I think we need a Plank button, for those times when you need to sniper shot someone in the prone position whilst in midair. Think of the possibilities:

• Jumping into a tunnel completely ready to snipe
• Other examples

I thought crouch jumping was when you crouch first then jump so your jump is more explosive, thus gaining more height.

I've never played a game with the crouch jump you're describing but that sounds awkward.

I don't think it adds anything and the extra button press probably reduces accessibility.

In counter strike it's just a game mechanic, and if you can't do it there are certain positions you can't get into, or you'd have to go a longer way round. Past a certain rank pretty much everyone can do it reliably but it's definitely a barrier for new players

Depth to movement mechanics is one of the differences between mediocre and great first person games. Look at counter strike movement over the years. Players have extracted everything from the quirks of that engine, the game is better for it, and the skill ceiling for movement alone is enormous. That skill ceiling is important. Crouch jumps in particular have been in pretty much every game i can think of since i learned halo on the og xbox. even if they aren't explicitly used by the game designers, there is often tricks you can do to exploit campaigns in fun ways, or maneuver the multiplayer with a higher level of expertise than others. Thats fun. Competitive but fun.

Compared to games where every mechanic is dead simple and everyone can do it, its more just rock paper scissors at that point. The designer gave a specific movement ability, you counter it with some other ability they designed. Its boring to me.

It feels completely natural to me, but I think it is unintuitive, and games which feature it without explaining it are disadvantaging people with less gaming literacy.

It's similar to the mechanic in shooting games, where reloading while there is at least one bullet in the gun results in a faster reload (because the gun doesn't need to be cocked).

It's realistic, but I feel that it should be ignored, in the same way each bullet from the old mag magically transfers into a new mag.

Like all game mechanics, it can be implemented in a clumsy way, or as part of a rewarding movement system.

I think that skeuomorphism in games is a decent accessibility feature for people just getting into games, but also video games have been a cultural staple for decades, so it's not really that necessary that games mimic real movement anymore.

I don't have a good crouch-jump example, but games like Quake have taken jump movement tech to a crazy level, originally intended or not.

https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=XhzK5fL1mj0

It's something I'm glad it is not longer being used anymore and run+jump or long press jump or double jump are used instead. It was a pain to pull the move on a keyboard, at least for me.

I love it and I notice when it’s absent. The coolest thing about games as an art medium is player choice and the potential to “break the game”. Playing in a way the developer didn’t intend is probably consistently the most fun I have in games, and advanced movement tech like crouch jumps almost always creates unintentional whackiness.

one of the main reasons i hated half life, along with slow as fuck intro and slippery platforming. super unnecessary and awkward.

I always saw it as a quirk of the way the game is programmed (they didn't bother disabling crouching while mid-air) that they just ended up somewhat legitimising by teaching it in the tutorial. AFAIK you only have to use this once or twice in the entire game, and don't recall it ever being useful when not forced (maybe except for climbing where you shouldn't to sequence break).

It's not part of the core gameplay. You learn in in the tutorial, forget about it, get stuck in the middle of the game, remember this is a thing, use it once and then forget about it again.

At least that's how I remember it. It's been a while since I played HL1.

When I was much younger and CoD4 was the latest, I thought I was rather good and so entered a competition.

Everyone was crouch jumping (we called it "bunny hops"), and I couldn't hit them at all. Left absolutely defeated lol!
I don't have an issue now, however every time someone does it today it's like I have flashbacks to that horrible defeat 😂

It's all a bit of fun though. If the mechanic exists in a game I can't be angry or hurt at someone taking advantage of it.

I've always hated it and thought it was a stupid untuitive mechanic that didn't map to anything in real life. It also looks equally stupid in multiplayer when you see player character models spasm their way up a ledge during a crouch jump. It's an old school mechanic that I am glad is going out of fashion due to better vault controls.

like a simulation of pulling your legs up in real life.

You don't pull your legs up in real life though, you use your hands to vault onto something. You can't just swap stances in mid air without holding onto anything. Even if you were talking about box jumps, like the kinds you normally do at a gym, it still isn't anything remotely like a crouch jump. Also anyone doing a box jump in an actual combat situation just looks goofy.

Any time a game explicitly has a tutorial for crouch jump, my immersion is completely broken. I am instantly reminded that it is a game.

Was it ever intentional or was it just a side effect of the Source engine?

I made an FPS that runs on 1980s hardware and you can get onto any surface you can see over. You just walk. Halo 4 or whatever introduced "mantling" and it was like, oh, why didn't everybody think of this? Its absence now highlights any game with unimpressive obstacles. Even the Half-Life machinema series Freeman's Mind highlights how Gordon should be able to chin-up over some ledges and skip whole chapters.

Another example specific to Half-Life: the PS2 version's long-jump module is a double jump. You just jump in midair and it fires off. No wonky crouch-then-jump command. Movement isn't any less deep or complex. It's just simplified to the point you can do it by pushing a button twice instead of playing piano.

It never bothered me in Source games, but I don't really care for it as a mechanic. Specifically in Half-Life, I don't like how it overlaps with long jumping either. (Jump then crouch to crouch jump, crouch then jump to long jump.)

But I wouldn't want it in other games because manteling is a superior mechanic. Mantelling is usually when you can hold down the jump key close to a ledge to grab it and pull yourself up, rather than jumping. In most games that have it, mantelling into a smaller space (a vent or pjpe) auto-crouches as you enter.

It allows for making longer jumps, exciting last moment saves, pulling yourself up into small spaces, simpler climbing mechanics, and more. It's just a better, more intuitive mechanic that replaces long jumps and crouch jumps and requires no extra key presses.

thats a thing? Now im wondering if some games I played expected me to do this?

Just like in halo 1/2 they never designed levels around crouch jumping but the ability was there expanding the overall gameplay in positive ways

Crouch jumping is a great mechanic but IMO it should only be used for hidden items or Easter eggs

I find myself accidentally using it