For the past little while, I've been working on a series of videos intended to teach essential mechanics and ideas to people who are complete beginners when it comes to learning fighting games. This is me talking a little bit about those videos, and why I thought they should exist.
I've been involved in consistently learning competitive fighting games for around a year and a half, and during that time, I've been trying to teach some friends how to play. I kept running into the same problems with teaching them, and having to explain the same things.
When I started learning, I learned in a very haphazard way. This is, I think, how MOST people learn fighting games. And, there's nothing wrong about that at all. I think that personally, it's bolstered my ability to learn information on my own, and apply it to other areas. However, this way of learning was still REALLY HARD FOR ME, and if I could do it over again, I would explain things a lot differently, and structure those things a lot differently. This particular niche of people, those that learn how I do, are a group that fighting game tutorial content is currently not catering to. There are people who want a specific breakdown of a step by step learning process, and in my opinion, this is largely absent within the space.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are LOTS of FANTASTIC tutorials and thinkpieces out there on learning fighting games. However, there are still these gaps in ways of teaching, where certain people will inevitably have a difficult time learning how to play without some kind of structure.
This sort of lead me to writing a lot about how to teach fighting games in my personal time, and has become what I'm primarily working on right now.
How To Fight is intended to be a series that, when watched one after another, will slowly build up a person's knowledge about these games in a way where each topic supports the next. After the first several videos are complete, it's going to culminate into a more complex idea, using all of the previous ideas introduced.
Right now, I have three videos:
The Anatomy of a Fighting Game Move (HTF#1)
This is a core idea present in all fighting games. I think that knowing what a move is "made of", and using that information to make more informed decisions on when you might want to use a move, is one of the first steps to improving how you play. It's also a fundamental aspect of most all future topics related to these games!
Numpad Notation (HTF#2)
When we describe moves or combo sequences in fighting games, we typically use a notation system instead of spelling out every input and move name. This video is a quick primer on that notation system, and provides plenty of helpful visual examples to drive home the idea.
The Basics of Frame Data (HTF#3)
People tend to be afraid of the idea of "frame data", but really, frame data is not very complex at all. At it's most basic level, frame data can help support a lot of good decision making, and will be vital to understand more complicated ideas later. So, this video gives the viewer a very basic introduction to frame data in a manageable, and actionable way.
Me writing this post is part advertisement I guess, but really, I kind of just wanted to talk about what I'm doing. So, hope you don't mind a little blatant talking about my creative endeavors.
If you're interested in learning fighting games, give the videos a shot! I'd love to hear any feedback you may have about them as well, as I'm constantly trying to improve how I teach people. Hope you enjoy!