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[LemonScented]

Technically speaking, it's not rocket science to do this. You need a streaming system, but for a linear game it's easier to do than for an open-world game, because the player can only ever be moving in 1 direction (2 if you allow backtracking), so it's a lot easier to predict what data you need and when you need it by. I guess the main reason you don't see it a lot are probably because

(a) Even though streaming new level data whilst the game is playing (or whilst the player is playing some pre-canned "get from A to B" animation, or is temporarily trapped in some kind of airlock), throwing up a loading screen is easier. The time that would go into implementing the streaming can be spent improving enemy AI, or the jumping physics, or making more levels, etc.

(b) I guess platformers have discrete levels by convention? Perhaps the original designers (as well as finding that discrete levels gave them more memory and processor time to play with) realised that breaking things up into a series of themed obstacle courses actually felt pretty good for progression, and kept people coming back for "just one more level" rather than the whole thing feeling like one giant grind.

As people have said, Limbo is continuous (albeit short), and there's no reason other platformers couldn't be. I think the question is whether the design of any given platform game would benefit from continuous gameplay enough for the development team to prioritise it. If someone wants to put level transitions into something like Earthworm Jim, they're fool, but if someone wants to do a remake of Spellbound Dizzy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spellbound_Dizzy) that scrolls instead of flip-screens, count me in 

[PogueSquadron]

I suppose also, that the level by level nature of most platformers makes them easier to digest.  The platformer has often been a genre meant to be accessible after all, and a level by level structure allows the gamer to easily compartmentalize the game in their heads (gives them an idea on where they are in the game, helps them break things down, etc).

[Fifth]

I think the first Mega Man Zero game (on the GBA) was kinda close to this, but more branching than linear-continuing.  You had the central base area, and each new mission would teleport you somewhere to head towards a destination and beat the boss, but after each new mission area was unlocked, it would become something you could just walk to.  Leave the base and head right, and there's the ruined city level.  Head left and it's the desert.  And it's all done without any screen edges that you go off (with a few exceptions of doors in the background that you enter).  One area becomes another, and the whole world ends up connecting to itself.  Though if you're observant, you can notice the split-second pause as it loads up each new area.

It's a really interesting feel when it's done right, though, and is one of the things I loved about the game.

[SirNiko]

As a side note, when I saw the first screens of Zelda 64 I had hoped you'd have a point where you could stand atop Death Mountain and look down over all of Hyrule.

I'd completely forgotten the first Jak and Daxter game, which is almost 100% seamless with the only exception of the tutorial island you reach by warp. The rest is continuous from the starter village to the tower where you fight the final boss, with lava jetbike segments separating the major zones. This results in a lot of really awesome spots where you climb a high tower and can see other zones, like the tower in the forest or the mountaintop in volcano zone.

[IQpierce]

Although this relates more to what I THOUGHT this thread would be about (based on the title) than what it actually is about, I thought I should point out Canabalt, which is truly a continuous platformer: it generates random platforms and obstacles infinitely, and the only question is how long the player can go without making a critical mistake.

The iPhone version of that game may be relevant too because I believe I've heard that after you run far enough, the tileset of the game (and presumably the random platforms too?) change to different art styles; I believe there's three different tilesets? And I'd be very surprised if there were any transition.

OP, you're right in one respect that this would be tricky in a Mario-style game: the tiles used in the world in SMB 1-1 are different than the ones in 1-2, so one set of tiles has to be unloaded from memory while another is loaded in instead. Keeping all tiles in the game in memory at one time may not be out of the question for a simple platformer these days.

[SirNiko]

This could be done with transitional tiles that are shared between tilesets, or a setup that loads two tilesets at once. The result is that you design transition areas that use only one set of tiles so you can swap the set while in play without the playing noticing.

Alternately you could just ignore tilesets altogether and focus on designing mechanically diverse areas that seem different even though they are the same, like how Super Mario uses the same bricks from the platforms in the sky to build castles and walls.

[snowyowl]

Tower of Greed

The levels are vertical, procedurally generated (so potentially infinite), and the game is closer to an arcade game than an exploration game. For the purposes of this discussion, it's like Canabalt at a 90° angle.

[mirosurabu]

@Squadron:

Ah, okay, that makes it more clear! So it's continuous world with lots of foreshadowing, right? Can't think of any game that does that well.

I can think of a continuous level design which maintains level by level structure (Demon's Souls and Uncharted 2) and game that foreshadows future levels but it's naturally not continuous (Jumpman) but can't think of any that does both.

[PogueSquadron]

Yeah such a game would be out of my doing, haha, but it would be really cool to see something like that attempted at some point.  I absolutely love moments in games where you just see something out in the distance, and then later you're there.  I would love to see the kind of scope found in a Zelda stretched throughout a more linear game.

Was still curious about 2D examples too.  That kind of foreshadowing may be difficult (unless things were incorporated into the background), but it's cool to hear about Limbo and other games that have shaken up the level by level structure.

[gimymblert]

Another world (out of this world) can qualify?

[PogueSquadron]

Was just checking that out on YT, and yeah, that's more of what I'm getting at.  The game isn't divided by numbered levels but is a continuous experience.  I'd love to see a more conventional platformer that adopts some of those ideas for some reason.  Almost like a Mario level that never ends (but has checkpoints along the way).

[Core Xii]

Seiklus have continuous world.

It doesn't scroll fully, though. Areas still have transitions.

I also wouldn't count Half-Life 2 because, although continuous, it isn't seamless. The loading areas are very obvious (oh look, a narrow, zig-zagging corridor!) and clunky (freeze! stuttering sound!). Halo streams the levels so it doesn't have loading areas, but the game at large is separated into chapters.

One example I'd like to add is Donkey Kong 64. It does have screen fades in certain transitions, but even the "world map" is a fully playable space, i.e. spatially consistent. And the levels are huge. Super Mario 64 is similar except the star-select screen when entering a level is very disruptive.

I... can't think of any game that is both continuous and seamless, and without cutscenes.

[Razz]

Core Xii, that is one thing I really liked about Donkey Kong 64. The world felt really huge because of the transitions between locations and areas ... too bad I didn't really like the level design all that much. its kinda sad because compared to Banjo Kazooie (And even to an extent Tooie ... although I'm not quite sure if that came before or after DK64) everything felt really static and empty.

Now what if RETRO STUDIOS made a sequel to DK64

[FrankieSmileShow]

Oh hey! I've been working on a platformer like this for 6 months now, for the action52 competition, non human. Its one long continuous level with bosses along the way, with scenery changes and all (It starts from a forest outside, goes through a city, then a cave, then an hi-tech underground base)

I am not sure the continuous nature improves the game, I think it might actually be taking away from it. I think it makes the game feel like it drags on for too long.
In a simple linear platformer kind of game, I think the feeling of progress is lessened when the levels structure is taken out. Levels serve as milestones, a way to measure how far you are into the game and how much you have left (even if it doesn't tell you how many levels there are, I think people generally have some number to reach in mind). I think that if you take the levels out, you need to find some other element to compensate for this loss of structure.

In my game I tried to compensate for this by adding many "milestones" in the game usually in the form of bosses or recognizable level sections, or to make the scenery change as much as possible. I also tried to put in a map display. The map display is completely redundant and useless, but I thought it might give you an idea of your progress in the game to see your path travelled so far. I am not sure I succeeded in compensating for the lack of structure, its hard to tell. Maybe my game really is just too long or samey after a short while and the structure has nothing to do with it, or maybe its a mix of both.

My game is made in game maker. To make the huge level I simply made a bunch of rooms with end areas that are identical to the beginning of the following room, so I change the room for the next when the player reaches the end, transporting all visible enemies, bullets, special effects etc with you in the next. It is sometimes noticeable when the change occurs; in some larger rooms you can notice the game has a slight hiccup. But when you don't know where the switch takes place its very hard to notice.

I also placed sawtooths(one-way passages, like doors shutting behind you, or a steep cliff you can only climb on one direction) in the levels so you cant go back into the previous room once you crossed into the new area. You could of course allow people to move back into previous rooms, but some other details of my game made this awkward to do.

This also allowed me to make cool things like, at hard difficulty level, new level sections are added in between existing ones. I could even make some rooms different every time you play, picking from like 8 different possible ones when you finish the previous room. In a game with a level structure it doesn't seem like anything special, but in a seemingly continuous game its a neat effect, its unexpected.

Obviously this is kind of a terrible way to do it, but I am a little limited with game maker. Its much better to have the levels "stream" in front of you as you progress and then clear out behind you. You end up with less of the level loaded at one time, and you dont need to fuck around with level ends and beginning getting them to look identical, getting them to match.

I'm not sure how I would go about with the streaming solution in game maker myself, is GM reasonably fast with changing tiles dynamically within a room? Maybe id make one gigantic room with all tile layers invisible, and one "current" tile layer which would have tiles moved to it from the invisible ones as the hero moves? Or maybe that would be just as slow as having it all visible... (also maybe Game Maker already does pretty much this under the hood for tiles outside of the view?? And they would still all be in the memory so it wouldnt help that much...)

[PogueSquadron]

Yeah I suppose it would have to depend on the length of the game and the pacing...perhaps such a structure may not benefit a game that is incredibly long.  For me, I'd be interested to try more of these games.  I'm the kind of person, for instance, who would rather wait for a TV show to come out on DVD before I watched it, so I could watch it all within a couple of days.  It's definitely a big reason it was hard for me to put Portal down.  Yeah, there were loading times and elevator sequences, but the game just seemed to keep going and going (despite its short length).

[iffi]

If someone made a scrolling version of Knytt Stories (as opposed to being separated into individual rooms) I think it would qualify as continuous.
It would be pretty simple to make a small platformer continuous, and most likely it's been done before - at a very small scale it would essentially be a one-level platformer.
I'm not sure how great the advantages of making a platformer continuous are, but it would introduce challenges such as transitioning between different sections smoothly, avoiding the feeling of the game dragging on too long, and the task of streaming the level data or however you choose to implement the continuous structure.

Yeah I suppose it would have to depend on the length of the game and the pacing...perhaps such a structure may not benefit a game that is incredibly long.  For me, I'd be interested to try more of these games.  I'm the kind of person, for instance, who would rather wait for a TV show to come out on DVD before I watched it, so I could watch it all within a couple of days.  It's definitely a big reason it was hard for me to put Portal down.  Yeah, there were loading times and elevator sequences, but the game just seemed to keep going and going (despite its short length).

But DVDs still have breaks between each episode, even though they're drastically shortened compared to watching a show on TV. It's not as if you have to wait a week between level transitions anyway (at least, hopefully you don't). You can still convey a continuous experience without making it truly continuous, though admittedly it could be enhanced if it were continuous.

[PogueSquadron]

I'm thinking that the advantages of a 'continuous' game (wish I had a better term for this) would be more evident in a 3D game.  In a 2D game, the jump from map screen to gameplay isn't as jarring as the jump from a 2D map to a 3D world.  It would be cool to run around in a 3D world that seems really cohesive, rather than jump out to a map mode that holds things together.

[siiseli]

http://www.mojang.com/notch/mario/

[snowyowl]

In BioShock, aren't there areas where you can see the rest of the city through the windows? (I've never played it, so I can't be sure, and I think there are areas where you have to wait for the game to load, but still...)

[johnnoz]

I remember seeing a modified version of Knytt that did this.
The original game was actually all in one big map but the camera was locked to a room by room display for aesthetic purposes (this version had obvious gaps between different tilesets and such).