Platformer games: What do you love and why?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by wearepinata, Feb 20, 2013.

  1. wearepinata

    wearepinata Well-Known Member

    Apr 25, 2012
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    iOS Game development
    Adelaide
    Hey gaming community,
    We are just about to get underway with our next title and have decided to make a platformer. The reason we chose this genre is because we love old school platformers like Donkey Kong Country, Snow Bros, Mario Bros, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Megaman, Wonderboy and we feel that there is still so much that can be done with this genre. We feel that our next game will be geared more toward the gamer community (as opposed to casual gamers) so we thought we'd do some research and ask your opinion.

    Ideally we'd like to stimulate some discussion in this thread about what people feel makes a good platformer. So maybe the best way to go about this is to ask what your favourite platformer of all time is and what you like so much about it.

    We'll go first: For us, it has to be Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES). The main things we loved was the responsiveness of the controls and variation in gameplay. Having the spider, rhino and bird who all had different abilities was awesome and helped add variation to the platform formula. Also the addition of barrel shooting levels was almost like having a mini game inside the game itself. Then there was lava balloon level, the semi-submerged, levels... we could go on forever, but won't :)

    So what do you like about your favourite platformer? Do you like levelling up characters with attributes via xp? Or would you rather upgrade weapons as you play? Do you like incremental on-screen power-ups? Or do you like having the ability to earn currency and buy power-ups? Do you prefer button mashing or finesse? Do you like combos? Retro graphics? Particle effects? Double jumps (oh yeah!)?

    Let us know what you love and why. Feel free to post links to gameplay videos, etc :)

    PS: Earthworm Jim 2 (SNES) came ever so close as our favourite platformer. And Dale and Peakot deserves an honourable mention as well (http://www.miniclip.com/games/dale-and-peakot/en/)
     
  2. Lost_Deputy

    Lost_Deputy Well-Known Member

    Jan 27, 2013
    1,773
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    Venue Manager
    Sydney
    The original Donkey Kong Country is my fav 2d platformer while Jak and Daxter 2 is my fav 3d platformer.
    HMs would have to include Limbo, Braid, Mario (all of them) and Super Meat Boy. Repping ios for me is League of Evil 2. It's all class
     

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