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99-650: Manic Miner is a platform game written for the ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith . It was published by Bug-Byte in 1983, then later the same year by Software Projects . The first game in the Miner Willy series, the design was inspired by Miner 2049er (1982) for the Atari 8-bit computers . Retro Gamer called Manic Miner one of the most influential platform games of all time, and it has been ported to numerous home computers, video game consoles, and mobile phones. In each of

198-454: A bug within the error-checking of recorded programs, often causing user-created programs to fail when loaded back in, this bug persist in the updated ROMs for the Oric Atmos. Available basic commands are CLOAD, CSAVE (for programs and memory dumps ), STORE, RECALL (for arrays of string, integer or real, added with Oric Atmos roms). Filenames up to 16 characters can be specified. Options on

297-599: A true 3D platformer is a French computer game called Alpha Waves , created by Christophe de Dinechin and published by Infogrames in 1990 for the Atari ST , Amiga , and IBM PC compatibles . Bug! , released in 1995 for the Saturn , has a more conservative approach. It allows players to move in all directions, but it does not allow movement along more than one axis at once; the player can move orthogonally but not diagonally. Its characters were pre-rendered sprites, much like

396-581: A "HIRES" (high resolution) mode with 200 rows of 240  pixels above three lines of text. Like the Spectrum, the Oric-1 suffers from attribute clash –albeit to a much lesser degree in HIRES mode, since 2 different colours can be defined for each 6x1 block of 6 pixels, The system has a built-in television RF modulator as well as RGB output. A standard audio tape recorder can be used for external storage. There

495-615: A 1.1 ROM/Atmos version of the software on one side of the cassette, with a 1.0 ROM/Oric-1 version on the other. Earlier titles from publishers that no longer existed or had stopped producing software for the Oric were unlikely to be updated. Although the Oric Atmos had not turned around Oric International's fortunes, in February 1985, they announced several models including the Oric Stratos/IQ164. Despite their backers putting them into receivership

594-473: A 16 KB ROM containing the operating system and a modified BASIC interpreter . The Oric-1 has a sound chip , the programmable General Instrument AY-3-8910 . Two graphics modes are handled by a semi-custom ASIC (HSC 10017 ULA ) which also manages the interface between the processor and memory. The two modes are a "LORES" (low resolution) text mode (though the character set can be redefined to produce graphics) with 28 rows of 40 characters and

693-448: A 1980 arcade release by Universal , is sometimes credited as the first platformer. Another precursor to the genre from 1980 was Nichibutsu 's Crazy Climber , in which the player character scales vertically scrolling skyscrapers. The unreleased 1979 Intellivision game Hard Hat has a similar concept. Donkey Kong , an arcade video game created by Nintendo and released in July 1981,

792-401: A 2D plane are called 2.5D , as they are a blend of 2D and 3D. 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 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

891-509: A 3D Sonic game, Sonic Adventure , for its Dreamcast console. It used a hub structure like Super Mario 64 , but its levels were more linear, fast-paced, and action-oriented. Oric computers Oric was a brand of home computers sold in the 1980s by Tangerine Computer Systems . Tangerine was based in the United Kingdom and sold their computers primarily in Europe . All computers in

990-462: A balance between open-ended and guided exploration. Another platform-adventure released that year, Pony Canyon 's Super Pitfall , was critically panned for its vagueness and weak game design. That same year Jaleco released Esper Boukentai , a sequel to Psychic 5 that scrolled in all directions and allowed the player character to make huge multistory jumps to navigate the vertically oriented levels. Telenet Japan also released its own take on

1089-481: A bouncing car that jumps on various platforms such as buildings, clouds, and hills. Jump Bug offered a glimpse of what was to come, with uneven, suspended platforms, levels that scroll horizontally (and in one section, vertically), and differently themed sections, such as a city, the interior of a large pyramid, and underwater. Irem's 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol combines jumping over obstacles and shooting attackers. A month later, Taito released Jungle King ,

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1188-525: A brief burst of episodic platformers where the first was freely distributed and parts 2 and 3 were available for purchase. The abundance of platformers for 16-bit consoles continued late into the generation, with successful games such as Vectorman (1995), Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995), and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995), but the release of new hardware caused players' attention to move away from 2D genres. The Saturn , PlayStation , and Nintendo 64 nevertheless featured

1287-504: A cat or mouse, watches the sun set behind the pond. Upon gaining his freedom, the game restarts from the first level with no increase in difficulty. The in-game music is In the Hall of the Mountain King from Edvard Grieg's music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt . The music that plays during the title screen is an arrangement of The Blue Danube . There are some differences between

1386-593: A completely different room called "The Meteor Shower". This has the "reflecting machines" from the Solar Power Generator, but there is no beam of light. Instead, it has meteors which descend from the top of the screen and disintegrate when they hit platforms, like the Skylabs in Skylab Landing Bay. It also has forcefields which turn on and off, and the layout is completely different. Also, the last screen (which

1485-449: A correctly positioned space bar . It has a full typewriter pitch . The key layout is a standard QWERTY with ESC , CTRL , RETURN and additional cursor control keys. All keys have auto repeat. The display adapter will drive a PAL UHF colour or black and white television receiver on approximately Channel 36. RGB output is also provided on a 5 pin DIN 41524 socket. In character mode

1584-450: 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 move 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 , later that year. The earliest example of

1683-605: 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 Commander Keen , released by id Software in 1990, which became the first MS-DOS platformer with smooth scrolling graphics. Keen's success resulted in numerous console-styled platformers for MS-DOS compatible operating systems, including Duke Nukem , Duke Nukem II , Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure , and Dark Ages all by Apogee Software . These fueled

1782-623: A number of successful 2D platformers. The 2D Rayman was a big success on 32-bit consoles. Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4 helped revitalize interest in Capcom 's Mega Man character . Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 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 platformer gameplay to three dimensions led some developers to compromise by pairing

1881-441: A quarter and a third of all console games. By 2006, the genre had experienced a decline in sales, representing a 2% market share as compared to 15% in 1998. In spite of this, platformers are still being commercially released every year, including some which have sold millions of copies. A platformer requires the player to maneuver their character across platforms to reach a goal while confronting enemies and avoiding obstacles along

1980-466: A shift in design. Later 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie , Spyro the Dragon , and Donkey Kong 64 borrowed its format, and the "collect-a-thon" genre began to form. In order to make this free-roaming model work, developers had to program dynamic, intelligent cameras. A free camera made it harder for players to judge the height and distance of platforms, making jumping puzzles more difficult. Some of

2079-406: A side-scrolling action game 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 character runs and leaps along the top of a moving train. The character is little more than a stick figure , but

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2178-715: 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 approximately double that of the Super NES. Sonic 's perceived rebellious attitude became a model for game mascots. Other companies attempted to duplicate Sega's success with their own brightly colored anthropomorphisms with attitude. These often were characterized by impatience, sarcasm, and frequent quips. A second generation of platformers for computers appeared alongside

2277-556: A total of 64 KB. As released only 48 KB is available to the user, with the top 16 KB of memory overlaid by the BASIC ROM ; The optional disc drive unit contains some additional hardware that allows it to enable or disable the ROM, effectively adding 16 KB of RAM to the machine. This additional memory is used by the system to store the Oric DOS software. Both Oric-1 versions have

2376-633: Is Jet Set Willy , and was followed by Jet Set Willy II . Software Projects also released a game in the style of Manic Miner for the VIC-20 called The Perils of Willy . Manic Miner 360 was released for the Xbox 360 as an Xbox Live Indie Game in June 2012. A homage to the Manic Miner loading screen appears in one episode of the 2005 British sitcom Nathan Barley . Platform game The genre started with

2475-454: Is a Centronics compatible printer interface. In late 1983 the funding cost for continued development of Oric caused external funding to be sought, and eventually led to a sale to Edenspring Investments PLC. The Edenspring money enabled Oric International to release the Oric Atmos , which added an improved keyboard and an updated V1.1 ROM to the Oric-1. The faulty tape error checking routine

2574-573: Is backward compatible with the Oric-1 and Oric Atmos by using a cartridge. Most of the software is in French, including Hyper-BASIC's error messages . Up to 6000 units were sold in France. In December 1987, after announcing the Telestrat 2, Oric International went into receivership for the second and final time. The keyboard has 57 moving keys with tactile feedback. It is capable of full upper and lower case with

2673-488: Is central to the genre, though there are exceptions such as Nintendo 's Popeye and Data East 's BurgerTime , both from 1982. In some games, such as Donkey Kong , the trajectory of a jump is fixed, while in others it can be altered mid-air. Falling may cause damage or death. Many platformers contain environmental obstacles which kill the player's character upon contact, such as lava pits or bottomless chasms. The player may be able to collect items and power-ups and give

2772-469: Is in a vector game called Major Havoc , which comprises a number of mini-games, including a simple platformer. One of the first raster -based platformers to scroll fluidly in all directions in this manner is 1985's Legend of Kage . In 1985, Enix released the action-adventure platformer Brain Breaker . The following year saw the release of Nintendo's Metroid , which was critically acclaimed for

2871-546: Is masked in both by the ROM at startup, leaving 48 KB to work with the BASIC language. In Bulgaria, the Atmos clone was named Pravetz 8D and produced between 1985 and 1991. The Pravetz is entirely hardware and software compatible with the Oric Atmos. The biggest change on the hardware side is the larger white case that hosts a comfortable mechanical keyboard and an integrated power supply. The BASIC ROM has been patched to host both

2970-402: Is still called "The Final Barrier") is complex and difficult (unlike the Spectrum version, which is considered to be fairly easy) and has a completely different layout. It also features the blinking forcefields. The Amstrad version was effectively the same as the Spectrum version by Software Projects, except that Eugene's Lair was renamed "Eugene Was Here", and the layout of "The Final Barrier"

3069-465: Is the endless runner , where the main character is always moving forward and the player must dodge or jump to avoid falling or hitting obstacles. Various names were used in the years following the release of the first established game in the genre, Donkey Kong (1981). Shigeru Miyamoto originally called it a "running/jumping/climbing game" while developing it. Miyamoto commonly used the term "athletic game" to refer to Donkey Kong and later games in

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3168-454: Is therefore very flexible by having 8 foreground and 8 background colours and flashing patterns. The video invert parallel attribute is also usable in this mode. ASCII characters may be painted over the graphics area, thus enabling the free mixing of graphics and text. The Oric has an internal loudspeaker and amplifier and can also be connected to external amplifiers via the 7 Pin DIN 45329 shared with

3267-564: The Atari 2600 , with 256 horizontally connected screens, became one of the best-selling games on the system and was a breakthrough for the genre. Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle was released on the ColecoVision that same year, adding uneven terrain and scrolling pans between static screens. Manic Miner (1983) and its sequel Jet Set Willy (1984) continued this style of multi-screen levels on home computers . Wanted: Monty Mole won

3366-675: The MSX computer, it was subsequently ported to various platforms the following year, including an arcade video game version, NES , and ColecoVision . 1986 saw the release of the sequel to forward-scrolling platformer Antarctic Adventure called Penguin Adventure , which was designed by Hideo Kojima . It included more action game elements, a greater variety of levels, RPG elements such as upgrading equipment, and multiple endings . In early 1987, Square released 3-D WorldRunner , designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nasir Gebelli . Using

3465-690: The Mario series , as the greatest platform games of all time, calling Manic Miner "the first great home computer platform game". The game was #97 on Polygon's 2017 retrospective list of the 500 best games of all time. Unofficial ports exist for the Acorn Archimedes , Acorn Atom , Acorn Electron , Atari ST , Cambridge Z88 , Commodore 128 , HP48 , Linux , Macintosh , Microsoft Windows , MS-DOS , Neo Geo Pocket Color , Nintendo 64 , Orao , Playdate , PlayStation , PMD 85 , TRS-80 Color Computer , VIC-20 , Zune , and ZX81 . The sequel to Manic Miner

3564-516: The Master System with Alex Kidd in Miracle World . It has 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 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

3663-675: The Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, became the archetype for the genre. 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 companies to see platformers as vital to their success, and contributed greatly to popularizing the genre during the third and fourth generations of video game consoles. Sega attempted to emulate this success with their Alex Kidd series, which started in 1986 on

3762-533: The virtual camera , it had to be constrained to stop it from clipping through the environment. In 1994, a small developer called Exact released a game for the X68000 computer called Geograph Seal , which was a 3D first-person shooter game with platforming. Players piloted a frog-like mech that could jump and then double-jump or triple-jump high into the air as the camera panned down to help players line up their landings. In addition to shooting, jumping on enemies

3861-546: The "Game of the Year" category at the 1983 Golden Joystick Awards voted for by readers of Computer and Video Games magazine. Manic Miner was placed at number 25 in the " Your Sinclair official top 100" Spectrum games of all time, and was later voted number 6 in the Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time . In 1991, ACE magazine listed Manic Miner and its sequel Jet Set Willy , along with Hunchback , Impossible Mission , and

3960-595: The 1980 arcade video game Space Panic , which has ladders but not jumping. Donkey Kong , released in 1981, established a template for what were initially called "climbing games". Donkey Kong inspired many clones and games with similar elements, such as Miner 2049er (1982) and Kangaroo (1982), while the Sega arcade game Congo Bongo (1983) adds a third dimension via isometric graphics . Another popular game of that period, Pitfall! (1982), allows moving left and right through series of non-scrolling screens, expanding

4059-588: The Bug-Byte and Software Projects versions: The game was officially ported to the Amiga , Amstrad CPC , BBC Micro , Commodore 16 , Commodore 64 , Dragon 32/64 , Game Boy Advance , mobile phones . MSX , Oric 1 , and SAM Coupé , The SAM Coupé version, programmed by Matthew Holt, like the ZX original requires pixel-perfect timing, and both graphics and audio, the latter by František Fuka , were greatly updated. In addition to

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4158-460: The Enchanted Castle , which was only modestly successful. That same year, Capcom released Strider in arcades, which scrolled in multiple directions and allowed the player to summon artificial intelligence partners, such as a droid, tiger, and hawk, to help fight enemies. Another Sega release in 1989 was Shadow Dancer , which is a game that also included an AI partner: a dog who followed

4257-523: The Hedgehog into 3D. Their project, titled Sonic Xtreme , was to have featured a radically different approach for the series, with an exaggerated fisheye camera and multidirectional gameplay reminiscent of Bug! . Due in part to conflicts with Sega Enterprises in Japan and a rushed schedule, the game never made it to market. In the 1990s, platforming games started to shift from pseudo-3D to "true 3D," which gave

4356-497: The Oric displays 28 lines of 40 characters, producing a display very similar to Teletext . The character set is standard ASCII which is enhanced by the addition of 80 user-definable characters. ASCII characters may also be re-defined as these are down loaded into RAM on power-up. Serial attributes are used to control display features, as in Teletext, and take up one character position. All remaining characters on that line are affected by

4455-612: The Oric line were based on the MOS Technology 6502A microprocessor. With the success of the ZX Spectrum from Sinclair Research , Tangerine's backers suggested a home computer and Tangerine formed Oric Products International Ltd to develop the Oric-1 . The computer was introduced in 1982. During 1983, approximately 160,000 Oric-1 computers were sold in the UK, plus another 50,000 in France (where it

4554-457: The Oric range. Most contemporary computer printers could produce text output without requiring specific drivers , and often followed de facto standards for simple graphics. More advanced use of the printer would have required a specific driver which, given the proliferation of different home computers and standards of the time, may or may not have been available. Tangerine's MCP-40 is a plotter with mechanics by Alps Electric . The same mechanism

4653-451: The Oric-1 and Oric Atmos computers. However this adaptor was only furnished with very limited software. The Atmos was licensed in Yugoslavia and sold as Nova 64 . The clones were Atmos-based, the only difference being the logo indicating ORIC NOVA 64 instead of Oric Atmos 48K . This is to indicate the installed 64 KB of RAM – which was also true of the Atmos –, 16 KB of which

4752-483: The Oric-1 came in 16  KB or 48 KB RAM variants for £ 129 and £169 respectively, matching the models available for the popular ZX Spectrum and undercutting the price of the 48 KB version of the Spectrum by a few pounds. The circuit design requires 8 memory chips, one chip per data line of the CPU. Due to the sizing of readily available memory chips the 48 KB model has 8 * 8 KB (64 KBit) chips, making

4851-447: The Oric-1 user to add a second ROM (containing the Oric Atmos system) to a spare ROM-socket on the Oric-1 circuit board. Then, using a switch, the users could then switch between the new Oric Atmos ROM and the original Oric-1 ROM. This was desirable since the updated ROM of the Atmos contained breaking changes for some games which relied on certain behaviours or memory addresses within the ROM. This led to tape based software often containing

4950-405: The United Kingdom press. Examples include referring to the " Super Mario mould" (such as Kato-chan & Ken-chan ) as platform games, and calling Strider a "platform and ladders" game. The genre originated in the early 1980s. Levels in early platform games were confined to a single screen, viewed in profile, and based on climbing between platforms rather than jumping. Space Panic ,

5049-404: The Year". Another term used in the late 1980s to 1990s was "character action games", in reference to games such as Super Mario Bros. , Sonic the Hedgehog , and Bubsy . It was also applied more generally to side-scrolling video games , including run and gun video games such as Gunstar Heroes . Platform game became a common term for the genre by 1989, popularized by its usage in

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5148-519: The acrobatics evoke the movement that games such as Prince of Persia would feature. B.C.'s Quest For Tires (1983) put a recognizable character from American comic strips into side-scrolling, jumping gameplay similar to Moon Patrol . The same year, Snokie for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers added uneven terrain to a scrolling platformer. Based on the Saturday morning cartoon rather than

5247-415: The basis for the non-linear mission structure found in most open-world, multi-mission, sidequest -heavy games. Another Capcom platformer that year was Bionic Commando , which popularized a grappling hook mechanic that has since appeared in dozens of games, including Earthworm Jim and Tomb Raider . Scrolling platformers went portable in the late 1980s with games such as Super Mario Land , and

5346-437: The bottom of the screen to display system information and to act as a window on the user program while still viewing the graphics display. It can also be used to input direct commands for graphics and see the effect instantly without having to switch modes. The graphics display operates with serial attributes in the same way as characters, except that the display is now considered as 200 lines by 40 graphics cells. Each graphic cell

5445-579: The cassette interface. A General Instruments AY-3-8912 provides 3 channel sound. For BASIC programs, four keywords generate pre-made sounds: PING , SHOOT , EXPLODE , and ZAP . The commands SOUND , MUSIC , and PLAY produce a broader range of sounds. The cassette recorder connects via a 7 Pin DIN 45329 socket shared with the external sound output. The interface includes support for tape motor control. Recording speeds offered as standard are 300 baud or 2400 baud. A tone leader allows tape recorders' automatic level control to stabilise before

5544-476: The commands exist for slow speed, verification, autorunning of programs or specification of start and ending addresses for dumping memory. The expansion port allows full access to the CPU's data address and control lines. This allows connection of add-ons specifically designed for the Oric, including user designed hardware. The range of lines exposed allows external ROM and RAM expansion, thus allowing for ROM cartridges or for expansion devices to internally include

5643-589: 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 style of design made possible by a new generation 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

5742-421: The criteria of a platformer, and was billed as an action adventure . It used true 3D characters and set pieces, but its environments were rendered using a rigid engine similar to the one used by Wolfenstein 3D , in that it could only render square, flat corridors, rather than suspended platforms that could be jumped between. Sega had tasked their American studio, Sega Technical Institute , with bringing Sonic

5841-419: The earlier Clockwork Knight . The game plays very similarly to 2D platformers, but lets players walk up walls and on ceilings. In 1995, Delphine Software released a 3D sequel to their 2D platformer Flashback . Entitled Fade to Black , it was the first attempt to bring a popular 2D platformer series into 3D. While it retained the puzzle-oriented level design style and step-based control, it did not meet

5940-402: The filename, followed by the actual data with parity ; finally, checksums are recorded to allow overall verification of the recording. The circuit was designed using a Schmitt trigger to remove noise and make input more reliable. The system allows for verification of stored information against the tape copy, to ensure integrity before the information is flushed from memory. There was however

6039-521: The first award for Best Platform game in 1984 from Crash magazine. Later that same year, Epyx released Impossible Mission , and Parker Brothers released Montezuma's Revenge , which further expanded on the exploration aspect. The first platformer to use scrolling graphics came years before 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 control

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6138-485: The first screen as soon as the tape had finished loading instead of waiting for the user to start the game. Further issues related to the lack of music and in game sound, and the way that video memory was mapped in the C16, this resulted in a number of the screens having to be removed so that load time and video mapping could be correctly handled. In August 1983, sales of Bug-Byte's original ZX Spectrum release of Manic Miner took

6237-612: The following day, Oric was bought by French company Eureka, which continued to produce the Stratos, followed by the Oric Telestrat in late 1986. The Stratos and Telestrat increased the RAM to 64 KB and added more ports, but kept the same processor and graphics and sound hardware as the Oric-1 and Atmos. The Telestrat is a telecommunications-oriented machine. It comes with a disk drive as standard, and only connects to an RGB monitor / TV. The machine

6336-530: The foreground and background, and the camera panning and curving around corners. Meanwhile, Pandemonium and Klonoa brought the 2.5D style to the PlayStation . In a break from the past, the Nintendo 64 had the fewest side scrolling platformers with only four; Yoshi's Story , Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards , Goemon's Great Adventure , and Mischief Makers —and most met with a tepid response from critics at

6435-464: 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 turn inspired games such as Adventure Island , Dynastic Hero , Popful Mail , and Shantae . One of the first platformers to scroll in all four directions freely and follow the on-screen character's movement

6534-537: The game to the top of the UK video games charts replacing Jet Pac . The Commodore 64 version, released by Software Projects, reached the number one position in early 1984. It went on to become the best selling Commodore 64 game and third best selling ZX Spectrum game of 1984. The SAM Coupé version scored 84% in Your Sinclair and 88% in Crash . Manic Miner was the winner of "Best Arcade Style Game", and placed third in

6633-498: The gameplay from its precursor but traded the frog-like mech for a cartoony rabbit mech called Robbit. The title was successful enough to get two sequels and is remembered for being the first 3D platformer on a console. Rob Fahey of Eurogamer said Jumping Flash was perhaps "one of the most important ancestors of every 3D platformer in the following decade." It holds the record of "First platform videogame in true 3D" according to Guinness World Records . Another early 3D platformer

6732-452: The genre continued to maintain its popularity, with many games released for the handheld Game Boy and Game Gear systems. By the time the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 launched, platformers were the most popular genre in console gaming. There was a particular emphasis on having a flagship platform title exclusive to a system, featuring a mascot character. In 1989, Sega released Alex Kidd in

6831-413: The genre, such as Super Mario Bros. (1985). Donkey Kong spawned other games with a mix of running, jumping, and vertical traversal, a novel genre that did not match the style of games that came before it, leaving journalists and writers to offer their own terms. Computer and Video Games magazine, among others, referred to the genre as "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style" games. "Climbing games"

6930-454: The levels were open and had objectives. Completing objectives earned the player stars, and stars were used to unlock more levels. This approach allowed for more efficient use of large 3D areas and rewarded the player for exploration, but it meant less jumping and more action-adventure . Even so, a handful of boss levels offered more traditional platforming. Until then there was no settled way to make 3D platformers, but Super Mario 64 inspired

7029-451: The main character new abilities for overcoming adversities. Most games of this genre consist of multiple levels of increasing difficulty that may be interleaved by boss encounters, where the character has to defeat a particularly dangerous enemy to progress. Simple logical puzzles to resolve and skill trials to overcome are other common elements in the genre. A modern variant of the platform game, especially significant on mobile platforms,

7128-489: The maze game, Namco's 1984 Pac-Land is a bidirectional, horizontally-scrolling, arcade video game with walking, running, jumping, springboards, power-ups , and a series of unique levels. Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani described the game as "the pioneer of action games with horizontally running background." According to Iwatani, Shigeru Miyamoto described Pac-Land as an influence on the development of Super Mario Bros. . Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. , released for

7227-405: The more linear 3D platformers like Tork: Prehistoric Punk and Wario World used scripted cameras that limited player control. Games with more open environments like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie used intelligent cameras that followed the player's movements. Still, when the view was obstructed or not facing what the player needed to see, these intelligent cameras needed to be adjusted by

7326-479: 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 computer platformers could rival their console contemporaries. Prince of Persia , originally a late release for the 8-bit Apple II in 1989, featured

7425-487: The original twenty caverns, forty additional caverns were included in this release. Levels were designed by David Ledbury, and winners of a competition run by SAM Computers Ltd. The game was ported for Czechoslovak Computers PMD 85 in 1985. The authors of the PMD 85 version are Vít Libovický and Daniel Jenne. They made it as accurate as they could. The BBC Micro version does not have the Solar Power Generator, instead containing

7524-408: 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 able to choose the order in which they complete 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

7623-416: The play area. Nintendo 's flagship Super Mario Bros. (1985) was a defining game for the nascent genre, with horizontally scrolling levels and the player controlling a named character—Mario, which became a mascot of the company. The term platform game gained traction in the late 1980s, as did the alternate form platformer . During their peak of popularity, platformers were estimated to comprise between

7722-549: The player around and aid in battle. In 1990, Hudson Soft released Bonk's Adventure , with a protagonist positioned as NEC 's mascot. The following year, Takeru's Cocoron , a late platformer for the Famicom allowed players to build 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

7821-405: The player more control over the character and the camera. To render a 3D environment from any angle the user chose, the graphics hardware had to be sufficiently powerful, and the art and rendering model of the game had to be viewable from every angle. The improvement in graphics technology allowed publishers to make such games but introduced several new issues. For example, if the player could control

7920-1043: The player. In the 1990s, RPGs , first-person shooters , and more complex action-adventure games captured significant market share. Even so, the platformer thrived. Tomb Raider became one of the bestselling series on the PlayStation , along with Insomniac Games ' Spyro and Naughty Dog 's Crash Bandicoot , one of the few 3D games to stick with linear levels. Moreover, many of the Nintendo 64 's bestsellers were first- and second-party platformers like Super Mario 64 , Banjo-Kazooie , and Donkey Kong 64 . On Windows and Mac , Pangea Software 's Bugdom series and BioWare 's MDK2 proved successful. Several developers who found success with 3D platformers began experimenting with titles that, despite their cartoon art style, were aimed at adults. Examples include Rare 's Conker's Bad Fur Day , Crystal Dynamics 's Gex: Deep Cover Gecko and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver , and Shiny Entertainment 's Messiah . In 1998, Sega produced

8019-402: The precision of jumps and other movements to prevent such falls or collisions with the enemies. Extra lives are gained every 10,000 points, and the game ends when the player has no lives left. Above the final portal is a garden. To the right is a house with a white picket fence and red car parked in front. To the left is a slope leading to backyard with a pond and tree; a white animal, resembling

8118-426: The required operating software on ROM. The printer port is compatible with the then standard Centronics parallel interface allows for connection of many different types of printers from low quality (e.g. low-resolution thermal printers ) to high quality printers, such as fixed font daisy wheel printers or laser printers , though the latter were uncommon and expensive during the period of commercial availability of

8217-508: The serial attribute until either the line ends or another serial attribute. Display features are: Available colours are black, blue, red, magenta, green, cyan, yellow, and white. Each character position also has a parallel attribute, which may be operated on a character by character basis, to produce video inversion . The display has a fixed black border. The graphics mode consists of 200 pixels vertically by 240 pixels horizontally plus 3 lines of 40 characters (the same as character mode) at

8316-486: 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 refers to games with gameplay in three dimensions and polygonal 3D graphics. Games that have 3D gameplay but 2D graphics are usually included under the umbrella of isometric platformers , while those that have 3D graphics but gameplay on

8415-531: The top down perspective, Frogger (1981) as climbing games. In a December 1982 Creative Computing review of the Apple II game Beer Run , the reviewer used a different term: "I'm going to call this a ladder game, as in the 'ladder genre,' which includes Apple Panic and Donkey Kong ." That label was also used by Video Games Player magazine in 1983 when it named the Coleco port of Donkey Kong "Ladder Game of

8514-553: The twenty caverns, each one screen in size, are several flashing objects, which the player must collect before Willy's oxygen supply runs out. Once the player has collected the objects in one cavern, they must then go to the now-flashing portal, which will take them to the next cavern. The player must avoid enemies, listed in the cassette inlay as "...Poisonous Pansies, Spiders, Slime, and worst of all, Manic Mining Robots..." which move along predefined paths at constant speeds. Willy can also be killed by falling too far, so players must time

8613-437: The video game industry internationally. The following year, Donkey Kong received a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. and later Mario Bros. , a platformer with two-player cooperative play . It laid the groundwork for other two-player cooperative games such as Fairyland Story and Bubble Bobble . Beginning in 1982, transitional games emerged with non-scrolling levels spanning multiple screens. David Crane's Pitfall! for

8712-455: The visual flash of 3D with traditional 2D side scrolling gameplay. These games are often referred to as 2.5D. The first such game was Saturn launch title , Clockwork Knight (1994). The game featured levels and boss characters rendered in 3D, but retained 2D gameplay and used pre-rendered 2D sprites for regular characters, similar to Donkey Kong Country . Its sequel improved upon its design, featuring some 3D effects such as hopping between

8811-428: The way. These games are either presented from the side view, using two-dimensional movement, or in 3D with the camera placed either behind the main character or in isometric perspective . Typical platforming gameplay tends to be very dynamic and challenges a player's reflexes, timing, and dexterity with controls. The most common movement options in the genre are walking, running, jumping, attacking, and climbing. Jumping

8910-413: Was Floating Runner , developed by a Japanese company called Xing and released for PlayStation in early 1996, before the release of Super Mario 64 . Floating Runner uses D-pad controls and a behind-the-character camera perspective. In 1996, Nintendo released Super Mario 64 , which is a game that set the standard for 3D platformers. It let the player explore 3D environments with greater freedom than

9009-497: Was a primary way to attack. This was the first true 3D platform-action game with free-roaming environments, but it was never ported to another platform or released outside Japan, so it remains relatively unknown in the West. The following year, Exact released their follow-up to Geograph Seal . An early title for Sony's new PlayStation console, Jumping Flash! , released in April 1995, kept

9108-543: Was again completely different (but is more similar to the Spectrum version than the BBC version). The Dragon 32 version, programmed by Roy Coates, had two extra rooms (i.e. 22 altogether) and a cheat mode accessed by typing "P", "P", "ENGUIN". To retain the resolution of the original, the Dragon version used PMODE 4 in black/white mode. Programmed by Chris Larkin, the Oric version has 32 screens instead of 20. The Commodore 16 version

9207-670: Was also used as the basis for similar low-cost plotters produced by various home computer manufacturers around that time. These included the Atari 1020 , the Commodore 1520 , the Tandy/Radio Shack CGP-115, the Texas Instruments HX-1000, the Mattel Aquarius 4615, and probably also the Sharp MZ-1P16 (for MZ-800 series). The Prestel adaptor produced by Eureka (Informatika) was the first adaptor produced for

9306-521: Was found in any previous game in the genre. With this in mind, Nintendo put an analog control stick on its Nintendo 64 controller, a feature that had not been seen since the Vectrex but which has since become standard. The analog stick provided the fine precision needed with a free perspective. In most 2D platformers, the player finished a level by following a path to a certain point, but in Super Mario 64 ,

9405-415: Was limited in a number of respects - this was mainly due to the initial lack of developer material for the C16 machine, and a two-week deadline to produce and test the game, then generate a master tape for the duplication house. Other issues were the lack of a fast loader system for the C16 cassette deck, and as a result it took about seven minutes for the game to load, and a bug resulted in the game entering

9504-425: Was still there (See "Cassette Interface" under Technical specification , below). Soon after the Atmos was released, the modem , printer and 3-inch floppy disk drive originally promised for the Oric-1 were announced and released by the end of 1984. A short time after the release of the Atmos machine, a modification for the Oric-1 was issued and advertised in magazines and bulletin boards. This modification enabled

9603-418: Was the first game to allow players to jump over obstacles and gaps. It is widely considered to be the first platformer. It introduced Mario under the name Jumpman. Donkey Kong was ported to many consoles and computers at the time, notably as the system-selling pack-in game for ColecoVision , and also a handheld version from Coleco in 1982. The game helped cement Nintendo's position as an important name in

9702-414: Was the year's top-selling machine). This resulted in Oric being acquired and given funding for a successor model, the 1984 Oric Atmos . Oric was bought by Eureka, which produced the less successful Oric Telestrat (1986). Oric was dissolved the year the Telestrat was released. Eastern European legal clones of Oric machines were produced into the 1990s. Based on a 1 MHz MOS Technology 6502 CPU ,

9801-534: Was used in Steve Bloom's 1982 book Video Invaders and 1983 magazines Electronic Games (US)—which ran a cover feature called "The Player's Guide to Climbing Games"—and TV Gamer (UK). Bloom defined "climbing games" as titles where the player "must climb from the bottom of the screen to the top while avoiding and/or destroying the obstacles and foes you invariably meet along the way." Under this definition, he listed Space Panic (1980), Donkey Kong , and despite

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