I loved the lost vikings. Did anyone play this? OH and save my pizza! With a squirrel that ran along roof tops. It was a really simple platformer but I remember being addicted to it
There isn't really a secret formula to make a good platformer.
Consider this,
Rayman has incredible 2d hand drawn artwork and great music which makes it one of the most beautiful games ever (i have on the psone and i love it)
But utlimately it's really frustrating to play, that should in theory make it a bad game. But this time around the presentation is enough for me to continue despite the gameplay being it's worst aspect. (i have rayman 2 too which is great fun)
Also
Sonic the hedgehog and Mario bros are the opposite ends of the platforming spectrum, but take almost any one of the Mario or Sonic games, and you'll see they're really rather good, but they don't really share a lot in common.
So i can't say because lots of things make a game good, but sometimes even that wont work as planned,
Sorry for this example, but Buzz the squirrel 2. Most people say it's average, but it's got all the qualities you'd want from a platformer. yes?
Take Fishhead 2, bad control (built in platform movement) repetitive gameplay formula (collect 3 keys and open door) but it's still a very fun game to play? why? i don't know either. I love it.
I'd say the secret is to have very simple movements (move, jump, and maybe an attack) and have multiple objects in the levels. If you just jump through a bunch of levels with nothing but springs and coins and just have the level look different it will be boring. If you play mario or sonic, every level has some new object to interact with. And not just items.
Sonic 1
First level - loops, breakable walls, spinning spike things
Also, I have astal, it's pretty fun, nice graphics and everything. I found the controls to not be too good though. He just seems to move too slow and clunky.
And btw, great platforming games:
Sonic and Mario (Obviously)
Dynamite Headdy
Sparkster
Donkey Kong Country
Crash Bandicoot, the first one when it was still simple
Ristar
Just play those and pay attention to what makes them so good.
When it comes down to it, obviously what makes all games fun is the sense of achievement the player gets.
Make the challenges difficultly juuust right, the player should lose to a boss a few times before they win so when they do they are all like: 'YEAH!!!' when they do instead of: 'uh, that was easy'.
Eg: 'W00T I beat the giant pink turtle monster on level 6!!!'
Giving the player rewards is very important. So, after they beat that difficult giant turtle monster, you could give the player some kind of awesome upgrade or NEW ABILLITY.
Upgrades. These are really great(in certain types of games), there is nothing like having the player character who couldn’t jump for sh1t before, being able to jump higher and reach that previously inaccessible ledge which leads to who knows what.
Another thing is to give the player something to look forward to, such as after they complete 3 levels they know they'll go to another completely different world with 3 more levels. Or even a boss after every whatever number of levels to look forward to.
The things you (penguin) mentioned are really important
Other stuffs to consider are:
A simple platformer is a fun one. I hate clutter, I'd rather have 1 cool, creative weapon than 5 boring crap ones. Did mario bros have a crapload of different items to pick up? Nope
As you said, control can make or break a game. Even if everything else about the game is awesome, i'm not going to to play past level 1 if making a jump is a quest unto itself. fine tune the controls to be responsive. It's a big mistake that newbs always make that distracts from what fun bits their game has.
Level design can also make a fun game. Make each level/area very different to the last and like Justin said, include some new hazard or feature that wasn't in the previous levels, or there will be nothing to look forward to and nothing to make you want beat it and go on to the next level.
All i can think of right now..
These are all pretty obvious and most don't really apply to a zone runner kinda game,
heh.
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Edited by the Author.
It arrives in a giant test tube lol
