Forums » Everything else » jump: x or space

I've been working with impact for a while and out of habit have come to always bind jump actions to the X key.

A couple of friends I've given a prototype of an up and coming game to both suggested that SPACE makes for a better (or more expected) jump key.

I will oblige them and am now wondering... where does that X come from?

Not 100% sure but I suspect it was when the WASD keys became popular for games like QUAKE and players needed access to an action key as the right hand was normally busy with the mouse. Also if I remember correclty some games that used WASD used X to fire and SPACE to jump.But then maybe someone else has a better answer.

More importantly is not to use 'z'. Many games do that and here in germany they are not really playable, cause our z key is somewhere completely different.

To your issue: It depends on the other keys in use. With arrow keys and some other actions i favor x. But if you are using wasd, x is hard to press, space is better that way.

Thanks for the insight, guys.

I think I'll keep X for jumps, given that precision of jump timing and duration are important in the game.

hypothesis: SPACE feels too vague in such a context, i.e., a large key is less of a conceptual match for precision jumps than a smaller one.

I always prefer Space for the main non-walking action (usually jump, but in my current game it's Fire). It's just so reachable and it the player is going to press it frequently you want to give them an easy way to do that.

Great tip about the Z, Philip! I had my "item" button mapped to Z. Switching it to X.

Not sure if this is the origin but Z and X were the default keys for most major Gameboy Emulators since many many years ago.

don't forget the arrow up button for jumping , if it's free to use. It's redundant to space, but some players will intuitively press up when jumping.