How do you hold/grip your joystick?

[themachinist]

That's what she said. Now that that's out of the way...

I may have seen a topic like this before but the search isn't very useful (always coming up with a billion results) and I'm curious so here it is.

I've seen this one way which was interesting, like an underhand grip as seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5wB83IHHoY

I use a hori so it has the ball top, and I sort of hold it between my index finger and thumb, with the index finger slightly curled around it. My pinky rests on the surface to the left like an anchor/support while my ring and middle sort of float in the air.

What about all y'all

[PC Engine Fan X!]

On a real Bally Midway produced Ms. Pac-Man upright cabinet, I used to grip the 4-way digital ball-topped joystick too tightly...that would lead to blisters, of course. The remedy to that particular problem would to wear some gloves or even a handy Band-Aid does the trick. The next time I played a serious game of Ms. Pac-Man, I remembered to bring a Band-Aid. It worked wonders for my blister proned section on my right hand. ^_~

But since Japanese arcade controls force such a "righty" person as myself to use my left hand to play with the Sanwa/Seimitsu arcade joystick and my right hand on the action buttons, the feeling is alright. Sometimes, I switch and use my right hand on the joystick and left hand on the push buttons for better method of control. I've seen some arcade gamers do this back in the early 1980's for some arcade game cabinets like Konami's Track and Field upright cab. ^_~

On many early 1980's arcade game cabinets, it was customary for arcade operators to place action buttons on both sides of the player(s) joysticks/trackballs setup so that both righties and lefties could be accomodated. You wouldn't want to lose such potential profit by not catering to just righties, would you?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[indstr]

There aren't arcades with shmups in North cackalacky so unfortunately I have not had the pleasure of ever playing one with a joystick and I'm not willing to make the investment in a nice one if I don't even know if I would like it.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

There aren't arcades with shmups in North cackalacky so unfortunately I have not had the pleasure of ever playing one with a joystick and I'm not willing to make the investment in a nice one if I don't even know if I would like it.

My suggestion is to try such endowed Sanwa or Seimitsu console joystick and then, you'd know if you like playing with that particular setup. That same type of setup is already found on a typical Japanese candy cab anyways. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[indstr]

a bunch of stuff about righties/lefties

I've always wondered what thought went into the original consideration of generally putting the movement control method on the left side of controllers. I.e. most joysticks, D-pads, etc... Given that 90% of the population is right handed, wouldn't most people prefer to control movement with their right hand? I always wonder if the original decision to put it on the left was planned out in order to force left brain dominant people to excercise the right part of their brain more. (because the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body and vice versa)
I wonder if that original decision has affected all of our intelligence (during our childhood development) in some positive way?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

a bunch of stuff about righties/lefties

I've always wondered what thought went into the original consideration of generally putting the movement control method on the left side of controllers. I.e. most joysticks, D-pads, etc... Given that 90% of the population is right handed, wouldn't most people prefer to control movement with their right hand? I always wonder if the original decision to put it on the left was planned out in order to force left brain dominant people to excercise the right part of their brain more. (because the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body and vice versa)
I wonder if that original decision has affected all of our intelligence (during our childhood development) in some positive way?

Well, if you backtrack to the early days of the Famicom and the NES era, you'd find out that the D-pads for those consoles had the D-pad on the left side and the action buttons on the right side. Or even consider that Nintendo had that same controller scheme with it's Game and Watch series of portable black & white LCD games which came out back in 1982-1984 starting with it's Donkey Kong dual LCD screen game handheld.

Even Nintendo's Play Choice 10 arcade cabinets had the joystick on the left side and the buttons A & B on the right side of it.

You might recall that the original Atari VCS (aka the 2600) console had included a pair of joystick and paddles controller that were made for righties. If you were a lefty when using them, you were fucked. Some 3rd-party video game console controller manufactures got smart and started making such controllers with fire buttons on both sides of the joystick (i.e. Wico, Pointmaster, etc.).

Even the classic vector-based Vectrex console has it's Control Panel controller with the analog/digital combo joystick on the left side and the four action buttons placed to the right of it. But it controls and feels just fine for right-handed gamers. I'd have to assume that the Vectrex designers had that particular control scheme in mind from the very beginning of intial concept. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[iatneH]

Here's one with pictures. And I am sure there is another in which I actually posted, but I also cannot find it.

So... how do I grip the stick? Depends on my mood
Most of the time like Helgen-X's photo in the linked thread.

[captpain]

Index finger kinda goes over the top

Thumb wraps around the right side of the ball

Middle finger is curled, tip joint/segment goes sort of under + along side the left side of the ball

Generally my wrist is rotated counter clockwise

[themachinist]

Here's one with pictures. And I am sure there is another in which I actually posted, but I also cannot find it.

So... how do I grip the stick? Depends on my mood
Most of the time like Helgen-X's photo in the linked thread.

Ah so there was already a thread, I thought so... I guess my style would be "pinch" from the other thread.
Controlling directions with my left hand seems natural to me just because, as PC-Engine mentioned, nintendo had that kind of control scheme on their gamepads d-pad left and action buttons right (I played original gameboy nonstop as a kid), and also FPS games using WASD.

indstr: As far as controllers go, I didn't play arcades much, even as a kid, so I was into gamepads since it was all I knew. Several months ago I got a broken hori, fixed it up with a new psx pcb and have been using that for the past month or two. I gotta say it feels real nice using a stick and I won't go back to pads (unless I have no choice on the particular system). I never was into the keyboard thing with shmups .
You should def give it a go (somehow).

[Specineff]

I can play with a joypad on my left. But I MUST cross my hands when the joystick is on the left.

[mufunyo]

Now that that's out of the way...

I hold my arcade stick between thumb and middle finger, down is pressed with my middle and ring fingers, up and left with my thumb, and right with the palm of my hand. I have a very light playing style, partly because I mainly play with JLFs, partly because it comes naturally with Tetris.

[themachinist]

Wow I can't believe that was an actual ad. Pretty funny.
That pic looks like the way I hold it.
I think I have a pretty light hold/grip too. I find that I can be more precise that way.
I was thinkin I'd mod my hori and put in a seimitsu ls-32 because the shorter throws or whatever but i've gotten pretty used to the stock stick so maybe not.

[rolins]

Here's one with pictures. And I am sure there is another in which I actually posted, but I also cannot find it.

So... how do I grip the stick? Depends on my mood
Most of the time like Helgen-X's photo in the linked thread.

Ever since I got my HRAP2, my grip changed. It's the same as theevilfunkster's photo in that thread.

[Never_Scurred]

I grip it, but on that other level.
I use a firm hand when playing shooters, but when it comes to fighters, I like to ease up and grasp the ball end of the stick(unless its MvC 2 then I use that cobra clutch)
It must be said that I hate ball top sticks, I really prefer the bat stick style, especially for fighters.

[MX7]

Is this advert from Viz, yeah? I have a few such lewd Sega ads sitting around my room that I really should get round to scanning one of these days

[mufunyo]

seimitsu ls-32 because the shorter throws or whatever

If you want lighter play, throw doesn't really matter a lot, you mainly want the shortest engage possible, and a light spring.

Here's how I hold it, by the way:


I don't really hold it at all. Just rest my hand around it basically.

[Elixir]

Normally I just rest my hand to the left of it. Sometimes I'll put the stick between my ring and pinky, it just depends on the situation. I'm always alternating positions though so it's a real hassle to stay with a particular style.

[Taylor]

I hold it upside down if I'm doing clockwise motions in a fighting game, but not for shmups.