I love it that you just used Super Mario to lure people into the world of Vim! I use Emacs but largely with evil-mode because I nearly destroyed my hands using the standard Emacs key-bindings on a model-m keyboard. Modal editing can do wonders for your RSI.

I was genuinely screaming at all the expert dodging and the unfortunate falls! Loved this idea so much, and I think Zelda would be another fun game to play since your movement will be completely different from a 2d side-scroller, gotta work out all different kinds of Vim movements!

vim adventures is one of the ways i got newbies to learn

Veronica: certified gamer

Nice playthrough, though I'd suggest moving your hand one key to the right, so the index finger is pressing J. That eliminates extensive usage of a pinky and lets other, stronger fingers do the hard work. Also it's closer to the classic arrow keys (index finger for left, middle for up, ring for right), and also your hand would stay in home position, which is jkl; for qwerty, so it's easier to return to movement keys after some typing. Happy vim-ing!

Great video Veronica!!! I gotta say I am on the same boat: I love Vim, but I never got around the "proper" movement keys. I'll give your methods a try! PS: For anyone else wondering, there's also "Vim Adventures" a short game with vim controls; however it's not nearly as fun as SMB

You should start with your index finger on the J key . This is the proper 'home row' position and before you build too much muscle memory you need to correct that. Moving left then becomes a left dart with your index finger. I love the idea of the training using the game but the hand position was freaking me a bit as a Vi/Vim user for decades. I love your content so please don't take this as a criticism, just a word of advice from and old guy who's been there. :)

I saw another website taking about getting better about vim and one of the things they brought up is that h and l shouldn't be a concern long-term as the more you improve on vim, the need to move left and right via those keys should be lessened significantly.

In the 1980s I played a bunch of Hack and Hunt which made using hjkl second nature. I still play Angband occasionally using hjkl and use vim daily! I had way more fun than I care to admit watching this video! 🙂 Thanks, Veronica!

Wow, I’m actually really impressed at those plays.

AmigaForever at 4:10 thank you for your lovely Easter eggs.

Very nice. I've not even beat SMB without using either an actual NES console and controller, a NES controller with USB adapter, or a USB NES-style controller. When I do something like MAME, USB arcade controller panel, or Atari 2600 a 2600-style joystick. As someone who has dabbled in programming and long loved video games (and coincidentally [jk algorithmically but still serendipitously nonetheless) I found your channel. Now I want to go right to vim and fire up SMB myself haha. I caught your video on Commodore 64 connecting to the BBS that I really enjoyed seeing it come alive again. While I did not have that model growing up, I did have a Tandy Color Computer (CoCo), also branded as Radio Shack's Color TRS-80, which ran on Microsoft Color BASIC by default. Unfortunately, while I no longer have that computer which was a lot of fun, I have used emulation in recent years and now I want to try to get the CoCo emulator to connect to a BBS. BBS > 2023 internet! 😁

A lovely video, yet again. Keep up the good work :) Love how used Vim for controls, and Vim is just the best editor for me on Linux.

Surely, the only vimcam in cyberspace. Of all the cams to be found online, this is my fave

Love the content, bought a "Track-ball person" hoodie for a co-worker because that's awesome. Please keep it up!

Beating Mario in VIM mode...BEST EDUTAINMENT EVER! lol awesome presentation.

Awesome video! This looks like a fun challenge, I’ll have to try it out!

"Minnesota Mom sounds" had me cracking up. I've seen some people recommend Nethack for learning vi/vim movement keys, but my first and favorite Rogue-like was Epyx's Rogue port for DOS so I got used to numpad movement. Anywho (I need to get my "anywho" fix in), it would be fun to see you do turn based game like Dragon Warrior, or Final Fantasy. Or maybe a hybrid adventure game/shooter like The Guardian Legend.

Nice video Veronica. It brings back memories when I played on the keyboard of my ZX Spectrum (no other choice at the time) with the "Q W E R T" keys. The principle was the same and we had a great time. Thank you for these retro memories...

Veronica's like a cool tech godmother I never knew I needed.

Hi Veronica, I am a new subscriber and just happen to be a novice Linux user learning Vim and also a gamer. This has to be one of the best ways to learn Vim's control scheme. There are so many games like this to rebind the keys in and I would have never thought of doing this myself.

today I learned that the very first time I beat Resident Evil 4 on a gamecube emulator, I did it with VIM controls (just bound the home row keys to the various buttons and thumbstick directions)

Another excellent video. That was a fun watch. Thank you.

excelent video!!! really liked the format including the highlights at the end! I would like to listen to your music instead of mario's, that would be great! thanks for the excelent videos!

It was fun watching you get more engrossed in the game as time went on. My favourite games are turn based roguelikes such as Brogue and the zombie survival classic Cataclysm - Dark Days Ahead. I think you can get used to most keyboard commands with a few hours of practice. The thing with turn based games is there is no hurry and you can take time to decide to do what you want to do.

13:09 i legit thought she was gonna get flagpole glitch with vim controls for a second there

Entertaining video Veronica. I use VIM but on my Mac and there is even a VI type editor that come with Watcom C that I have used for FreeDOS development. On a side note, back at a previous job we had a trainer come in to teach a Solaris class, we used VI to edit files. But a friend of mine, who took the class, didn't want to mess with VI so he copied the text and pasted it in to notepad to edit and then pasted it back into VI.

That was awesome… When I learned HJKL, I was told that J is to jump down a line, and K was for klimb [sp] up a line, with the H and L just to the left and right.

Looking back, the way I learned vim controls was with rogue-like games such as nethack

This was a lot of fun and I'd love to see more stuff like this. I think I'll give it a try too :)

Swimming in vim is very strange く⁠コ⁠:⁠彡

Is Veronica a Cobol dev? That's more impressive, for sure :O I won't image a person like Veronica as a Cobol Dev, that's impressive. Veronica rules!

Wonderful video! A few years ago I challenged myself to work on the hjkl controls. It took some time, but feel pretty comfortable with it. I have made the mistake using Vim controls in Windoze Notepad. I guess it's like dreaming in a foreign language.

Super Mario Bros. is one of my favorite classic Nintendo games!

VIM users: I'm trying to learn the original keybindings in mario. Emacs users: I'm playing within emacs flight simulator while emulating windows 10 through lisp.

Well that was another awesome video. Keep it up!

I have officially declared this video as the one I watch with my nachos

Hey, Mario now got a new quest: become a test subject for Aperture Science! Play mari0 then. In case you don't know it... it's Mario with portals and some typical Aperture puzzles - lots of fun!

This is very funny, because just today i was trying Super Bomberman 3 with vim controls, but i used a two hand setup. It felt actually very natural, but a little weird. Very nice video :)

As a daily vim user, who is also a dvorak user, I sometimes forget that hjkl is meant to be right hand home row navigation

Peak Veronica Edutainment! Please do DK next!

Super Mario Bros. was the first game I ever speed run. Long before I even knew speedrunning was a thing. Super Mario Bros. is always something that gives me a special nostalgic feeling. This is an awesome way to teach yourself how to be more efficient, I'm going to have to try this myself.

Awesome!!! :) this must be some sort of new record =)

Your reactions are really the reactions of anyone trying vim. If you substitute "Mario" for "typing", "physics" for "computer" and "music" for "mouse" this is really funny. "I'm usually quite good at typing... it's just weird without the mouse... it just feels wrong... I'm not setting any speed records today... this is normally how I type... ooohh not that fast I'm having regrets... it's definitely harder, it's strange... up, up, delete, there we go, I'm pretty fast at deleting usually, there we go, pheew done it... I'm getting better with the spacebar... nooooo!!! this is gonna cost me!!! ok 3 more lines, I'm gonna do it, oooohhhh... this is so weird... it's like the whole computer went weird... can I exit vim? can I do it??... NOOOOO!!! I have to be super careful to save this, I'm gonna need it!! Godamn... there we go... I don't like typing in vim, typing in vim is very strange... ok, come on come on, can I exit? I just exited vim!!!" 😂 "now you might be wondering, why would anyone actually wanna type in vim?" 😂

I found the DUCK HUNT cropping amusing.

You and I are probably about the same age; I grew up on Super Mario Bros. I've seen many attempts to beat it in interesting ways, but never with Vim controls. Nice job!

Action Retro brought me here and I wasn't disappointed. Thanks for your Content

Since we normally type with hands resting on the home row and index fingers on F and j, I don't have my 4 fingers on my right hand on hjkl to move around but you do. Do you normally do this or press h and j with index?

Holy moly! At every jump over a pit I was on edge :D Well done! :)

Hello, I just discovered your channel and I love the content, greetings from Mexico City :)

This was such a fun video! Would be super fun to see how a vim/vim-esque control scheme would translate to modern games lol

It make me think to Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy. A good way to become ambidextrous when using the non-dominant hand.

Nice gameplay Veronica 😁✌️

12:30 40th anniversary version needs random purple Minnesotas flying at you (RPM's?). Also, TIL the term "warp pipes".

I got pretty comfortable with hjkl from playing roguelikes on a laptop keyboard, particularly Caves of Qud and Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

Celeste in Vim sounds like fun to try more complex keybinds (and you don't have to cut the music to show off)

People from Minnesota have such good diction.

Next video; trying to beat (exit) Vim with Mario controls ;p

Great Mario Video Veronica 🙂

I played the NES on the computer in the late 90s at school back when emulation was just starting out. I would use the keyboard to play Super Mario Bros but never in VIM mode.

Indeed the Vi movement keys are on the home row, but they are one step left from the home position. I touch type, and refuse to move my hand to an unnatural position. In addition to that, *ed* is the standard editor!

The NES got beaten too xD ! I love your channel by the way soooo much

Very nice video!

Haha I already use vim controls for Supertux :P

Fighting games, especially those with combos, sounds next to impossible in vim keybindings... :o

A lot of my IT friends switched to vim, because keeping your hand on hjkl hurt their hands less than constantly switching to arrow keys. :) Also You can get shorter keyboards wihich support that kind of positioning and allow for easier mouse grabbing when You do need it. I've found using hjkl very awkward on large keyboards with keypads :)

This is actually a brilliant idea, I want to go do this but with Balloon Fight on the NES

Neat idea! Idea for the next game: You should consider a top down game, like zelda. Navigating a character in a 2d top down perspective could be an interesting analog for the cursor in vim. Another idea: I won't be surprised if there are some games written in vimscript using the HJKL scheme for movement, checking them out could be an interesting video.

Thank You ! , I am glad that i am following you🥰

I've been a vi user so long ('89? earlier?) that I had no conscious memory of what these keys do. I had to pop up vim and move around while watching my hand to see which keys I was hitting. I found that instead of 'l', I'll often just use the space bar to move forward a character.

Time to try Mario with the right hand and Zelda with the left at the same time.

Hello Veronica. First of all congratulations for your channel. I really love watching these videos, maybe because my first printer was a dot matrix one. Not only for this reason, I'm sure. Now, you use a model M. Do you miss the Super key? Do you have a work around? Thank you. All the best. Sérgio from Portugal.

I've got QMK firmware on my keyboard, and you'd better believe I've got a layer with the arrows mapped to hjkl to use vi navigation for everything.

I've been playing this game since I was in diapers and I'm only now discovering where some of these hidden 1ups are lmao

this is so cool!

Every word of this video carries immense importance.

WHAAAAT! Never thought about this. As a vi user since my old Dec Alpha days, this is probably the coolest thing I've seen using vi controls :D. Great video

Its hard to believe how old the game is now.

emacs controls challenge: f for right, b for left, u for run, etc

I am constantly learning that unix/linux things are the way they are only because of the inventor's arbitrary setups

My suggestion would be the Nintendo Gameboy game called "Kirby's pinball".

This is fabulous! At first I thought it was sort of VIM macro hack that plays Mario with ASCII graphics or something...lol...Just like the macros included with the VIM distro (Towers of Hanoi, Life, etc). This video is way cooler than that :). I've been using VI (and clones) since the Earth cooled, so I'd right at home playing Mario with VIM keys -- Imagine trying with Emacs keys?...lol. Oddly enough, whenever I do my own custom key mappings in games, I would always use the (now common "WASD" keys). What did you use to download the ROM from the original cartridge? I have a ton of NES games, but I'm not sure my console is still viable.

i never really learned how to type the "proper way" by keeping your hands at the home row so i continue to use the arrow keys. but something i never understood is, if the right hand's home row is "jkl;", why hjkl?

This was fun! I'll admit, when you asked what game you should play next one that came to mind was Silver Surfer 😅 but I wouldn't wish that on anyone even with the normal NES controller. Maybe the original Legend of Zelda would be a better choice. 😃

Despite saying that you’re not a speed runner, it’s entirely possible that you hold the world record for a full playthrough of SMB using VIM controls!

Well done!

HJKL goes right out the window if you're a long-time DVORAK typer, like I am. I use QWERTY these days. I blame the iPad for that. Yes, it's weird without the music. I used to pride myself on my ability to easily adapt to any keyboard or controller layout that was presented to me. I feel that decreasing as I get older.... losing me some brain plasticity along with the higher sound frequencies! If you ever DO want to use a keyboard on your real NES, let me know. I've managed to interface USB HID devices to an NES using a Teensy, a level converter, and a shift register (I needed to use the shift register because of IRQ priority issues, long story). Though, if you're just using a PS/2 or AT keyboard you might be able to use something less beefy than a Teensy. Fun fact: I get anxiety when watching people play super mario bros 1. Not any other game. It's always related to jumping, and I think it's something I've had since childhood. Watching multiple world record SMB speedrunner Kosmic used to not give me anxiety, until he started running rom hacks, and now he does, too. Fun fact #2: I didn't beat super mario bros legitimately until last year. Good job!

Amazing Veronica🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Absolutely loved this experiment! Would you like to try Sonic 3 with Vim controls?

This was legit a nail biter. Also super eerie seeing Mario without the music.

What a fun video!

Woah, I've never used Vim with Qwerty ... It'd never occurred to me that HJKL are nearby one another on that layout ... Mind blown.

Love your videos especially as a fellow Linux user. 22:22 Is this a remake of the classic After Dark flying toasters screensaver? I can still remember when I first saw it on a Win 3.1 system in the early 90s.

That was genuinely fun watching you have fun! ʘ⁠‿⁠ʘ

20:40 KVM / xHYVE are both virtualizations; in which can benefit from running the emulator qemu...

You are insane. I love it.

Hey V, I’m a pretty savvy computer user (Windows mostly) who has always wondered, “why Linux?” Your channel is clearly geared toward Linux users but I find it an intriguing glimpse into that culture. I’d love to see a video that makes the case for Linux for people on the fence like me

NES Marble Madness in Vim mode.

Everybody knows "K" is best key btw it also goes "Up"

Play Robotron 2084 in Vim Mode. You'll get real good real fast!