I love platforming games, and since I’m a big fan of this video game genre, I decided to play quite a few games today that involved platforming. As a hardcore gamer, it has been built in me to notice the different types of rules and mechanics a game has to offer. As a developer, there is no better way to do this than to actually play the game myself. The main goal of this play session is to explore and to deepen my understanding of the different concepts and mechanics of platforming.
The Games:
- This Is The Only Level by jmtb02 (John)
The first game that was played today was a game called This Is The Only Level, a flash game created by jmtb02. The player plays as an elephant stuck in a room. The player can move this elephant by using the arrow keys on the keyboard. At the bottom right corner of the screen is a timer, which counts how many seconds or minutes a player has played the game. At the same area of the screen is a death counter, where the game counts how many times the player has died. The goal or objective of the game is simple. The player must move the elephant onto the tunnel located at the bottom right of the screen. The beginning level of the game is simple; however, as the player completes this “level”, the player is then brought back to the same exact level with a different color scheme. Also, every time the player finishes a level, the mechanics of the game randomly changes. Sometimes the controls get inverted, sometimes the player cannot step on a specific tile, and sometimes the player must spam a key in order to move.
I didn’t really play this game that much. It was fun for about 5-10 minutes, but that fun immediately dwindle down as the game became repetitive.
- Castle in the Darkness by Matt Kap and Nicalis, Inc.
The next game that was played today was a game called Castle in the Darkness. Castle in the Darkness is a platform(er) game created by Matt Kap and published by Nicalis, Inc. The player plays as the last surviving royal guard whose duty is to vanquish and defeat all monsters that’s causing trouble around the kingdom. Like any platformer games, players can move around using the keyboard arrow keys. The player can press the X keyboard to jump, and C to attack. All throughout the game, the player can get different weapons, armor, items, and powerups that will help him/her defeat enemies and cross different paths.
I have played this game for a total of 2 hours through the course of 1-month, but for the sake of play testing, I decided to pick this game since this was one of the best platformers I had ever played. The general playtest took about 10 minutes, where 2 minutes were spent trying to remember/figure out the controls.
- Wizard Wizard by Crateboy
WizardWizard is a platform game created by Crateboy where the player plays as a Wizard who’s on a journey. The main goal (or the story) of the game wasn’t really stated in the introduction of the game. Since the game lacked context, I assumed that the game was in a post-apocalyptic medieval scenario where people are in different dimensions based on the first few things that I saw.
First, let’s look at the design of the game. Overall, the game design is aesthetically pleasing. The platforms, terrains, and even the obstacles are positioned very well. The background and music fits the theme of the game as well. The levels seems to contain a key, a closed door, some sort of deadly contraption, and sometimes even NPC’s who spouts absolute nonsense (e.g. “I lost my Facebook password”… what?).
Now let’s look at the mechanics of the game. The mechanics or the controls of the game is fairly simple; simply use the keyboard arrow keys to move around the level. In order to move around from level to level, the player must obtain a key for each level. Once the player collects the key, the player will now be able to move onto the next level through the now opened door. Sounds easy right? Wrong.
Across the level are different types of contraption such as moving spiked wheels and guillotine pendulums. If the player hits any of these contraptions, then the player dies. If the player falls off, then the player dies again. The game counts these deaths through a death counter. Luckily, the player does not have a limited amount of lives like in Super Mario so they can just keep on trying over and over again. The game was pretty fun despite its difficulty, and so I decided to look at its source code.
After looking through the source code of the game, I can definitely say that the developer put a lot of time into creating this game. There are at least over 20 different objects, 20 different sprites, 20 different terrains, and almost all of it has some code or some interaction within it. The game looked really really simple, but underneath it was a much more complex environment of codes. As an aspiring game developer, this has become one of my motivations to finally create something new.
The Similarities:
In most platformer games the player has one main objective, and that is to either defeat a villain or to get to the end level. This often times falls under a narrative or a story that a player must finish. The controls are simple (e.g. arrow keys control) and can easily be remembered after a few tries. Another mechanic that is similar would be the concept of a death counter. Most platformer games tend to challenge the player(s) by adding in difficult obstacles along the way. In WizardWizard, that obstacle was the spiked wheel or contraption, in Castle in the Darkness it was different monsters, bosses, and spiked walls and floors. Even in a simple game like This Is The Only Level, the obstacle that prevented the player from just completing the game was a simple floor spike.
The Perspectives:
Playing video games is a form of entertainment, and entertainment brings in an audience. Being a player and an audience are two different things. As a player, you get to experience all these magnificent and difficult tasks at hand. You get to experiment what you can and cannot do in a game. You get to know and feel the mechanics and the overall design of the game. However, as an audience or spectator, you can barely grasp these factors or rules at hand. You can only watch what is happening but not experience it. This makes things difficult for spectators to fully understand the game itself.
Before I played the game This Is The Only Level, I watched my classmate Elton play it. The game looked simple and the objective was easy to figure out. But as the game progressed, I started noticing that Elton was having problems trying to finish the game. I didn’t know why at the time, but then as I played the game myself, I understood the reasoning behind it. The game mechanics were changing. It was making things more difficult than it was before. This is something that spectators cannot fully experience when they are just watching.
Conclusion:
Video games, specifically platformer games, tend to have very similar mechanics. The only separating category would be story line, artwork, level design, and the difficulty of the game. Some games are simple, while some other games are very complicated or difficult. Nonetheless, they’re still very enjoyable and I will keep on playing (and loving) platforming games.
A New Player Has Arrived 