Notice how they compete to bring alot of damage in brief chunks, packaged for delivery all at once.

Making a place in hostile spaces — Understanding the Basics

Lets talk about the canned whoop-ass business. Edward Bernays positioned that tomato sauce should be served in more than one variation to drive sales, and the fgc positions the same about learning more than one character; because none of your opponents want to give you time to grow. It is not in the nature of fighting games to congratulate your opponent; you will need to become a lone wolf vigilante.

You will need to groom your feelings to move as your finger points. You will need to find lonesome spaces to nurse your successes and your failures into your confidence. You will need to progress the articulation of your anger, with that inherent focus it (seemingly) takes on yourself; and progress it right into being angry at yourself because you are in the transitional doghouse that is the time to shut down the trauma-team prison-clown party. You will need to develop the notion that you have never been lucky when you were a sour person; and develop yourself into more than a raw scrub against the world. You will need to understanding that the flavor of learning is the delightful, and with that you will need claim have to laugh with the world.

Even in a supportive fgc, there is no equal for honest discipline and practice.

So how do you get there? To me, there seems to be different modes of reasoning that provide for different needs. In the canned whoop-ass industry, that chapter of reasoning would be the reasoning of scientific philosophy. You want to develop a sensitivity to motive channels and vectors, and one to displacement and impacts; as well as one to variations and trends, and the last I’ll mention will be one toward integration and contextual influences. Once you understand these things, you want to displace them and learn to become them. You want to learn to match them, and to match others like and unlike them; and once you’ve learned that, you want to develop a capacity for speaking your knowledge in poetry. I believe this last part might lose you, but there is a strength in the power of words.

I have a poetry exercise I developed, in a different context, that I would like you to try. Poetry in its modern definition is a segway language art. First, as I said before, this exercise will be rooted in giggling; I want you to try thinking of horrors that just aren’t hurting you yet. Now I want you to try to work your way through the previous section, finding multiple ways to describe what you imagine in descriptive language without explicitly using explanations. Try the exercise with each of the above sensitivities and reasoning tools as your core idea. Instead of expecting you to scroll up, I will quote the information down here for you. Remember to focus on the horrors that are not happening to you!

Lets begin:

There are two ranges in a fight that are safest to occupy: touching and retreat. The real life choice wouldn’t normally be so easy to make that it can be procrastinated on, and the conditions of fighting game design have forced the decisive choice just as much. However in the already existing fighting game strategy, these two points would translate into zoning and rushdown.

Spacing is a word that means ‘The environment should be an extension of the fighter, and the fighter should be comfortable.’

You want to expect to tolerate chaos within occupied spaces, because you want to harvest there but it is not sterile. The environment is always ready to accept intake and output, but the competition of a fighting game is a competition to control who averts that ruling and creates the forbidding.

Use your spaces by practicing your spaces. This is where there is value in practice, something that can be made more sociable with quick introductions into FGC channels. FGC community spaces are bursting with people taking lessons on intersectionality to heart. Practice with the friends and the game developer’s included tools and the lab monsters helping you to discover your character where you can. They aren’t just human, they are human like the rest of us; but with appropriate expectations set, they are friendly as relativity goes.

As suggested by the previous description, space refers to opportunities that it would benefit one to monopolize, but there are times that benefit one to visit and control in brief shutters. This is referred to as time, or as that impossible to grasp opportunity that always appears to be teasing you.

As time passes, dangerous influences gain the chance to fill spaces with dangers things against you; and in a fight, dangerous things certainly do find purchase and grow. Because of these two conditions, these time spaces must be filled in brief opportunities: the fight must be managed at a leisurely pace of assault and domain. …but when opportunity affords: the fight must be put down hard, fast and nasty. These things are not a contradiction within themselves and to the spaces if you only occupy their spaces briefly, so lets break some rules!

The fighting game design is founded on advantage being determined and given as advantage. The opponent should be expected to give over a major loss once advantage has been won. Winning as quickly as possible satisfies the desire for fewer spaces to contest the ultimate gain and makes the most of the resources available, so fight dirty; however the fight is not usually won by burning your candle on both ends, so take the fight so lack-a-lackadaisically and slowly that if you had time to talk, you would have brought a table. I mean this last part: big moves are slow and small moves are nimble. Build a war machine.

The comfort zones in a fighting game should be prepared ahead in chunks, and so preparations should be rigorous in the intent to follow strictly. The moves have balances, and the balances counter each other. Fairness seems an awkward topic if we’re talking about beating someone to murder victimhood before they can beat you to unalived, but its a videogame; and you could be on the receiving end of unfairness as easily as you could give the giving end. Detailed intricacy is the closest thing to fairness since randomness.

Although the default environment will change from game to game, the default state of the fighting game is that the environment isn’t immediately useful; but it should be, and that’s Setplay. So remember that the goal of a fighting game is to win; which is surprisingly easy to forget with how satisfying it can be to take advantage. Obsession with your tools would be an easy fumble to develop.

Finally: Strategy. In a fighting game, you want to force both of those figures of time and space out of dodge and just as well out of ability to influence. Assault, Domain, Relief and Setups — The fighting attacker has to split their time between the conflict and nursing their well being In a smaller view, this would be support and attack (or attack and more attack) when RTS was the cutting edge of video game conflict. The subjects of space and time aren’t simple separate phenomenon; they overlap, and overlapping with them is the technique prepared before it is to be brought. The moves are knowable, but they should not be an end in and of themselves. A fighting game keeps you guessing. Giggle when surprised and prepare your kit in chunks. To develop your conflict, try taking these real world figures seriously: Bread, News, Bullets and Support. These were Niccolo Machiavelli and Ho Chi Minh (I think?) Deny them dodge, remove their influence repeatedly, and forage on the enemy whenever possible. Remember the new Kids in the Hall: Slow means smooth, and smooth means fast.

Do you notice that to achieve the above activity, you’ll need to skip around? Included above were no environmental factors. However its been my personal experience that braiding ideas while you learn is asking the impossible of yourself; so I don’t recommend pioneering it for a leisurely sunday ass-whoopin’, at least not until you are aware of the gravity of the task you are taking on.

There are factors that will act on you in ways that will not be good.

They will convince you that you are both struggling to survive, when one of you is not struggling as much; because it isn’t just common that a character will modify the rules of the game you’re playing in some minor but game changing way, its what seemingly keeps the game interesting. …which is perhaps only the opinion of my human experimentation standards.

They will convince you that you are already enjoying the fruits of satisfaction; this is what a frametrap is.

They will persuade you that none of your opportunities will open into real options; and this is also a popularly recommended mind game

They will oppress you with attacks on your block that make you wonder if the game was ever fair in the first place.

They will manipulate the game in ways that will suggest that they and the developers were in cahoots, conspiring against you the entire time.

They will conscript you into options that are the last best opportunities you have, from all appearances and purposes.

They will take your best tools away.

They will strip you raw and scrubbish.

The reality of a fighting game is that you are in a fight. Until now I have not been as explicit on this matter, but I don’t know if I could be more so than this; except maybe if I were using a data point list longer than eight examples as reference. However a great factor in responding to the viscous, brutal, and overall abusive treatment I describe above is preparation to destroy your enemy. If you remember, my recommendations in my description of this section were the following:

From here on, I will be assuming that you are in the business of canning whoop-ass, and that business is good. The important thing for you to focus on is creating a place where you keep more than just your stuff, but where you keep your dreams for happy and slow day to day living. We want to work on building your plans into chunks, creating scrutinizing methods for discovery, and how to transform your fighting game learning into a part of a plan for working on a self-care life. Furthermore, I’d like to work on some soft and social skills, some making the most of a vacation theories, and work out a plan for getting this workout comfort-zoned.

Can this completely separate data point list recommend the same?

Admiration: When you’ve been left feeling whipped, creamed, corny and canned, there was an art to the fighter that was better than you. There is no shame that you were trying to put that person under your boot heel; but it is glorious that you could not. If only you could be that person? Would you wear their Supreme? As a moment of closure, you definitely should. Where can I get a pair of Nike Umeharas?

Anticipation: Can you move all of your stuff into a place you recognize from the tell-tale signs and signal flags? This word entirely encompasses the above section description; so I guess this is closure.

Consideration: There is much to consider, and I’m about two-fifths through my study. My study is over eight hundred and fifty data points large. I guess I’ll just say the dream to run away to the circus: Remember to stay fun, to stay petty, to remember that its always business, and that if you don’t stay greater than the average public prudence, you can’t stay fun and petty together; and its always business.

Contrition Acceptance: We all start feeling used up eventually. So much that we start to gaze past the goal post and obsess over our own experiences. Tournament play is common in fighting games, and so put the game down isn’t the best advice overall. The best advice is to put the game away. Even when money is on the line, the best thing to do is remember Samurai games — the Samurai’s most deadly cuts are the swings they didn’t take. That’s tilting.

Fear Acceptance: You should accept that the place between ‘something should be working’ and ‘something isn’t working’ is called fear, and its also called uncertainty under cold war conditions when people don’t want other people to know that fear is coming. Sometimes its best to remember Jesus. When you think yes, say yes; when you think no, say no; and when you think it don’t work, say it don’t work. Extravagance is not really necessary. I knew in here you would need Jesus somewhere!

Joy Acceptance: Joy is what happens when no-one is around and you just got your shit together; and awkwardly enough, the second of those two happens much more often than the first. However glee is what happens when joy happens around other people and you be like ‘fuck it!’ Sometimes you need a little Richard Pryor in your life.

Respect: Sometimes you just need to turn your brain off. Fine motor control oriented crafting is one of those times that turning your brain off is how you achieve greatness. Well there are times when people are involved that you should turn your brain off, and just let surprises surprise you and judgments come naturally. That is my thoughts on respect, and you might follow up on respect by working on your fear acceptance. Its what Jesus loves.

Revelry Acceptance: Those who are starving or dehydrated or deathly freezing are notoriously understood to be in threat of gorging themselves to death as soon as they are immersed in what they crave so desperately. Jiddu Krishnamurti once mused about sex something like that sex is the only time that people return to the uninterrupted state of being animals, when at all other times it is pressures and the guilt of the human condition that drive us; and that the answer was to grab hold of the uninterrupted state of human condition for ourselves. I was raised in the American south, where the food is good but its still just food, and something about foodie culture is learning to accept that what you crave is already in a place to please your palate. Let your pleasure savor you and let yourself take it slowly; and you’ll be alright.

Workbook Task: Using the list immediately above and the list in the quote box repeating the earlier section description, work on giggling about outcomes to the poisons further above using what you know about fighting games so far.

So can you be your own bat family hero? I believe you can. You may be becoming a lone wolf, but the pool that makes us delightful company is still there if you will reach for it. Sometimes others will fail to teach you well, and I’m personally experimenting on you now; but if you will be adventurous and kind to yourself, you too can frame the abyssian in an uncertain light that invites you to dine like delightful company and old friends.

Your failures can be your privacy, and your successes can lead to future successes; because where you believe in yourself, you are the wolf. That anger at yourself is the wolf in you; can you feel it? Bay into the abyss with me! RAOH! Every trophy of your success is your wolf pack, and your opponent is your hunt to savor. RAOH! You are blessed to be new before you are sour! RAOH! UNDERSTANDING IS FOREKNOWLEDGE THAT THE FLAVOR IS DELIGHTFUL! RAOH!

This is a match that could make you think. Notice how GARNET begins having trouble with LUFFY’s zoning in the second match. F.A.N.G, who looks to be a type of character we haven’t discussed yet — a neutral specialist, is widely recognized to be one of the weakest characters in Street Fighter 5.

Supporting yourself as the weak sauce in a solved equation — Embracing the newbie of being the lesser.

So now I’ve suped you up like a grade-a engine, and you’re heading in to lose your first race. Well that doesn’t sound right. Shouldn’t power fantasies be played to escape that soul-crushing experience? This is where we should embrace that feeling anger and doubt at yourself is intended to make you doubt scaling improbable possibilities; and then climb them. Fuck yea we climb them! The times when you take a beating will not be the same as times hitting the gloves with a good coach, who who was ever shined upon by the glories of luck when they were a sour person unwilling to brave the impossible? Well, I may be being a bit reckless — but nobody ever lost an arm or a leg to a pixel, a voxel, or a byte of code. What I want to show you is that you can thank the people who beat on you for a great lesson in every loss; if only you take control of your finger, point your way forward and move to your destination.

After-all, the contrary is being unable to schedule the time to think about your successes and failures because an intrusive goose won’t stop attacking you. I keep saying it like I believe it: Understanding is the foreknowledge that the flavor will be delightful, and also that if it becomes quick in your muscle to fighting game with the best of them, I finally know that I have discovered the secrets of life. Its alive. Its alive.

I should admit, as long as this is material anonymous, that I have a nostalgic longing for Mel Brooks comedies.

If we’re going to experiment with trying to explore the feel-bads of bad feelings, we should start by trying to embrace what bad feelings can actually do for us. I have a list of eight, just like before, and I’d like to list them here and explore what they might mean.

Disgust: Disgust is one of the most obviously bad feelings on my list. It says to you ‘this is a whole lot of not combined like I have found to be my happy place.’ I think it is fantastic, as in fictional, to believe that you could scrutinize your opponent during the match and remember what left you feeling disgusted; but I do believe that you can keep disgust on a character by character basis; and furthermore, I would give you advice that is popularly given, which is that you should record and study your fights. Once you have made real connections possible with your disgust, I would recommend embracing the outer lab-monster, be that someone else on some social-gaming platform or embracing your own inner lab-monster through the practice of external, structured and intricate methods. Personally I will admit here that it is the lab experience that is pushing me forward through fighting games here.

Do as you Like: Do as you Like is not the most intuitively bad feeling on my list (that dubious honor may go to Disgust), but it is a reactionary sensation none the less; the contrition that arises when one is aware that others spend less time responding and far more time waiting to impose, and a contrition that may very well lead (and has in many cases) to an unintentional self destruction. The attitude of Do as you Like extends into the popular attitude of ‘I’m being smothered’, which is the attitude that appears to compose a scrub. However if the attitude of Do as you Like can create an echo chamber inside you, then it should be able to be reformed into a tool for your righteousness.- …it should be able to be weaponized. Although I don’t know how well it works with disgust, contrition can be applied while you are losing to help you keep a cool head, and help you reinforce the confidence that I have in you; and if you apply your self-reflecting contrition to the strategy assets I have already outlined for you in this workbook chapter, you can engage a set-it-and-forget-it reactivity that will actually bonus you in reaction speed and timing.

Fury: Fury will be a funny section for me, because I’m guessing. I have an intellectual disability that for all intents and appearances seems to pilfer my ability to point and move effectively. Fury appears to me to be the combination of one coming to wits end and point and move to do something about that. However if you thought I was right up to this point, maybe give me a chance here: I was guessing to now anyhow, and I have honestly told you I’m experimenting on you. I believe your best answer with fury is to learn to start from the beginning (in more ways than one.) I think you should learn to start learning play styles with your character after you develop yours; and when you get furious in a match, I think you should start from the beginning and break out a different play style. Switching it up wins fighting tournaments, and that parts a fact. Don’t think me too perfect, ok?

Grief: I recently lost someone I generally liked as a person. At that persons loss, it occurred to me that all of our relationships are built on what we can do for each other. Some people scam for free, but what has really been done about that anyway? Grief is the experience you feel when you understand that your best tools are losing you fights; and that does happen. I would recommend that you let grief inform your decision making about fury above.

Surprise: Surprises are spooky. Who saw that coming? However I recommend that you let surprises inform your Do as you Like attitude from above. A spooky surprise is a good reminder that you aren’t actually in control after-all.

Swoop: Swoop is an attitude in a question: can I make them give it up without putting bullets in them? The reason they call it game however is that the observer to be persuaded is obstinate in the first place. This feels bad. However instead of throwing your precious controller against the wall to engage shocking bullets into your opponents, engage them instead in your mind-trap. Spiderwebs.

Villainy: Villainy is a word most associated with fiction, but its also a word most associated with abuse. The villain sees their plans to the end with full knowledge that people might get hurt. Societies don’t take this very well; as the idea that you could randomly get hurt in events that do not typically hurt you is an idea, and an idea that could suggest to anyone that villains in the neighborhood is a feeling that feels bad. Therefore you may have any number of ideas that act on any number of feelings that influence you to make hasty snatches and try to stealth your way through the thoughts of villainy. Its my opinion that the hasty snatches and attempts at stealth built by fear and oppression are the causes of those justifications for violence that make random attacks of bad happen, and my experimentation will go on to develop an activist program on that end one day; after-all, the world is not too much to deal in. Therefore, I believe that you should develop your fighting game mentality to incorporate villainy; and in this way, become a calmer and more optimized player.

Wrath: Wrath is revenge, and revenge is a story. I say this bluntly because it sounds so damn silly. Most people think of wrath as some violence to apply on others, however I want to remind you of what I said before about head games; if you agreed with me there, the summation of what that means here is that the sweet flavors are what make people fall into grace, but only if the sweet flavors are behind some wall of unattainability. As you’re feeling wrathful, don’t forget to stay available; and as long as you’re going to play available, you may as well play it slow and villainous.

Now, just like in the last section, I’m going to provide the basics of strategy again and ask that you giggle. This time, I would like you to attempt to put the bad feeling between yourself and the space between, and in this way find yourself. Lets try some #selfLove.

Lets begin:

There are two ranges in a fight that are safest to occupy: touching and retreat. The real life choice wouldn’t normally be so easy to make that it can be procrastinated on, and the conditions of fighting game design have forced the decisive choice just as much. However in the already existing fighting game strategy, these two points would translate into zoning and rushdown.

Spacing is a word that means ‘The environment should be an extension of the fighter, and the fighter should be comfortable.’

You want to expect to tolerate chaos within occupied spaces, because you want to harvest there but it is not sterile. The environment is always ready to accept intake and output, but the competition of a fighting game is a competition to control who averts that ruling and creates the forbidding.

Use your spaces by practicing your spaces. This is where there is value in practice, something that can be made more sociable with quick introductions into FGC channels. FGC community spaces are bursting with people taking lessons on intersectionality to heart. Practice with the friends and the game developer’s included tools and the lab monsters helping you to discover your character where you can. They aren’t just human, they are human like the rest of us; but with appropriate expectations set, they are friendly as relativity goes.

As suggested by the previous description, space refers to opportunities that it would benefit one to monopolize, but there are times that benefit one to visit and control in brief shutters. This is referred to as time, or as that impossible to grasp opportunity that always appears to be teasing you.

As time passes, dangerous influences gain the chance to fill spaces with dangers things against you; and in a fight, dangerous things certainly do find purchase and grow. Because of these two conditions, these time spaces must be filled in brief opportunities: the fight must be managed at a leisurely pace of assault and domain. …but when opportunity affords: the fight must be put down hard, fast and nasty. These things are not a contradiction within themselves and to the spaces if you only occupy their spaces briefly, so lets break some rules!

The fighting game design is founded on advantage being determined and given as advantage. The opponent should be expected to give over a major loss once advantage has been won. Winning as quickly as possible satisfies the desire for fewer spaces to contest the ultimate gain and makes the most of the resources available, so fight dirty; however the fight is not usually won by burning your candle on both ends, so take the fight so lack-a-lackadaisically and slowly that if you had time to talk, you would have brought a table. I mean this last part: big moves are slow and small moves are nimble. Build a war machine.

The comfort zones in a fighting game should be prepared ahead in chunks, and so preparations should be rigorous in the intent to follow strictly. The moves have balances, and the balances counter each other. Fairness seems an awkward topic if we’re talking about beating someone to murder victimhood before they can beat you to unalived, but its a videogame; and you could be on the receiving end of unfairness as easily as you could give the giving end. Detailed intricacy is the closest thing to fairness since randomness.

Although the default environment will change from game to game, the default state of the fighting game is that the environment isn’t immediately useful; but it should be, and that’s Setplay. So remember that the goal of a fighting game is to win; which is surprisingly easy to forget with how satisfying it can be to take advantage. Obsession with your tools would be an easy fumble to develop.

Finally: Strategy. In a fighting game, you want to force both of those figures of time and space out of dodge and just as well out of ability to influence. Assault, Domain, Relief and Setups — The fighting attacker has to split their time between the conflict and nursing their well being In a smaller view, this would be support and attack (or attack and more attack) when RTS was the cutting edge of video game conflict. The subjects of space and time aren’t simple separate phenomenon; they overlap, and overlapping with them is the technique prepared before it is to be brought. The moves are knowable, but they should not be an end in and of themselves. A fighting game keeps you guessing. Giggle when surprised and prepare your kit in chunks. To develop your conflict, try taking these real world figures seriously: Bread, News, Bullets and Support. These were Niccolo Machiavelli and Ho Chi Minh (I think?) Deny them dodge, remove their influence repeatedly, and forage on the enemy whenever possible. Remember the new Kids in the Hall: Slow means smooth, and smooth means fast.

Lets take a moment to refresh.

Can you imagine your opponents yet? Standing tall like you can be contrite in them, looking perfect or at least unchallengable. Like they’ve optimized every aspect of their relationship with the game. In watching them, you entertain your doubts. In watching them, you entertain that your skill is crumbling away. Yes, you are the lesser; but there was no timeline on how long you could be the newbie. Even if it crumbles sometimes, enjoy your influence. Even if you doubt it sometimes, add more influence. If it is erst-wise or else-wise, you will have been optimized. RAOH!

However I should want to help you get your house in order here, so we’re going to explore the part that I mentioned as the second half of rts gaming: Support. I will not be focused on support in terms of conflict, because your life experience does not change in definition according to context. That is my opinion on the matter, so I am totally fine with my crutches, which is the data-set I am referencing, not relating directly to contact with an enemy. So just like last time, I’m going to provide you with the description I gave this section, then I’m going to give you a list of reasons to exercise on. I will provide you the exercise after the list.

I’d also like to talk about the games some. We should talk about that the opponents are not trying to survive with you, but against you; and how you can understand the survival motive to get your first advantage on the mind games. We should talk about the same being true in establishing a comfort zone. We should talk about failing faster, and how you can use it to learn from your losses. We should talk about making the best of a washed out match, and how to make the most of match-up learning, and about after match griefing. We should talk about poor sports, and honestly we should talk about the truth — which may not be a subject featured.

Business: By business, I refer to the place where you centralize your networking to establish a nostalgia for your presence into the hearts and minds of the society that can share life’s necessities with you. In a fighting game, you are a network of one. Bluntly, this is your connection with your character.

Home: By home, I refer to the place where you keep your resources and best answers for day to day living. In a fighting game, no home goes uninvaded. Bluntly, this is your connection with your chosen characters options on spacing and timing.

Leisure: By leisure, I refer to activities that can apply your foundations with other uses to new, funky, or otherwise imaginative practices in an act of personal refreshment. In a fighting game, leisure should be best conserved for times when you aren’t taking a lost. Bluntly, this means finding a mentor.

Logic: By logic here, I refer to inductive logic; or to the use of equation structured language to create circuits for pathfinding. In a fighting game, you don’t have long to string together options in the neutral phase of play, but surprise outcomes (option selects) are an advantage. Bluntly, this means practicing a diverse, small and compact neutral game.

Reason: By reason here, I refer to deductive logic; or to the tools one uses to identify tell-tale evidence while gazing into the abyss. In a fighting game, these facts are reduced to two answers: How much space the opponent has, and how much time they have to do something with it. Bluntly, this means developing gaming literacy in the references that can be drawn from watching the opponent exclusively.

Relief: By relief, I refer to activities that can schedule an activity stop to feed your foundations in an act of mundane liberation. In a fighting game, this means taking away from fighting game playing time to engage with fighting game media. Bluntly, love the lab monsters.

Warmth: By warmth, I refer to activities that can schedule an activity stop to feed your influences obscured by abyss in an act of non-invitable liberation. In a fighting game, this means breaking the round for round cycle and the worries about scoring the losses. Bluntly, practice mode is the only place for the hardest difficulties in the game, but schedule an hour at it versus the hard-difficult computer and you’ll find you had fun.

Work: By work here, I refer to activities that can apply your foundations with expected outcomes as an act of options refreshment. In fighting games, the way to build your experience with an opponent that looks at you and follows that by intending to do you harm is community play; the ai actually cannot see you. Bluntly: Playing against humans is different and takes practice.

Workbook Task: I would like you to attempt to find the contexts in the opportunities above using the exercises I recommended for engaging and claiming your bad feelings. Try again to giggle your way through it the way I advised you that you should with the bad feels, but this time under more specific contexts.

Once you know how to stand as an individual among giants, others will be able to see from your foundations the devotion you’ve put into your craft. I really recommend looking for a mentor, and there are fighting gamers on fiver.com that are priced very reasonably to do just that. They have been where you are now, and they’re offering to help you along. Remember that anger I keep talking about; if you don’t put it in check, it can make you defensive, but myself, the mentor you find, and yourself only want to make you a winner. No one was ever blessed by being a sour person. Move as the finger points. Understanding is the foreknowledge that the flavor is delightful.

This is an instance where you put my theories to the test. This is a Juri vs R.Mika match from the CAPCOM pro tour grand finals. Juri is one of the most popular characters in Street Fighter 5, and plays with a strategy not unsimilar to a grappler. As a neutral specialized character like F.A.N.G above, and a complementary specialty in setplay, she will struggle most at fighting to stay inside for even and rhythmic damage. The opponent R.Mika is a character that plays to what are popularly considered to be eccentric tastes. Grapplers do not zone like other characters do; and instead they do most of their concentrations of damage when they can touch their opponent. This should be an ideal matchup for R.Mika. So can you understand the advantages attractive to the R. Mika player ELCHAKOTAY?

Confidence or Madness; does it really matter? — Fine Tuning and Final Adjustments

Before I start this time, I’m going to raise what I said this section would be about.

By the time we’re done, I would like to talk about how awesome you are for taking this journey, and how awesome I am for sharing what I don’t really know. How I happen to be sharing the material I created to learn fighting games because I thought designing one was a challenge I wanted, which makes me awesome. You are also awesome, and I would like to talk about that the journey is rough; but the tough in the FGC keep saying it: Keep believing in yourself. I would like to talk about what I think positive anger looks like, and what I think neurotypicability looks like from where I’m sitting. I’d like to talk about making the best of knowing yourself; and really, like that big lovable ogre we all hate to love but love to hate, I’d like to talk about what my own studies in communicating past my disability have taught me about being more like Ryu.

That, friend: is a lot of blazing hot fuckin’ awesome. This conversation isn’t about me being worthy, I deny you that reality now. This conversation is about if you can become consistent in upholding that level of awesome. Lets grab a toolkit. This time: I will allow my preferred madness to do the talking; so accompany the companionship of the cartoon animals below with a cartoon goat named But, and as long as But agrees with me: but it works.

Comparison: Can you imagine being able to reach out and claim the conversion influence for a type of resource? If you can, try comparing the tools you are learning about to that concept.

Contrast: Can you imagine being able to reach out and claim the conversion influence for a type of resource, but that type of resource in your imagination is actually mechanically different. Embrace the difference, and imagine claiming both; and once you do that, try following the comparison method for the resource variation.

Enabling: Can you imagine providing optimization for a resource being converted by your influence? If you do this from the simple relationship, and work in reverse to the order of operations suggested by the metaphor of the draining of liquid resources, you will be able to develop a framing chart to record your observations on.

Motive Sensitivity: Can you imagine providing the optimization for a resource converted by your influence? If this recommendation had come sooner in the alphabetical order, it would be intuitive that this is how one imagines tools and resources with anthromorphization: creating simple understandings of otherwise impersonal relationships.

Need Sensitivity: Can you imagine providing the optimization for a resource converted by your influence? As long as you continue with me past the last concept, you will anthromorphize that process here into industry; or the industry that you could apply that, once simplified into satisfaction of cravings, could spontaneously become natures more optimized animal natures.

Option Sensitivity: Can you imagine providing the optimization for a resource converted by your influence? If you can imagine the needs being satisfied for your cartoon pet, extend that concept to the smaller and more temporary cartoon pets that meet those needs and seek alternatives.

Rephrasing: Can you imagine cartoon fairies in your head? As long as you allow your industrial perceptions to do your rephrasing, you can allow your perception of the diversity of fairies to occupy that space that is what party people bring called parties. There are the winged cute variants, and oh-so-serious but wholesome elves, and goodly gnomes and the always pragmatic and probably mostly misunderstood Machiavellian humanists. Ah, so goes the delightful story of Count Montefeltro of Urbino; as accurately as any good story goes anyhow.

Support Sensitivity: Can you imagine providing the optimization for a resource converted by your influence? If you can imagine the needs being satisfied for your cartoon pet, attempt to deliever for those needs before the needs become a crisis. It is a difficult but rewarding simulation, and I’d love to play an outrageously exaggerated computer generated version of it someday.

Workbook Task: Try giggling from focusing the conception of occupying a space and exploiting its resources from each of my points of arrogance for yourself. For each of the methods, try to find one intake context and one output context, and explore each for four steps.

If you’ll remember, the above list was a major point in section one; and there should be a method to my madness. I’m a believer that keeping categorical similarity simple while not exaggerated and not complicated is the better opening or starting error. Hence we won’t immediately get interested in the use for down, up, right, left, back, forward, in and out that I used for the fighting game study I’m referencing in this article. I didn’t even list the refinements. Its just an eight by eight study. You are the human experiment I’m testing my hypothesis on. Don’t worry, you will grow a third eye perhaps; and the ocular dissimilarity should be outweighed by the conceptual optimization of your life options. My measurements shouldn’t hurt you too much more than having an experience of being bereft of a comfort zone for reference would; and I think I should try a little human experimentation in your video games.

So let’s shake up our practice a bit and reflect on what we know. Lets start this simulations section by attempting to draw on what we have explored in the other sections that came after the section introductions, and lets try to do so without drawing from the part that comes afterward. Trivia point: Simulations is what the part of these exercises that draws on the introductions (to available basics as introduced in the first section,) has been called in my framework until now.

Workbook Task: Quiz — Review the earlier Workbook Task by copying the eight reasoning values into your notepad from before and attempting to review the earlier simulation sections as quickly as possible. Try to pull exactly two giggles from each concept that suggests boldly to you some understanding. Try to complete this section as quickly as possible, but slowly enough that you pull a list of any concepts that you drop like an accidental combo-drop. This is a building opportunity.

Once that Workbook Task is complete, what we’ll do is quiz where we stand. The question we want to ask is what tool we will use to achieve the goal. This is a test for you, as I am fully prepared for the success of my methods; although I do have to void my any promises and guarantees I have made here if you did not followup on any workbook task I have given you with personal simulation work. If you are reading this and you have not, never fear: I endorse your reading ahead, as it is a healthy thing if you have the tools for it.

Workbook Task: Quiz — Bounce five times for each question. Are you having an easy time? If you miss something, write that something down and explore from that subject in methods you experimented in up to this point. This quiz is for your benefit.

To observe those better than us:

Beautiful: Do they need you?
Efficient: Can you copy them?
Entertaining: Can you imagine them?
Have Not Power: Is the power difference obvious?
Have Power: Is the power use admirable?
Power Minus: Can you feel the power difference?
Power Plus: Are you baffled by the power difference?
Wise: Can you connect the relationships?

To experience the pains of loss:

Cheating: Do you feel that only one of you is struggling to survive?
Comforting: Do you feel yourself feeling satisfied with actually time sensitive options?
Dejection: Do you feel certain that time or space sensitivity has not worked out as favoring you?
Filler: Do you feel like your tools are as satisfying as your goal?
Folk: Do you feel the communal favoritism while fighting?
Interpersonal Taxation: Do you feel like helping?
Stealing: Do you feel like disappearing?
Truth: Do you feel like a more comfortable security is an alternative to now?

To keep our heads on straight while looking into the abyss that is our own limits:

Cheshire’s Teeth: Does that look like support that makes you giggle anyhow?
Country: Does that look like productive estate?
Exposed to the Zombies: Does that look like the creeping and certain lethality?
Faustian Dread: Does that look like you are accepting substitutes?
Influence Awareness: Does that look to be within tolerable limits?
Method Acclimation: Does that contrition look like you are happy to see it?
Pride: Does that outcome look like you are respected?
Work: Does that outcome look optimal?

Hey there chummers: I believe in you. You have the potential of RAOH! in you. Do you believe in you? Did I help you believe in you? If this series was any good, I have material set aside for eight more essays. I would personally like to know if you would like me to follow up on that: and to do that, I can use this section ending as my test. I have a website and forum that I want to use for this purpose, and I want to populate it because I think its a great thing for me to do. If you will join me there, we will discover together if the population will grow to support my continuing the fighting game series. Five people ought to do it.

Remember: I can believe in the RAOH! in you, but nothing replaces good honest practice. Anger at yourself is a checkpoint inside you to that you must relate in abstract to the future since you do not have an appendage looking there, …probably. Remember that all movement is like pointing your finger before moving. Remember that no-one was ever blessed by being a sour person. Remember that remembrance is the foreknowledge that you are a FUCKIN’ BEAST!

ROAH! RAOH ROAH!

Before we part ways, let me introduce you to your new friend on youtube:
GekkoSquirrel. Sure, I had wanted to reinforce the material related to street fighter with street fighter specific content, but this is one of my favorite youtubers; so why not permit a bit of relaxation to the subject and get to a funny guide to fighting game strategy? You are feeling cheated?

Well how about MC_Mura?

MC_Mura is more conversational that I can usually follow, but this youtuber’s structure is clear and poignant like they respect your time even before they ever started. I like that attitude in my content creators.

So what have we learned?

So: While we talked, I believe you’ve gotten to know me as well as I hope you’ve gotten to know yourself. So lets add to this workbook a final test: now check my homework. Here’s the beginning of the article. Do you think I’m right?

There be griefers in those waters; but this attitude is holding unrealistic expectations about what a community can be. Its important, and rare to acknowledge, the skill of cherishing the ones who pay you a wage for your association.

Lab monster practice isn’t a life skill. This attitude isn’t difficult to compose, after-all time never makes a repeat performance, so who gets an intuitive experience with practice; but doesn’t the attitude just make practice difficult? Love the lab monsters, that’s my opinion.

The fgc doesn’t have better social skills than everyone else. The internet is full of awkward social groups teeming with griefers, but the attitude here makes community itself an unwelcome grief in almost every internet circle. FGC is the amicably embraced name for the fighting game community culture; and the culture is responsive and in that way beautiful.

You will be judged on if you can win against other humans online, which creates a comfort control-zone space that supersedes the joy of being able to speedrun the AI. Admittedly, that sounds pretty bad; however the griefers themselves speak through this principle intuition, and it is commercially popular to say ‘I believe in you.’

Before you start, you feel angry at yourself feeling weak and unsure. This is a very natural attitude, hypothetically; all it does is reinforce your obsession with using tools that you know how to use. However the biggest change you seem to need in start with fighting games is building the confidence to make yourself a part of the stage atmosphere while giggling about it.

You find yourself frustrated when nothing seems to work the way it promises; everything seemingly falling short of the desired response or moving slower than it looks like it should. Nothing can replace good, honest practice; but a good plan can get you there, and a good mentor is a pillar the fgc is built on. Of course, I also welcome you to petition me to release the findings of my study, and you could pay me for the pleasure through patreon.

You find that fighting games could change your life for the worse because they take a plan to learn but they are difficult. This is a widely popular attitude, or it was before I became a recluse. However I would ask, because I am a recluse, do you mind becoming a lab monster so terribly in other aspects of life? Something that doesn’t see much practical use is more valuable for practicing valuable skills, in my opinion, because challenging your established abilities in new ways appears to be refreshing for gamers where others modes of life engagement struggle. A little hypothesis of my own is that practicing valuable skills in ways that challenge you is a healthy response to burnout from stress and repetition.

Fighting games, I predict, should seem terribly obscure, and they are still in an awkward phase; an awkward phase for which I blame the strategy gaming sector, as there are no RPG mechanics in fighting games. It has been said that to become good at fighting games, you need to workshop and burn midnight oil at your drafting table. It was once called the PHd. However if you develop good planning methods, you can savor the fighting game like you might savor any skinnerbox; and the difficulty will make community building possible, if we share that interest and you too have a napoleon complex.

Good luck out there, local tough. I doubt you’ll need it though.