Platform-a-lotis

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Drew Sebastino
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by Drew Sebastino »

tepples wrote:And a run-and-gun would still be...a platformer!
Is Super Smash Bros also platformer? :lol:
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by tepples »

Super Smash Bros. series are platform fighting games, as is PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. The adventure mode of Melee and "The Subspace Emissary" mode of Brawl are platform beat-em-ups, as is Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion. The Curse of Possum Hollow for NES is also a platform beat-em-up.

If Mega Man is a platformer, then so is Contra, as the biggest differences I can see between the two are multidirectional fire in the latter and a life bar and weapon acquisition from bosses in the former.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by mikejmoffitt »

I don't think it's fair to call platforming a genre, in the same way game music or anime are poor genres for their corresponding media. Those are more like attributes. Game music can be done in a classical style, or reggae, or whatever else. A game that features platforming can have RPG elements, or a rhythm component, or shmup-like shooting and dodging features. To have to lock it in to one of those descriptors does a disservice to the game's diversity. However, from the start of different types of games following Pong, games have been categorized this way, so it's hard to represent a game in a short and sweet fashion without doing so.
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by rainwarrior »

Oziphantom wrote:Does the NES homebrew scene suffer from Platfom-a-lotis too. From looking around it seems to me that there is a new kickstarter and oh look its another platform game where you walk through doors and collect the things?
Here's the NES games that I can remember crowd funding campaigns for:
  • Eskimo Bob - Platformer
  • Twin Dragons - Platformer
  • Spook-O-Tron - Robotron
  • The Banketh - Zelda
  • Super Russian Roulette - Light Gun?
  • Mystic Searches - Zelda
  • Lizard - Platformer
So, yes if you're going by Kickstarter there's maybe an imbalance of platform games, slightly, but when you're talking about 7 games it's not a very good statistical sample. (Maybe there's also Dreamworld Pogie to add to this list, but I'm omitting it because the game was actually made in 1992.)

If you look at RetroUSB's homebrew section or InfiniteNESLives', there are a few platform games but there's a lot of other stuff in comparison. Same with the Action 53 collections. I do think there's a slight bias toward platform games across the NESDev Compo entries in aggregate.

I think there's a platformer bias on the NES as a whole, really. It might be a bias that applies to games in general, especially when using sprite graphics instead of 3D polygon projection. There's never been a shortage of platformers, on any system I can think of.
Oziphantom wrote:What other game types would people be interested in?
If you're asking about the NESDev crowd, well really the question is what type of games are individual NES developers interested in. I don't think much else matters besides the individual person. These tend to be rather personal projects, based on what that person is interested in, not people at large.

Personally, I keep a list of ideas for games that I'd like to make. There's about 10 serious entries on this list, and I think 2 of them are platformers. When I had the means to start a project, the one I was most interested in happened to be a platformer, so that's what I'm making right now. I've got two other NES games I'd like to make if I can manage, and both of them would fit in other categories... so I mean, right now statistically it looks like I'm 100% interested in making platformers on the NES, but if I had a chance to make more games it would look more like 33% or 20%, eh?
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by Drew Sebastino »

tepples wrote:If Mega Man is a platformer, then so is Contra
Except if you take out the gunfire in Contra, none of the platforming is remotely challenging? Does this look like a typical platformer level? https://www.spriters-resource.com/fullview/33820/
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by FrankenGraphics »

I suppose it's a platformer if there's platforms and gravity? So green beret/rush n attack would be a platformer, although a very rudimentary one. You can't fall to your player characters' death (if you don't fall on a mine). Same with moon patrol (a bit more deadly, but very rudimentary).
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by pubby »

Contra is a 3d room shooter ;)
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by psycopathicteen »

Something that gets on my nerves with homebrew NES games is the lack of moving platforms. How about some infinitely spawning platforms going up into a spiked ceiling, or going down into a spiked floor that you have to quickly dodge? Also, how about some power ups, instead of just coins.

About making a run'n'gun on the NES, the fact that the NES is limited in sprites onscreen makes it easier to animate them. Also, isn't there a mapper that lets 8x16 sprites use 512 CHR patterns while backgrounds use another set of 256?
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by lidnariq »

psycopathicteen wrote:isn't there a mapper that lets 8x16 sprites use 512 CHR patterns while backgrounds use another set of 256?
Yeah, MMC5 supports eight banks for sprites when they're 8x16.

Of course, then you have the normal 8x16 problem with consuming your very limited overdraw on sprites that aren't full-height.
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Interactables overall are easily overlooked (probably because of map complexity?) What could happen when you step on/push/shoot/jump on/into a block? A lot.
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by psycopathicteen »

lidnariq wrote:
psycopathicteen wrote:isn't there a mapper that lets 8x16 sprites use 512 CHR patterns while backgrounds use another set of 256?
Yeah, MMC5 supports eight banks for sprites when they're 8x16.

Of course, then you have the normal 8x16 problem with consuming your very limited overdraw on sprites that aren't full-height.
I think that could be fixed by arranging the OAM a certain way that empty halves of sprites get dropped out. If you have a 8x16 sprite but only the top half is used, every sprite that exists on the same line as the bottom half can have priority over it.
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by calima »

I guess that's a SNES-ism? NES drops sprites left to right.
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by psycopathicteen »

calima wrote:I guess that's a SNES-ism? NES drops sprites left to right.
Wait? Then how do NES games alternate between what sprites get dropped out first?
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by lidnariq »

NES drops out sprites from end of OAM first, by which I mean the first 8 matches from lowest-index sprite to highest-index sprite get shown and the rest don't.

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the SNES to explain exactly how this differs from the SNES.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Platform-a-lotis

Post by rainwarrior »

psycopathicteen wrote:
calima wrote:I guess that's a SNES-ism? NES drops sprites left to right.
Wait? Then how do NES games alternate between what sprites get dropped out first?
Not "left to right" in every sense but it's priority goes low index to high index. Sprite 0 has the highest priority and is never dropped, sprite 63 has the lowest and will get dropped out first on any line with more than 8 sprites. It doesn't matter where they are horizontally on the line.

NES games make them alternate with software that changes the order of the sprites as they appear in OAM. (I don't know how it's done on SNES.)

Edit: lidnariq was answering at the same time. Redundant again, I guess. :*
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