In your opinion, what must a platform game have? Or what do the best platform games have in common?
Difficulty, good pacing, fun and functional mechanics and decent visuals. Rayman origins/legends is a good one and Donkey Kong County Returns and maybe Mario.
It’s all about the control system! If it’s a platformer, more than likely you have some character who is moving around, can likely jump, can likely collide with stuff, it must feel right, it must feel fun and responsive. If you get this wrong, your game will suck. Excellent platform games always feature brilliantly finetuned controls that let you be expressive in your interactions with the game world. Think Zool. Think Sonic. Think Mario. Think James Pond Robocod. And there is one element of the controls that if you do it wrong the whole game really sucks because most of the game depends on this one move - jumping. If your jump is too slow, too long, too short, too linear, doesn’t have the correct gravity, is too bouncy, doesn’t let you change direction instantly, has bad animation, etc… that sets the tone for the whole game in my opinion.
Some fun elements of platform games include secret rooms, lots of stuff to collect, environmental elements to avoid (lava pits, spikes, etc), interesting enemies, etc… but it really depends on what flavor of game you want it to be. A game like First Samurai/Second Samurai was sort of a slow moving character but he had more beatemup-style fight moves and a sword. While a game like Sonic has few enemies and lots of fast environmental fun. It depends what kind of platformer, but the ones I like most are typically the ones that nail the controls and make it fast, fun and responsive with good pixel graphics.
Low poly polygon-based environment? Goodbye.
3D? Almost always goodbye.
A lot of the fun will come from carefully placed platforms, level flow, challenges, secret places to access through your SKILL, moving platforms/teleportation, etc.
Platforms.
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OK on a serious note: just play Mario games. Seriously, even if the feel is not your favorite, they are the template. Miyamoto basically created and kept increasing the bar used to measure quality.
Play the games and try to look carefully at the tiny things. Responciveness.
How the character reacts to hitting a ceiling.
How he reacts hitting a wall, what happens if you let go of the controller while holding on to a wall.
The direction the character jumps when you jump off a wall if you don’t change the direction you holding the button.
How the character grabs on to ledges.
The actions required to either drop off a ledge or climb it.
How high you jump, how running momentum affects jumping speed and height, how multiple jumps make you jump higher, etcetera etcetera.
How the character decelerates if you let go of the controller while running.
How much can you actually change direction mid-air/jump.
These sound like simplistic things, but looking at the elements with focus at what is going on… you get to notice tiny things, you get to realize how much insane work went onto all those mechanics and more.
At the end of the day it’s the smoothness and responsiveness of these implementations that make a platformer great.
Just watch that Angry video game nerd guy video.
He will teach you how no to make platformers.
Lol, thanks for the replies guys.
I would definitively give a look to the Braid game.
This is IMO the best more innovative platform game I have ever seen since decades.
For me the real difference between the good platform games and the others is that the good ones get the difficulty ramp just right.
Lots of games go along just fine and then there’s an impossible jump which I spend hours trying to do and then I give up in frustration.
If the game is well designed then the difficulty ramps up so that by the time you get to the impossible jump you’ve already learned enough
to make it feel possible but not too easy.
3D platform games are much harder to get right than 2d ones - its much more difficult to judge distance in a 3D space on screen.
I would guess that the way to get the difficulty gradient right is lots of game testing.
I always liked the platformers that have some unique game mechanic that take it beyond just jumping/running. Bubble bobble’s bubbles for example or Bionic commando’s arms. As mentioned above, Braid’s additional game mechanics and clever puzzles took additional game mechanics to a new level. Or wonderful animation and swordfights in the origional Prince of Persia.
That said, as mentioned, before you work on any additional mechanics the main feel of jumping and moving has got to be nailed, without that you are dead in the water.
Maybe this is obvious too… but the big defining feature of almost all platform games is the main game hero… usually a body of some kind, most often humanoid, often cute or impressive, characterful, etc… usually most of the best animation goes into the main character. Most platform games I’ve ever seen, which is a tonne, basically tout the main character as the star of the performance, and the whole game revolves around them. They feature on the title screens. They implement all of the action and cool moves. They are the hero so you be better be sure to come up with a really good hero for your game and realize that the game’s main purpose is to provide an environment in which you can prove how amazing your hero is. Mario, sonic, turrican, james pond, jet set willy, prince of persia, aladdin, etc… it all revolves around the story of the character. This is actually one of the things that has put me off making a platform game, even though I love them, because I know it needs a really cool/attractive and well animated/well controlled game character to make the game, which can be a bit daunting if you are not a good artist.
I’m also in the process of making my own platformer and your advice is pure gold, thanks a lot to you all.
This is true for most commercial titles but “Thomas was alone” shows that its not essential.
Check You Have to Win the Game. Brilliant game.
http://www.piratehearts.com/blog/games/you-have-to-win-the-game/
(Win only).
Elements:
Short-Term Victory Condtion: Safely complete the level.
Long-Term Victory Condition: Complete the campaign.
Loss Condition: The player is killed.
1: Platforms. It’s called ‘platformer’ for a reason. These platforms don’t have to be detached from everything else.
2: As a corollary to #1, falls. Whether these falls place you somewhere worthless or kill the player depends on your design, but falling from a platform in a platformer is a bad thing.
3: Powerups. These are incentive for a player to place their survival on the line for an advantage down the line, or a way to restore themselves to a better state. This creates a meaningful short-term choice for the player.
4: As a corollary to #3, a reliable way of finding a powerup. Enemies or destroyed obstacles could reward the player, thus encouraging more risky behavior, but realible ways of finding powerups ensure that the player is rewarded for completing a series of challenges, and ensuring continued engagement.
5: Obstacles. These can take the form of enemies or environmental conditions that could cause the player to either take a fall, or kill them (again, whether or not the fall kills the player is immaterial.) Obstacles expedite the player’s exposure to the loss condition.
I threw together a platformer that uses a lot of pinball mechanics. Bumpers, group targets, bullseye targets, along with: spikes, shooting hazards, explosion hazards, teleporters, arrow bumpers that shoot you the direction it’s pointing, etc
I was going to add some platformer enemies that just go back and forth, a couple flying enemies, etc
You have to jump and bank off bumpers at the right angle to bounce into harder to reach targets or over obstacles/platforms so it gives a good mix of player skill and visuals, and you move through the level like a platformer rather than being fixed like a pinball game.
Things like the shooting arrow/fireball traps create urgency as you have to jump or run past them with good timing. Similar to the old mario bros with those shooting bullets, fireballs, and the rotating fire hazards.
I was considering doing puzzles with the teleporters, maybe on the last level.
There are lots of fun ideas to go with. Good luck