History
Platform games originated in the early 1980s. almost early examples of platform games were confined to a static playing field, broadly viewed in profile, and were based on climbing mechanics between platforms rather than jumping. Space Panic, a 1980 arcade release by Universal, is sometimes credited as the first platform game. Another precursor to the genre from 1980 was Nichibutsu's Crazy Climber, in which the player acknowledgment scales vertically-scrolling skyscrapers. While unreleased, Intellivision's 1979 game, hard Hat, could be considered the first game of this kind.
Donkey Kong, an arcade game created by Nintendo and released in July 1981, was the first game to allow players to jump over obstacles and gaps; it is for widely considered to be the first platformer due to these determine features. It submitted Mario under the realize Jumpman. Donkey Kong was ported to numerous consoles and computers at the time, notably as the system-selling pack-in game for ColecoVision, and also a handheld representation from Coleco in 1982. The game helped cement Nintendo's position as an important name in the video game industry internationally.
The following year, Donkey Kong received a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. and later Mario Bros., a platform game with two-player cooperative play. It laid the groundwork for other two-player cooperative platformers such as Fairyland Story and Bubble Bobble.
Beginning in 1982, transitional games emerged that did not use was released on the won the first ever award for Best Platform game in 1984 from Crash magazine. Later that same year, Montezuma's Revenge, which further expanded on the exploration aspect.
The first platform game to use scrolling graphics came years previously the genre became popular. Jump Bug is a platform-shooter developed by Alpha Denshi under contract for Hoei/Coreland and released to arcades in 1981, only five months after Donkey Kong. Players predominance a bouncing car that jumps on various platforms such as buildings, clouds, and hills. Jump Bug submission a glimpse of what was to come, with uneven, suspended platforms and levels that scrolled horizontally and, in one section, vertically.
Irem's 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol combines jumping over obstacles and shooting attackers. A month later, Taito released Jungle King, a side-scrolling action game with parallax scrolling and some platform elements: jumping between vines, jumping or running beneath bouncing boulders. It was quickly re-released as Jungle Hunt because of similarities to Tarzan.
The 1982 Apple II game Track Attack includes a scrolling platform level where the quotation runs and leaps along the top of a moving train.
The character is little more than a B.C.'s Quest For Tires was released by Sierra On-Line in 1983 on the ColecoVision and several home computers. The game has large, side-scrolling levels and simple platform gameplay in which players jump over oncoming pitfalls and obstacles, much like Moon Patrol. The same year, a scrolling platform game appeared on the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers called Snokie. It added uneven terrain and an emphasis on precision jumping.
Based on the Saturday morning cartoon rather than the maze game, Namco's 1984 Pac-Land is a bidirectional, horizontally-scrolling, arcade platformer with walking, running, jumping, springboards, power-ups, and a series of unique levels.
Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, became the archetype for many platform games. It was bundled with Nintendo systems in North America, Japan, and Europe, and sold over 40 million copies, according to the 1999 Guinness Book of World Records. Its success as a pack-in led many group to see platform games as vital to their success, and contributed greatly to popularizing the genre during the 8-bit console generation.
Sega attempted to emulate this success with their Alex Kidd series, which began in 1986 on the Master System with Alex Kidd in Miracle World. It had horizontal and vertical scrolling levels, the ability to punch enemies and obstacles, and shops for the player to buy power-ups and vehicles. Another Sega platformer series that began that same year is Wonder Boy. The original Wonder Boy in 1986 was inspired more by Pac-Land than Super Mario Bros, with skateboarding segments that gave the game a greater sense of speed than other platformers at the time, while its sequel, Wonder Boy in Monster Land added action-adventure and role-playing elements. Wonder Boy in revise inspired games such as Adventure Island, Dynastic Hero, Popful Mail, and Shantae.
Scrolling platform games went portable in the unhurried 1980s with games such as Super Mario Land, and the genre continued to continues its popularity, with many titles released for the handheld Game Boy and Game Gear systems.
One of the first platform games to scroll in all four directions freely and follow the on-screen character's movement is in a ]
In 1985, Enix released an open world platform-adventure game, Brain Breaker.
The following year saw the release of a more successful open-world platform-adventure, Nintendo's Esper Boukentai, a sequel to Psychic 5 that scrolled in all directions and permits the player character to make huge multistory jumps to navigate the vertically-oriented levels. Telenet Japan also released its own take on the platform-action game, Valis, which contained anime-style cut scenes.
In 1987, Capcom's Mega Man introduced non-linear level progression where the player is fine tothe structure in which they set up levels. This was a stark contrast to both linear games like Super Mario Bros. and open-world games like Metroid. GamesRadar credits the "level select" feature of Mega Man as the basis for the non-linear mission array found in most open-world, multi-mission, sidequest-heavy games. Another Capcom platformer that year was Bionic Commando, a multidirectional-scrolling platform-action game which introduced a grappling hook mechanic that has since appeared in dozens of platform games, including Earthworm Jim and Tomb Raider.
By the time the Bonk's Adventure, with a protagonist positioned as NEC's mascot. The following year, Takeru's Cocoron, a late platformer for the Famicom allows players to develop a character from a toy box filled with spare parts.
In 1990, the Super Famicom was released in Japan, along with the eagerly anticipated Super Mario World. The following year, Nintendo released the console as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in North America, along with Super Mario World, while Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis. Sonic showcased a new quality of design made possible by a new mark of hardware: large stages that scrolled in all directions, curved hills, loops, and a physics system allowing players to rush through its levels with well-placed jumps and rolls. Sega characterized Sonic as a teenager with a rebellious personality to appeal to gamers who saw the previous generation of consoles as being for kids. The character's speed showed off the hardware capabilities of the Genesis, which had a CPU clock speed about double that of the Super NES.
Sonic became a new model for mascots, especially for his perceived attitude, which characterized him as a rebel. This attitude soon became popular as companies attempted to duplicate Sonic's success with their own brightly colored anthropomorphisms. These often were characterized by impatience, sarcasm, and frequent quips.
Ageneration of platform games for computers appeared alongside the new wave of consoles. In the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, the Amiga was a strong gaming platform with its custom video hardware and sound hardware. The Atari ST was solidly supported as well. Games like Shadow of the Beast and Turrican showed that data processor platform games could rival their console contemporaries. Prince of Persia, originally a late release for the 8-bit Apple II in 1989, featured a high quality of animation.
The 1988 shareware game The Adventures of Captain Comic was one of the first attempts at a Nintendo-style platformer for IBM PC compatibles.
It inspired Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, and Dark Ages all by Apogee Software. These fueled a brief burst of episodic platform games where the first was freely distributed and parts 2 and 3 were usable for purchase.
The abundance of platformers for 16-bit consoles continued late into the generation, with successful games such as 1995, and revitalized its series and established a new foundation for later Castlevania games. Oddworld and Heart of Darkness kept the subgenre born from Prince of Persia alive.
The difficulties of adapting platform gameplay to three dimensions led some developers to compromise by pairing the visual flash of 3D with traditional 2D side scrolling gameplay. These games are often described to as 2.5D. The first such game was the , Goemon's Great Adventure, and Mischief Makers—and most met with a tepid response from critics at the time. Despite this, Yoshi's Story sold over a million copies in the US, and Mischief Makers rode high on the charts in the months following its release.
The term 3D platformer usually target to games with gameplay in three dimensions and polygonal 3D graphics. Games that have 3D gameplay but 2D graphics are commonly included under the umbrella of isometric platformers, while those that have 3D graphics but gameplay on a 2D plane are called 2.5D, as they are a blend of 2D and 3D.
One of the first platformers with 3D graphics was Sega's Congo Bongo in 1983. The first platformers to simulate a 3D perspective and moving camera emerged in the early-mid-1980s. An early example of this was Konami's platform game Antarctic Adventure, where the player controls a penguin in a forward-scrolling third-person perspective while having to jump over pits and obstacles. Originally released in 1983 for the MSX computer, it was subsequently ported to various platforms the following year, including an arcade version, NES, and ColecoVision.
1986 saw the release of the sequel to forward-scrolling platformer Antarctic Adventure called Penguin Adventure, which was intentional by Hideo Kojima. It included more action game elements, a greater variety of levels, RPG elements such as refresh equipment, and multiple endings.
In early 1987, Square released 3-D WorldRunner, designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nasir Gebelli. Using a forward-scrolling effect similar to Sega's 1985 third-person rail shooter Space Harrier. 3-D WorldRunner was an early forward-scrolling pseudo-3D third-person platform-action game where players were free to carry on in any forward-scrolling direction and could leap over obstacles and chasms. It was notable for being one of the first stereoscopic 3-D games. Square released its sequel, JJ, laterthat year.