"A button can be pressed more than once."
Mark Brown is the first of all the generic essayists, the progenitor of their unholy arts. Few can approach his level of mastery in saying absolutely nothing in as many words as possible. He and Just Write were the two main inspirations for Mooper's GDELB series.[1] Mark Brown's channel, Game Maker's Tool Kit, is dedicated to explaining mechanics in video games. As EFAP has learned, he often presents extremely basic concepts and makes them sound complicated with slick editing and a thesaurus' worth of fancy words, and most of what he describes are likely things that someone would already know if they had any interest in game design. His videos teach you how to avoid blind subservience in games like Dahks Souhls by using thumb gymnastics to combine the verbs to read a map. Except if you have a disability that prevents you from pressing buttons.[1]
He has a habit of confirming the same sentence and makes bizarre long pause when switching to another topic.
Wilford Brimley (ascended)[]
One cannot talk about Mark Brown without first mentioning Wilford Brimley (ascended).
History[]
"A-> jump, A-> jump, A-> triple jump"
PreFAP[]
ChaseFace "used to vaguely know" him. According to Chase, he very much kept to himself.
On Hand-Holding and Dotted Lines[]
MauLer, Rags, Wolf, and guest CJ first encountered Mark Brown on EFAP 26, where they watched his video, "Following the Little Dotted Line" which talks about hand-holding in video games. Mark claimed that players are often looking at he mini-map instead of looking at the environment and are just “blindly stumbling” to quests. He explained how it is hard for him to get immersed when he has the game mechanic “layer” on the screen, without mentioning that the helps can be turned off in the beginning. He described how it was better in the old days when you just had a map with no markers for the player, and you had to look around and ask for directions. He sees the maps as following breadcrumbs instead of making your own way and finding secrets along the way, and argued that going around the world with no guide, hints or detailed maps is more rewarding and highlights the player's determination. One suggestion he gave for more immersion is optional quests where you are only given a vague idea of where to look, like a paper with some landmarks, and random objects scattered in the environment to help you read the world, giving the example of figuring out a building is a hospital because it has operating table, which would not be breadcrumbs. He did not touch on the possibility that these features may be tedious or seem pointless to other players. EFAP hypothesized that while he said he liked the observation aspect of the open world, in the end he probably just bangs his face against everything until he finds everything, map or not.
The Secret of Mario's Jump[]
"Super Mario is famous for his jump, but it wasn't always so great."
The second video that the gang covered on EFAP 26, now with Jay taking Wolf's place, was Mark's magnum opus "The Secret of Mario's Jump." Mark began by referring to the actions you can perform in games as "verbs," rather than just calling them "actions," because. He then introduced the concept of Versatile Verbs, which describes things you can do in multiple different ways. He used Mario's titular Jump as the example for this, as you can jump while standing still or jump while running. Another Versatile Verb is Megaman's pellet shooting and charge shot, which are two forms of the same move that give the player the choice between a weaker attack that can be done quickly and a stronger attack that takes longer to do, making the player decide if the reward of a stronger attack is worth the risk of leaving yourself open for longer. Things like this require the player to be good at the game, and know what to do when. After seven minutes, Mark had gotten across that pressing different buttons together does different things, and more combinations have been added in newer games. Mark described a big part of Secret of Mario's Jump equation as the fact that the jump is “fun, satisfying, and expressive,” and that it does all that with “tiny handful of buttons,” and noted that adding more than one function to one button stops you from needing lots of buttons on your controller. Mark ended the video without answering the question of what is the Secret of Mario's Jump, saying to consider this video a Part 1 (which is not in the title). There is still no Part 2. Rags was left absolutely furious by the fact that after all this time he was not told the Secret of Mario's Jump.
How the Cuphead Bosses Do Things[]
MauLer and Rags assembled ChaseFace, MarkAfterDark, and Moriarty together to take another look at Mark's channel in EFAP 90, this time listening to his video "How Cuphead's Bosses (Try to) Kill You", where he describes how the bosses in Cuphead operate. Mark described how the boss' attacks make the player move around, dash, parry, and jump to avoid them, rather than stand still. The attacks move differently to make the player move in different way, with some going straight and others arcing, boomeranging, zig-zagging, splitting apart, spinning, moving in waves, or following the player, making them harder to dodge, especially if the projectile is hard to see. He explains how the player can predict the attacks because the bosses follow a set path and have animations for attacking, but sometimes the attack types are random, which makes them less predictable than ones that are not random. Of course, before you see them attack you don't know what their attacks are, so you have to learn, and you might die before you learn. You might even have to dodge multiple projectiles all at once! Bosses also change their attacks as time goes on, that way the game can be longer without having them do the same attack the whole time, and making the attacks change makes them more unpredictable. The game is ultimately about not dying, and outlasting the enemy. He also noted that aside from jumping and shooting, all the movements are optional.
On Moving[]
"So here, I've identified. Six. Different. Elements."
MauLer and Rags reassembled the team from EFAP 90, in addition to Jay from the Versatile Verbs stream, to take another look at Mark's insights into how video games do things, specifically "How to Turn Movement into a Game Mechanic". Rags' traumatic experience from before was trudged up by Mark bringing up Mario's Jump again as he described how you can chain moves together. He confirmed that you can indeed do various things in different games without going into how those mechanics are done properly or poorly, then moved on to lesson 2, to which Rags responded he hadn't even realized that was lesson 1. Rags used the example Mark gave of jumping onto a pole to slide on it to point out that the actual action being performed is just a jump since the game handles the slide part automatically, and the important part is the tactics of knowing when to slide on a pole and when not to, but Mark doesn't go into that. The third point was timing, which was pointed out is really just an aspect of chaining, and the fourth was conserving momentum, for which Mark used games where momentum can be regained fairly easily if lost as examples. He then made the astute observation that the grappling hook in Titanfall is similar to the one used by Link because they both hook to walls and retract.
And we're still not done! Mark states that grappling is about trajectory, and - bear with him for a second - defines the word trajectory, then shows a clip of Shovel Knight jumping and draws an arc over his jump, to which Moriarty said under his breath, "fuuuck you Mark." After listing the sixth element as playing with physics, Mark clarified that this is not an exhaustive list, after which Moriarty questioned why he puts up with these videos and cursed Mark's name.
Mark stated that these elements make gameplay fun, but why? The fact that he actually asked why surprised the cast, with Moriarty in particular saying that perhaps they had judged him too harshly, and Mark even finally went into the differences between the two grappling hooks mentioned earlier. The roster noted that Mark could have skipped the entire first half of this video and just let the information come through naturally while he was describing what makes these elements fun. After talking about things being fun when done well without saying what makes them done well, he finally said that these mechanics are a test of skill, which they had been hoping for from the beginning of the video. Moriarty absolutely lost it when he said that "timing, naturally, tests your timing," to which Rags pointed out the real thing that it tests is your pattern recognition and reflexes. Mark ended his video by summarizing his points for the third time and paying lip service to the phrase "easy to use, hard to master," which the roster said should have been the first ten seconds of the video, and the video should have been exploring how to strike that balance.
MauLer took away from this video that the appeal of Mark's channel seemed to be that someone who already intrinsically knows these things about games will nod along hearing them said out loud, and feel some Memberberries when a game they like is name-dropped. Chase compared it to the scene in American Psycho where Bateman is cheered on for simply saying he wants to promote women's rights and help the poor. Moriarty deemed this video worse than the Cuphead one as it managed to say even less, with Rags adding that it had more inaccuracies.
At Chase' request, MauLer then had the gang watch a video by Ahoy, who MauLer described as the Superman to Mark's Bizarro as the two both had similar pleasing narrations and editing but Ahoy had the added benefit of saying something of value, on the M1911's history in real life and in video games.
Possible Alternate Identities[]
"We've invented like multiple Mark Browns throughout the cinematic multiverse of Mark Browns"
- MarkAfterDark
On EFAP 128, MauLer, Rags, and JMarkMFace decoded various underlying subtextual messages scattered throughout the narration of Mark Brown's video, which may be the remnants of alternate personalities slipping through into Mark's main personality. These alternate identities may or may not actually exist, and if they do, Mark himself may not even be aware that they exist.
Mark the Ripper[]
"It puts the lotion on the skin... or else it discovers six different elements."
Serial Killer Mark Brown, also known as Mark the Ripper, is a serial killer who uses his Versatile Verbs to kidnap his victims and keeps them contained in basements and the bottoms of wells, where he repurposes his gaming insights in a more sinister context to torture his captives. He also teaches some of them to commit crimes so that they can carry on his twisted will. This would explain why his videos are so lacking in depth, because he is too busy murdering to redraft his scripts.
Pathetic Little Orphan[]
"Father did you notice that colors are nice?"
Mark may also be able to take the form of a Pathetic Little Orphan, who asks his (either adoptive or nonexistent) father basic observational questions that a child would find novel, to the annoyance of those around him. It was initially suggested that he may ask a question like, "Father have you ever noticed that colors aren't real?" but that was deemed to deep for Mark. Bias on EFAP's part may have played a role in assuming that Mark would take this form, on account of him being British.
Mark Brownlee[]
"Brown is a versatile verb."
- Rags
MarkAfterDark could not seem to help referring to Mark Brown as Mark Brownlee, suggesting that there may be a persona of Brown's who takes on characteristics of YouTuber Marques Brownlee, of YouTube Rewind fame.
MarkAfterDark's Son[]
"Father, have you noticed that a cup holds liquid and also other things?"
- MarkAfterDark, accidentally channeling Mark Brown
MarkAfterDark expressed intent to surround his son with the teachings of Mark Brown, starting with playing Game Maker's Tool Kit videos on subwoofer when he is conceived and continuing into his formative years. This would transfer all of Brown's thoughts into MarkAfterDark's son's body, making him the new incarnate of Mark Brown once he reaches peak intelligence at the age of twelve. MarkAfterDark may have actually channeled Mark Brown by envisioning this, as evidenced by him perfectly replicating Brown's way of speaking. MarkAfterDark later gave a Mark Brown-esque answer when asked what Versatile Verbs are. Whether or not this potential connection can be attributed to them both being named Mark is unknown.
Little Rapscallion[]
"I also enjoy video games. I sip my tea while enjoying such things. Do you understand my video? I assume not."
MauLer and ChaseFace began to detect the possibility of a Little Rapscallion persona, in which Mark acts like a more mischievous and condescending version of himself.
Identity Crisis[]
"I am Mark Brown"
Mark may enter a state of mind where he feels the need to reassure to himself the fact that he is who he is, looking at himself in the mirror and explaining to himself in the style of a Game Maker's Tool Kit video that he is Mark Brown, and sitting alone in his home with his cats wondering why he is doing what he is doing.
Involuntarily Celibate Mark[]
"I enjoy this new canon of Mark Brown being so incredibly lonely that he's just like a borderline fucking kidnapper."
- ChaseFace
One of Mark's possible identities may be that of an involuntary celibate, possibly operating under the name Buffalo Mark. He has an interest in hentai games where the goal is to grope women, and may be compelled to kidnap women to satiate his psychosis.
Trivia[1][]
- Wilford Brimley (ascended) was alive.
- Action-adventure games are now called “verb-adventure games”
- He might have gone to school with Jay's mum.
- His videos are thirty years too late
- His all videos is all ground work, he never goes further with his ideas
- Some people defended his dotted line video, but nobody defended his Mario's Jump video.
- Secret to Mario's Jump subverted peoples expectations.
- Rags hopes that the people giving Mark Brown 10k a month on Patreon are happy and satisfied with his work
- A button can also be pressed more than once
- Does not know what "intirncict", "caveat" or "quality" mean
- He might not know what the movement is, so he is asking his audience to tell him.
- He doesn't find a game immersive if it doesn't have the right amount of autism
- mauler and co had to be subjective against his pseudo-objectivity
- If he sees one UI element in a game, his immersion is ruined.
- He causes children to become outcasts by confusing their vidya knowledge.
- Rags is still mad at Mark for not sharing whats the secret to "mario's jump" is. He said he was going to shank Mark Brown if he didn’t reveal the secret. Mark didn’t.
- He is the possible originator of Tonald's style of video game essays, before Tonald evolved as a critic.
Quotes[]
“at least it would be cool to see few more optional missions in games that don’t show up in your map or your quest-log and let you take a moment to really soak the world in, to get around through observation and investigation and not blind subservience to that little dotted line”
"And we're still not done."
“Standing jump, for example, is no more complicated than to press A to do B, but in more recent games, like super Mario 3D World, the plumber jump is way more interesting. You can change the length, the height, angle and landing zone, you can transition in and out of different moves and spring off walls and bounce on koopa shells, far from Press A to do B, this one verb can lead to a massive number of different outcomes”
“Mario's jump is just one example of what I call “versatile verbs” (one action that can have multiple uses, depending on how you perform it), and these are a great starting point for action orientated games. because, as I hope to show you in this video, it means interesting gameplay full of tricky choices and player expression can be derived from the most fundamental interactions with the game. plus they often make the game more satisfying and reduce the number of buttons the game needs to have”
“What's the difference between pressing a button and holding it down? in some games, not much, in other like owl boy, you actually add a disadvantage if you hold the button because the heroes fire rate is slower than if you hammer the button in rapid succession. there is no chose to make”
“Here’s a different way of looking at holding a button”
“The thrill of letting go of the button”
“Motorstorm, which is a bit like the cooked grenade of racing games”
"it takes one of those super basic press A to do B type verbs and gives it this satisfying tactical bite”
"Verbs can take on whole new meanings, when you combine them"
"that’s an example of using one verb directly after another, withing a specific timing window, to transition into entirely new move, its a lot like the previous example, but this time with two different buttons"
“You can press the trigger to fire wildly in a general direction or you can hold down the aim button to fire with more accuracy, usually with the expense of player movement. it doesn’t work for every game, but hey, it’s a good example of how you can hold down one button to modify a another VERB "
"combining two buttons is one thing, combining a button with an analog stick or some other fine-grain input device opens up a whole new world of fun. Now, in any game about moving around a space, you are going to have a relationship between movement and many of the games key VERBS."
"But games can forge even deeper connections, which brings us back to this guy"
“That might sound complicated, but there are few things to note: one is that the moves feel like the natural outcome of the combined VERBS, so this isn’t an excuse to squish yet another action onto the controller by having it be the outcome of pressing two unrelated buttons. instead by thinking it in terms of combining VERBS instead of combining buttons, its easier to think about what would intrepidly rise from their combination. another thing is you almost never need to do any of these advanced moves to get to the end of a Mario game, they are just extra skills for pro players who want to express themselves or collect certain secrets or reduce their completion time” after say very basic and simple
“Thumb gymnastics of linking buttons in your favorite brawler”
"Boss' attacks are ultimately about making you move."
"Moving on to Titan Fall 2" just randomly ends and continuous to another subject
"But that's not all, sometime in multiplayer we get a grapple, which hooks onto a wall and then retracts, like Links hook-shot on fast forward. Combine that with a jump and you can slingshot your way across the map at super speed. And we are still not done"
"This one, I think, is about understanding trajectories"
"physics based characters are harder to navigate"
"When chaining moves your performing tiny quickfire piano melodies on your controller"
"Quickfire finger action on the controller"