We wanted the buttons to be a little bit mysterious, but we also wanted to have LEDs (different colors) that tell you if the button is on or off.
But essentially, each button controls a smattering of player & enemy stats, and makes them subject to the knob's corruptive influence. If we had more time, we could have fleshed-out the levels more, so you would have to, for instance, shrink Shroomguy to fit through a hallway, and live with any of the other stat consequence.