Task 4 – Personal Enquiry: Draft 1 The Evolution of Platformers
Michael Ollerton
For my personal enquiry i am going to be looking into Platformers and how the have changes over the years. A Platformer, Platform game jumping puzzles or in later games freerunnning. is a game where the playable character completes stage/ levels by jumping from platforms, normally to your death if you fail. One of the earliest Platform game is Space Panic, an arcade game from 1980, in which the player removes sections from platforms so that the aliens will fall through. i think its important to note that this game didn't actually have any jumping but it still play in a vertically fashion, which is interesting as it people might disagree that it should be defined as a platformed, but it was definitely a huge influence to the genre.
Donkey Kong! 1981, Mario's first game, mario has to make his way to the top of a set of platforms while jumping over barrels thrown by donkey kong. This is one the first platformers and it really set the rules of games in this genre. I have played donkey kong and one of the reasons it was so successful was that the fundamentals it had created made it so that anyone could pick it up and play. One of the most important things i think you need in platformers is that its easy enough start but difficult to master. Following donkey kongs success lots of games came out with this style of single screen Platformers. Pitfall was one of the games that used platforming and swinging mechanics and was one of the first games to have the falling to your death mechanic.
Whats next? side scrolling! Alongs comes MarioBros 1983, One of the main issues with previous games in this genre is that they were limited to the boundaries of the screen. It makes sense that this was the logical next step for Platformers. Of course everyone knows the success of MarioBros, now the mascot of the genre. one of reasons side scrolling was important as it meant that you could begin to create faster pace. Sonic is a good example of a game where its much faster, using this speed mechanic and the addition of time trails means that a whole new competitive audience can now enjoy the genre.
Lets jump ahead to the decline of 2D, and the rise of 3D. The next stage for Platformers, was to start thing in a more 3D space, as the nintendo 64 came out along came many 3D Platformers. These games needed even more precision now to make jumps. The genre also move from the idea of completing stage to the idea of adventure and exploring. Uisng Platforming to find hidden parts of the game. Again a Mario game, Mario 64 was a big pioneer for this stage in its evolution.
Platformers became a lot more cinematic. the task of getting from A to B became the main focus of the game. it was the next development, lots of now games use the mechanic of platforming, to climb, hang, swing, shimming along edges and to dive, even ones that aren't exclusively Platformers. An example of this is lara croft, a ps1 platformer which uses all of these things. We can see that the evolution of platformers is a very logical one, using the advances in technology to push the genre.
Donkey Kong! 1981, Mario's first game, mario has to make his way to the top of a set of platforms while jumping over barrels thrown by donkey kong. This is one the first platformers and it really set the rules of games in this genre. I have played donkey kong and one of the reasons it was so successful was that the fundamentals it had created made it so that anyone could pick it up and play. One of the most important things i think you need in platformers is that its easy enough start but difficult to master. Following donkey kongs success lots of games came out with this style of single screen Platformers. Pitfall was one of the games that used platforming and swinging mechanics and was one of the first games to have the falling to your death mechanic.
Whats next? side scrolling! Alongs comes MarioBros 1983, One of the main issues with previous games in this genre is that they were limited to the boundaries of the screen. It makes sense that this was the logical next step for Platformers. Of course everyone knows the success of MarioBros, now the mascot of the genre. one of reasons side scrolling was important as it meant that you could begin to create faster pace. Sonic is a good example of a game where its much faster, using this speed mechanic and the addition of time trails means that a whole new competitive audience can now enjoy the genre.
Platformers became a lot more cinematic. the task of getting from A to B became the main focus of the game. it was the next development, lots of now games use the mechanic of platforming, to climb, hang, swing, shimming along edges and to dive, even ones that aren't exclusively Platformers. An example of this is lara croft, a ps1 platformer which uses all of these things. We can see that the evolution of platformers is a very logical one, using the advances in technology to push the genre.
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