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Hmm...let me rephrase; I was speaking of the inclusion of rigid blocks within a slightly more organic-looking backdrop.  One could just as easily achieve this effect by putting blocks in amidst rock-tiles on a nes game as in a mode modern one.  And if the block is firmly embedded in the landscape, collision doesn't really come in to play directly.

THAT SAID, I think the thesis that this emerged as a result of non-blocky collision a not-at-all unreasonable one, and quite interesting.

Did this post end up wrong ???

wow. yeah.  fixed it sort of.

Is there part of a thread I'm not seeing? :-\

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This again.  ::)

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Are you doing a serve or do you need to know?

I am seriously bewildered...I stumbled onto this thread that had a bunch of quotes in the first post, despite it being the first post. I don't know if the quotes were from another thread or if a bunch of posts got deleted, but there doesn't seem to be a clear question or discussion topic for this thread... :concerned:

The quotes have links at the top to the threads where they were posted. 

Here's the deal:

1: I wanted to talk about one particular feature of cave story's graphical makeup
2: I sure as fuck didn't want to stink up the Verge thread any more than it already is with cave story chitchat
3: I didn't want to create a cave-story thread; so I decided to generalize the context to looking at any particularly characteristic aspects of any platform games. 

Apologies if this wasn't clear.

I wonder sometimes if the popularity of floating islands comes from platformers. I occasionally see the concept used in tv, movies, books, etc. and I can't help but wonder if it was all the inexplicably gravity-defying platforms from video games that inspired it.

You're probably right.

Another thing I wonder about is the prevalence of bottomless pits in 3D games. If it weren't for 2D platformers, I think a lot of those bottomless pits would be filled with something sensible like lava or spikes.

I wonder why we don't see people implement lots of different game genres within a platformer perspective.

Platform RTS
Platform MuMORPuGer (Maple Story is the only one I've heard of)
Grand Theft Platform (sandboxy real-world game)
Platform Shmup (You are forced to keep running in one direction, basically)
Platform Sims (or Sim City or any other sim game... you could argue that Sim Tower vaguely fits this)
Platform survival sim
Platform roguelike (I wonder how you would jump given a turn-based environment...)
and so on...

:eyebrows: (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=4017.0)

Eh?

Also creatures.

Either spelunky or roguelike megaman might satisfy this description, depending on one's interpretation.


As for floating islands, the first floating island I remember coming across was sonic 3's.  What are the other, earlier, ones?

Gunstar Heroes?

Wikipedia has this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_island_(fiction)

It says The Odyssey was the first to hint at a floating island, but the first definitive use of the concept was in Gulliver's Travels. What's interesting about the article, however, is that the majority of examples it lists are from modern entertainment - namely games. The first few examples it gives are separated by centuries, while uses of the idea become more condensed around the time of video games.


That's another interesting concept that I think may have gained more recent popularity because of it's use as a game mechanic. I looked 'bottomless pit' up on wikipedia also, but the only real mention of it before video games was the biblical 'Abyss' which meant a hole straight to hell or the underworld. That's not something that's really been used much in literature or entertainment much except in video games.

I would take this with a grain of salt. Remember that Wikipedia is edited by nerds and pretty much every 'In Popular Culture' section features a lot of references to videogames, anime and Firefly.

There's a huge bulk of iconic design elements in platformers. It's funny how they are echoed over and over, to the point where they lend games an air of legitimacy.

Player: I don't know about this new indie platformer...
Player: Squints eyes, looks at screenshot
Player: Ah, it has bright colors, giant mushrooms, and question mark blocks? Eh, maybe I'll give this a go then!

Examples of this include:

• the iconic question mark blocks in Mario
• cartoony cylindrical trees in the background with a rounded top
• giant mushrooms
• the metal strut / chain supported floating blocks in Cave Story
• jumping fish / fireballs
• floating, useless yet sparkly collectables (coins / stars / jewels)
  

There's nothing wrong with including these... many of them are great tools. But it's funny how I always find myself subconsciously tugged toward things like these...  :D

Mario games have a high concentration of recognizable iconography. It's quite interesting how distinct the games can look, especially when compared to the copycats that it spawned.

While I would love to see a sidescrolling RTS, there has been a sidescrolling racing game. Uni Racers, anyone?

Pretty close to a sidescrolling RTS was a weird old game called The Tone Rebellion. It definitely scrolled sideways, and not in any other directions, but it didn't quite have the platform elements. You built your buildings on platforms, but your units could all fly wherever they liked.

It would be cool to see an RTS that really takes place in a platforming environment. Kind of like The Boomlands but not so automatic.

There's also this game:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2c9ra9xALc

That looks sweet. Narration harkens from Monty Python, though.

Of course. Though for the sake of conversation, Wikipedia is an interesting collection of "knowledge" nonetheless.

I imagine this as basically being what Lemmings would be like if you gave them machine guns and flamethrowers.

It must be done.

I thought that's what Clonk was?

One of the common elements in a scrolling shmup is the forced-scrolling part. Basically, it would be like any platformer but you are forced to move in a certain direction. You could move forward and back and jump and such, but you could not come to a complete stop. This is actually accomplished in a lot of platformers during a chase / vehicle section. Basically, it's a rail shooter.

Gunstar Heroes gets pretty close. There are vehicle sections and other bits where you're pushed through, but other bits where you can stop. It is probably more fun than pushing you around constantly, though.

Also, I'm just now realizing no one has made Warning Forever in a platformer. It would basically be Black's level over and over again, which would be pretty cool.  :panda:

Actually, has anyone heard of a game that takes pretty direct influence from Gunstar Heroes? I've heard of The Red Star for the PS2 but haven't tried it yet (but probably should).

This would be really cool if it was in the style of Gunstar Heroes/Sin and Punishment.

wait, did Cave Story have smooth landscapes?  i always thought that it was secretly just a bunch of blocks hidden under an outer, non-blocky layer.  although the non-hidden blocks (on second thought, this is what i think you were referencing.  uh.  oops.  and i guess they're not really "non-hidden," since they're being painted as much as everything else is - just made more obviously blocky.)  were pretty visually iconic - i don't remember any nes or snes games having a mostly-painted over landscape with a view "revealed" blocky shapes set into them.

Knytt Stories was also pretty iconic - a tiny sprite exploring what was a much larger nonscrolling landscape.  the main chapter was also pretty iconically minimalist - Juni's size meant that the sprite couldn't be too detailed, and the landscape was mostly made up mostly of beautifully arranged basic shapes.

viewtiful joe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewtiful_Joe)(ps2, gc) has also some similarities...
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=ALt4yu1Njk8

and silhouette mirage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silhouette_Mirage) (psx, saturn)
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=_B5bEnG22KM