Flash Flash Revolution/Play Styles

Flash Flash Revolution isn't played in any standardized way; players are free to use whatever hands, hand positions and fingers they feel like, the combinations are quite limitless.

The biggest differences in style come from the player's keyboard layout, this forces them to find a comfortable play style that varies. For instance the use of an ergonomic keyboard greatly changes the way the center of the keyboard is laid out and thus a split hand player would probably play differently than someone with a rectangular flat keyboard.

Additionally, the arrow key shape makes a large difference. There are two types of arrow set ups: triangular (left, down, middle, and up above the down key) and cross (left, down, right, up, arrayed in a more polarized fashion like a Dpad).

Finger Combinations
Finger usage is mostly centered around the index and middle fingers, because they are relatively stronger and more dexterous. However, of course all fingers can be used, when playing in a single handed it is quite common to see the ring finger used as well.

The index-middle, thumb-index, and thumb-middle combinations are probably most prominent for two hand usage.

One Handed
There are three main one handed styles.

Two Fingers
With two fingers, you'll be all over the arrow keys (or whatever keys you want) since you'll have to move your hand to adjust for the key locations.

Three Fingers
Three fingers allows you to keep two fingers static and attached to a certain key, whereas the middle finger of the three will be assigned to hit the up and down keys. Combinations get a little complicated, especially when the middle finger has to switch quickly.

Four Fingers
Four fingers is a less common way of playing one-handed. It involves the thumb along with the three-fingered one-handed set-up. The thumb is placed on the down arrow, and the middle finger on the up arrow, so that the four fingers each correspond to one arrow.

Two Handed
Two handed is just that, the use of two hands. Players using two hands are always better than one handed players because their speed is significantly increased with the ability to coordinate button presses.

Index Style
A fairly common two-handed style, the index style involves using the index fingers on both hands to hit all of the arrows. The two index fingers are chosen for their dexterity and strength.

Dpad Style
The Dpad play style can range from usage of the arrow keys to the numpad to the keyboard and even a hybrid split hand style however the Dpad style is mostly identifiable when the hands are close together.

There are a few ways to play this way on the arrow keys, depending on your set up and how it feels for you (finger length can be a factor). The first way, most common is to have each hand have two keys on each side, so left and up for the left hand and right and down for the right (up and down can be exchanged for each hand). The other way is to place the first hand on two keys, so for example the left hand on left and down keys, and then place the right hand above the last, on the right and up keys.

Much of the time the keyboard must be tilted slightly to become more ergonomic (naturally curve with your wrists and other joints so they don't experience stress or pain).

Split Style
There are two types of split hand play styles, the first is a horizontal split where each hand gets two keys on the main area of the keyboard, for instance, D and F for the left hand, J and K for the right. For FFR, this play style requires a remapping of keys for it to work.

The second type is simple a wide diagonal split, for instance the use of key combinations such as D and R, and M and K.

Possible types of split combinations (again fingers and keys can be substituted with others):
 * Keyboard Style
 * S: Left Middle, D: Left Index, J: Right Index, K: Right Middle


 * V Style
 * G: Left Middle, B: Left Index, M: Right Index, and K: Right Middle.

Key compatibility
For the most part, you can choose four keys to play with and not have any serious problems with response. Although before you choose a set of four keys (if you feel they are an uncommon set such as W E N M), you should open up notepad and try to press all four of the keys at the same time. If your keyboard does not allow you to hit all four keys at a time (usually responds by none or only one letter in notepad along with a beeping sound if the keys are held), you will not be able to correctly hit quads or sometimes even hands correctly when playing the game. If this happens you should immediately consider altering your key setup so that you can press all four keys and the computer respond to it properly.

Here are a few keyboard do's and dont's for FFR (generally all keyboards will react the same with these key setups).

A S K L A S D F Q W O P Y U I O Left Down Up Right (Newer keyboards / computers, usually XP or later respond well to these keys)
 * DO:

F G H J C V B N E R Y U
 * DON'T: