Gaming Grammatically

Unwinnable - I’m playing Sonic the Hedgehog on my cousin’s Sega Master System. I’m probably about five years old. It’s the earliest memory of playing a videogame that I have. My cousin is teaching me how to jump over what my brothers and I for many years to come would call “cracks” (those gaps in every platformer ever, the ones usually lined with spikes at the bottom). I know how to jump, and I know how to move Sonic forward, but I am struggling to combine the two. I stand on the edge of the crack (marveling at the way Sonic would balance on his tippy-toes); I press jump, and then I hold the directional pad. Sonic goes straight up, then diagonally down into the crack. Dead.