Platformer is a genre of computer games in which the gameplay is based on jumping on platforms, climbing ladders, and collecting items needed to defeat enemies or complete a level.
Many games of this genre are characterized by unrealistic, drawn cartoon graphics. Characters of such games are often fictional creatures (for example, dragons, goblins) or anthropomorphic animals.
Platformers appeared in the early 1980s and became three-dimensional toward the end of the 1990s. Some time after the genre was formed, it got this name, reflecting the fact that platformers focus their gameplay on jumping on platforms as opposed to shooting. It is true that many platformers feature small arms, in games such as Blackthorne or Castlevania, for example. The latter served as the basis of the metroidvania subgenre.
Major representatives of platformers include Commander Keen, Magic Pockets, Baby Jo in “Going Home”, Bumpy`s Arcade Fantasy, Rick Dangerous, Adventures of Lomax, Electro Man, the Prince of Persia series, Sonic the Hedgehog, Ratchet and Clank, Rockman, Super Mario, Rayman, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Sly Cooper, LittleBigPlanet. Many of these started in the 1980s and continue to this day.
Some items, called power-ups, grant the player-controlled character a special power that usually runs out over time (for example: force field, acceleration, increased jump height). Collectibles, weapons, and power-ups are usually collected by simply touching the character and require no special action on the player’s part to use. Less frequently, items are collected in the hero’s “inventory” and applied by a special command (this behavior is more typical of arcade puzzle games). A similar genre of computer games side-scroller.
Opponents (called “enemies”), always numerous and heterogeneous, have primitive artificial intelligence, trying to get as close to the player as possible, or do not have it at all, moving in a circular distance or performing repetitive actions. Coming into contact with an enemy usually drains the hero’s life force or kills him altogether. Sometimes an enemy can be neutralized either by jumping on its head or with a weapon if the hero possesses one. The death of living creatures is usually depicted simplistically or symbolically (the creature disappears or falls down off the screen).
Levels are usually full of secrets (hidden passages in the walls, high or hard-to-reach places), finding which greatly facilitates the passage and fuels the player’s interest.
