How I Used Motor-Planning to Beat a Difficult Game

By: Cat Vrana, PRC-Saltillo Blogger

Hollow Knight is a game made in 2017 by Team Cherry. You play as a cute little bug with horns. Equipped with nothing but an old nail to use as a sword, you explore the underground expanses of Hallownest, gaining abilities, discovering treasures, and fighting other bugs in boss battles.

My sister gave me Hollow Knight as a Christmas present a few years ago, remarking on the beautiful design and soundtrack. She also noted the level of difficulty. Hollow Knight would not be an easy game. If my google searching is correct, only about 4% of players have beaten the final boss.

So how did I, admittedly clumsy person with not-the-best motor skills and the reaction times of a sugar-crashed snail beat the game that requires extremely precise and fast movements?

Neuroplasticity, baby.

Hollow Knight, in its design, is built to be learned. There are two aspects to the game that display this thought-out and intentional design well.

Gaining Abilities: When the player starts the game, the only thing you can do is move, jump, and swing your nail. There are several abilities that are added during the span of the gameplay. You gain the ability to wall-jump, double-jump, dash, super-dash, and cast spells. All abilities are gained one at a time, and the game always forces you to learn how to use an ability right away. For example, you get the ability to dash in Greenpath, early in the game. Right after, you come across a place with a low ceiling, (so you can’t jump) and acid on the ground below (which you cannot touch.) You must dash across the acid to be able to progress.

Instead of bombarding players with a dozen different controls at once, you learn to master them one at a time. This results in every movement feeling very natural- I’m never looking at my Switch to see where a control is- I just know because the game took the time to introduce these new controls slowly.

Telegraphing and Control: The boss fights are probably the most difficult part of the game. There’s forum posts and YouTube videos explaining methods and tips for beating each boss. Hollow Knight has a 2D animated look to it- one cool thing about this is that most bosses telegraph their attacks- meaning they have a very very fast special animation that tells you what they’re about to do, right before they do it.

This also helps you learn the components of a fight. First time trying to fight Nightmare King Grimm? Good luck, buddy. But after the 10th, 50th, 100th time attempting the fight, you learn to watch for the bosses telegraphs and learn exactly what you need to do in response. Everything feels fair; everything feels like you’ll do better if you try again.

So, you’re probably asking, what does this have to do with AAC? Well, the same things that made it possible for me to beat a hard video game made it possible for me to use AAC.

I use LAMP. Like Hollow Knight, the user is made to learn a correct motor-plan to achieve their goal. (With AAC, this would be to say anything consistently.) I always have to hit “want” in the (3,3) location, then the base verb at (3,5) if I want to say “want.” I can’t just hit the first- I have to use that whole sequence to say what I want.

To me, the feedback Hollow Knight gives is the same kind of feedback that LAMP gives me. Every move the player makes in Hollow Knight makes a sound or has an animation; every button I press on my device beeps or says a word; I can press a sequence of buttons to say a word or sentence and it never changes- I can use that same button sequence to say the same sentence always. Everything I do has some sort of consequence that I can learn from. When I miss-hit on LAMP, I don’t get to say what I want. When I miss-hit in Hollow Knight, I die. (I’m just glad I don’t die from miss-hitting on my device.)