From Masher to Master 2: The Beginner's Guide to Becoming a Fighting Game Player

If you've ever felt like you were always on the outside of the fighting game community looking in, From Masher to Master 2 is for you.

This book is intended to serve as your companion through your own personal journey into fighting games. While there are many guides out there that can show you how to learn to play fighting games (including the original From Masher to Master), only this book will help you navigate the process of becoming a fighting game player. It turns out that learning to play these games is actually the easy part; the hard part is learning how to stick to them long enough to get good.

(No, you do not need to have read the first book to get the most out of this one. I highly recommend starting with this one first.)

From Masher to Master 2 takes you through a series of key fighting game firsts: your first time playing a game, first time picking a controller, learning a combo, playing a netplay match, entering a tournament, and so on. If there's one thing I've learned from my decades of experience teaching people to play fighting games, it's that the stuff would-be players often get caught up on are often a dozen small things that don't really matter – because they don't have the experience to understand that those things don't matter, nor do they have people around them to help give them that perspective. If you're fairly new to the process of learning a skill on your own, then this book will help you develop the tools and mindset to do so, and if you're already comfortable learning how to do things on your own, this book will help you apply your tools to learning fighting games.

I am Patrick "pattheflip" Miller, a longtime fighting game competitor, teacher, community organizer, and developer. I have played fighting games since Street Fighter II, competed in fighting games since Capcom vs. SNK 2 in 2001, worked on Rising Thunder and 2XKO since 2015, and witnessed the Daigo Parry in person. Teaching people how to play fighting games is my life's work, and I am excited to help you on your journey in the hopes that you can find something as important and beautiful in fighting games as I have.

From Masher to Master 2 is available on itch.io for a suggested donation of $19.99; if that's too much for you, pay whatever you can. You'll receive both PDF and EPUB versions of the book, formatted to work with your preferred e-reader. All profits from my work go to fund my local grassroots fighting game community projects, like REV2SDAY, Caliburst, RESSHOUMANIA, and the Clubhouse. And it's got a lot of great art by Irene Koh and a lovely foreword by Gerald Lee of Core-A Gaming.

I wish you luck on your journey, and I am honored to be a part of it.

Patrick Miller

@pattheflip