To the Right ->

The Last Bandit

So what is it with the vast majority of games (platform & shooter) that progress is mainly from left to right. Ok you'll have a few that criss cross a bit but typically the end goal is to the right.

Is our perception of progress dictated by how we read written language ? If the Middle East had been the Mecca (pun intended) for game development would we have had Ackbar (the chubby plumber) legging it to the left to rescue his damsel.

Any shooters that scroll right to left ?

penev10

Well the Japanese read right to left and they made most of the early side-scrolling shooter so it's a bit of a conundrum.

I think Thunderforce 3 or 4 had a section going right to left but no more than a small part of the game.

o1s1n

I would have thought it all comes down to reading too. But Japanese books go right to left.

Was playing Demon Front over the weekend and there's a level which scrolls right to left - have to say, it's a bit disorientating.

The Last Bandit

Though modern Japanese was read left to right ?

o1s1n

Well I don't know about text, but when Manga comic books are released in the west, the images are all mirror flipped.

If you buy some Dark Horse releases like Berserk, they're still in their original format which reads from right to left.

Retr0gamer

Super Mario wasn't the first game to do scrolling but it is regarded as one fo the first and one of the big games that lead to games stepping out of their single screen roots. That game only scrolled in one direction, right to left. It might have been to do with hardware limitations. Perhaps it just felt more natural after prototyping. It's a weird one but it's certainly not got much to do with reading considering japanese read right to left and they created the first scrolling games to my knowledge. Stuff like Konamis scramble came out before it and scrolled left to right.

Wasn't empire strikes back on the Atari 2600 a game that scrolled right to left? That was a US game as well.

Jack burton

Could it be that most people are right handed so it feels more natural going to that side?

johnny_ultimate

There's a level in Evangelion 3nd Impact that scrolls from right to left, alongside two that scroll left to right.

To be perfectly honest, it's really distracting and dare I suggest even slightly nauseating. Can never get to grips with it properly, and while that's due to years of lift right brainwashing, I'm glad more developers don't try it.

The Last Bandit

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Wasn't empire strikes back on the Atari 2600 a game that scrolled right to left? That was a US game as well.

Yes it was, but given the oddity that was the TIA maybe right to left was easier to develop.

aN.Droid

Going right in games feels right to me in terms of a one way platformer.

Also check this out

Casey120

penev10 wrote: »

Well the Japanese read right to left and they made most of the early side-scrolling shooter so it's a bit of a conundrum.
.

Are you sure about that ?

a5y

Was the hardware and software used to develop the early platform games on English language based?

I'd imagine if I was a programmer who was staring at code and reading left to right all day that playing a game that scrolled right to left would feel a pain every time it came to testing what's been made.

Retr0gamer

I'd say it was all coded on Sharp X1, NEC PCx8 systems and later they used Sharp 86000. Those machines were way more popular with japanese devs because they were much higher resolution so that they could display kanji and katakana. They had their own OS and coding language although it might still have worked very like basic. It's hard to tell.

penev10

Casey120 wrote: »

Are you sure about that ?

Nope, Konami made all the ones I remember so I was just going by that:p

Myrddin

a5y

I DISAGREE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7jSp2xmmEE

K.O.Kiki

o1s1n wrote: »

Well I don't know about text, but when Manga comic books are released in the west, the images are all mirror flipped.

If you buy some Dark Horse releases like Berserk, they're still in their original format which reads from right to left.

They've mostly stopped flipping art these days.

o1s1n

But if you westernize a Japanese comic to read from left to right, you'd have to mirror all the pages or the sequencing wouldn't make any sense..?

Or do you mean most of them are reading right to left now?

Retr0gamer

All the manga I've seen released these days reads right to left.

Manga is still right to left in Japanese and some of the releases in English are still right to left, can be off-putting picking one up after reading a book in English. :pac:

a5y

My Evangelion graphic novels are an unfortunate mix of the "regular edition" (Left to right English language translation" and special edition "right-to-left" English language).

Fortunately everything else in that series is there to make your head ache from figuring out what the hell is going on, so its really not that big a problem. :pac:

CiDeRmAn

It's more than likely got more to do with the eye's natural comfort with tracking from left to right.
Even though the landscape is moving from right to left the apparent motion of the character is left to right, thereby making us more comfortable.
This is why, when you get the occasional SMW level that goes the other way, it doesn't quite sit right.

CiDeRmAn

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

It's more than likely got more to do with the eye's natural comfort with tracking from left to right.
Even though the landscape is moving from right to left the apparent motion of the character is left to right, thereby making us more comfortable.
This is why, when you get the occasional SMW level that goes the other way, it doesn't quite sit right.

Is there a natural comfort in tracking left to right though?