What Made Those Old, 2D Platformers So Great? 249
TheManagement writes "Many current developers of web games seem to have a fondness for 2D platformers. However, their desire to capture what made Sonic and Mario games so great is rarely achieved. In an attempt to breach that gap, Significant Bits takes a look at three common design principles that made those classic titles so enjoyable. 'To start off, the interface needs to be quick and responsive. Input should have an immediate effect on the character in order to foster a sense of full control. Granularity and different control techniques, i.e., pressing, tapping and holding, are also important as they provide a level of precision to the movement. ... Now, as far as the environments themselves, it's not a coincidence that they're often filled with all sorts of slides, bridges, trampolines, ladders, etc. In a way, they're simply playgrounds for the player, both literally and figuratively. They're catered to the moveset, and they enhance the flow of the game.'"
The delusion of the 3D silver bullet (Score:3, Interesting)
2D is a superior approach for such games because they allow you to see everything in your vicinity, makes moving simple, and so on. It's just the better approach for such games.
That's the problem with the novelty effect of 3D, it had us under the delusion that 2D was a thing of the past and that everything had to be 3D, as much as possible, as if it was something you couldn't get too much of.
It surely has a name, but that's just a common thing when a novel technology/technique/approach appears to believe that it can replace entirely anything else. Which means I believe soon enough when the novelty of 3D graphics will have died for good then we'll see ourselves definitely sticking to 2D for certain types of games. Just because sometimes it's better (see Sonic on Genesis vs Sonic in 3D)
Complexity of input instead of gameplay (Score:3, Interesting)
Without 3D, and often without mouse, you got people doing advanced A-B-B-A-Select-Start-A whatever combos to play the game. Now it's a lot more focus on being in the right position to fire their gun or do the jump and kick. Yes, 2D games are great and fun in many ways - but they're also quite limited. Don't get me wrong, I loved the old isometric games, but I also love the freeform 3D capability of rotating the view, zooming the view to watch exactly what you want from the angle you wnat. Very often the flat 2D battles would involve exactly one tactic, moving in the same way around the screen each time. In 3D you might still have much of the same but it's always more different, more varied. I think a good eaxmple would be old Super Mario vs Super Mario Galaxy - essentially the same game in 2D and 3D. I much prefer the 3D version. Same with King's Bounty: The Legend which I think is a much underrated - the freeform 3D makes it so much better than old HOMM games. Sorry, but the only time I think 2D is that great is when I put on my big old nostalgia glasses.
pixel perfect synched scrolling (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the thing that made these 2D scroller feel so great was the perfect scrolling synched with the "VBL" (Vertical Blank Line). There were many amazing 2D scrollers, for example, on the Amiga. The screen could refresh at either 50 or 60 Hz depending on your location (europe and US, for example, had monitor with different default refresh rate).
This is not at all "nostalgia": it's not something I'm making up. It is not an opinion, it is a *fact*. You cannot argue with a fact.
A game run on a system that refresh the screen 60 times per second, where the game's background move by 1 pixel (or 2 [1,2, 3, 4 used to work fine]) at every refresh at a very special "smooth" feeling that has *never* been matched.
It wasn't just Sonic's great control, the cool game elements, the great "simplification" that 2D brings: it was also a very special visual "feeling" due to having the game's logic intrinsically tied to the hardware it was run on.
Years after my "Amiga 2D scrollers time", I was playing competitive Counter-Strike, using "low-poly" mods to enhance the framerate of my (sucky) PC. I reached 99 fps but 3D games will never *ever* reach the smoothness that a good 2D scroller tied to the hardware had.
The young generation shall never understand this. I'm probably very bad at explaining it. It's something you need to see to understand what the "old grandpa's" are "nostalgic" about.
Just like demo from "the scene", way before it was called "the scene" had amazing effects that newer demo simply cannot match.
Sure, you have 3D effects using 100 millions polys/sec running at 800 fps (just half-joking) but the "smoothness" of the good old 2D Amiga demos has never been matched.
Food for thoughts.
2D vs. 3D platforming - why not both? (Score:1, Interesting)
This AC mostly agrees with the parent.
However, I think Mirror's Edge has shown that 3D platforming can work, too. It adhered to the same design principles while being 3D, and the platforming felt very solid.
As for the controls, they were relatively simple, input had an immediate effect, timing was important, and controls could be combined into sequences for more complex stunts (e.g. wallrun + turn 90 + jump + turn 180 + jump from opposing wall to quickly reach that roof during the New Eden chapter). The environment was pretty much designed to provide a sense of flow with the available moveset, after the player has practiced a bit.
Too bad the story and the tacked-on combat system sucked. I had great fun with the platforming parts.
-AC
Re:There was nothing better at the time... (Score:1, Interesting)
My first gaming console was a PS2 and I love the hell out of some Super Mario World. Those games aren't terrible by any standard, except maybe technological. A great game, like any other work of art, will withstand any test that time can bring.
It wasn't just the designers! (Score:2, Interesting)
I can think of a good list of reasons why 2D platform games were (and to an extent, still are) great.
Firstly, I'd say replayability. The best-looking game of the time was just another game once you finished it. Most games of the time opted for difficulty settings, which provided a sense of replayability without significant design challenges (adding more monsters is easy). I myself became burnt out on those, because they got repetitive and nothing was new beyond a plot twist at the end; I enjoy the lengthy, involving games.
Secondly, I'd say that the designers of the time cared about the human factor. Yes, they paid attention to precision control, which is something I miss these days. They made doing that instantaneous joystick yoga both fun and challenging! They also made it easy to understand the game mechanics. The KISS principle does work!
Thirdly, I'd say that the designers of the time enjoyed level creation. It was how you created the game to maximize the enjoyment and involvement of the player that mattered. Yes, better graphics matter, but when it comes at the expense of bettering that involvement, it becomes increasingly less excellent.
Fourthly, Gameplay designers (call them level designers, or UI designers, or whatever) should go back to using their little kids to test them on. I sincerely doubt that Pac-man was made by a jaded, mind-in-the-rut designer, just as I doubt that the Sid Meyer franchises (which I thoroughly enjoyed) was an exercise in doing the next "good enough" thing.
Fifthly, it wasn't the designers who disappointed us, it was us who disappointed the designers in accepting the stupid titles out there as "okay". Once it was lucrative to just manufacture the next good enough thing, the truly unique titles almost vanished. Perhaps we shrugged off those oldies in the name of "growing up", but isn't gaming about enjoying the kid in all of us?
The old designers created things that stood out. Perhaps the fact that there wasn't that much out there helped. Aside from that, though, they created things that you could put your mind to, and as a player become engaged in that world. Even if it wasn't quite as unique as the next title, it was still enjoyable. How many us have played Solitaire? It wasn't at all unique, but it was engaging and easy to sneak between tasks.
No limits (Score:5, Interesting)
Today things are starting to get better, 3-D seems less limiting then before, yet with the rise of HD TVs, faster CPUs, etc. I doubt that we can really get seemingly unlimited 3-D games until close to the next revolution, be it true 3-D, VR, or something different. The rise of flash memory, faster drives and HDs in game consoles have cut down on load times too. But still 3-D doesn't seem as limitless as 2-D platforming was.
Re:One word. (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course this doesn't apply only to video games, but also movies, music, etc. We remember the good and throw out most of the bad.
I've never felt that new music is worse than old music. Old music is stuff I've heard so many times that I no longer get that feeling when you hear a good tune for the first time, so new music will always be better than old music :-)
Re:Noticeable lag, even if framerates are OK (Score:3, Interesting)
It's in a similar vein, but another thing I find really annoying is when games draw their own cursor instead of using a hardware accelerated cursor. It instantly makes me not want to play the game ever, as the mouse is incredibly choppy in comparison, no matter how fast your system is.
For example, yesterday I had a hankering to play Heroes of Might and Magic 3, which is a game that was released in 1999 and required a Pentium 133 to run. While it's still as fun as it always was, the cursor is still choppy, even on a modern system. I'm pretty sure the entire game runs at a fixed 30 FPS or so, including the mouse. In this case, it's not as annoying, because it's entirely turn based, but it'd be a much better game with a proper mouse cursor.
New games are still making this mistake and it baffles me how it doesn't infuriate the developers enough to fix it.
I certainly design with (input) snappiness in mind, if you have a peek at Game! [wittyrpg.com] you'll notice that everything is very fast. Pages are small and load fast, AJAX is sprinkled about heavily to improve response time (though only where it makes sense), etc. It's not difficult to do really, you just have to keep it in mind.
Re:2D vs. 3D platforming - why not both? (Score:3, Interesting)
Did we really need to wait for Mirror's Edge to find out that 3D platforming can work? I figure Mario 64 and Tomb Raider established that pretty well in 1996.
Re:One word. (Score:4, Interesting)
Nethack is one of those extremely misunderstood games. It has nothing to do with obtaining the Amulet of Yendor, killing monsters, or acquiring items. The sole purpose of each revision of the game is to find and exploit bugs in the game. For example, back when it was Rogue (I'm talking circa 1985) there was a bug where you could heal up without monsters getting a turn by hitting the space-bar. More recently you could get unlimited wands of wishing by killing the respawning elemental on the castle level. There are thousands of other exploits that have been used over the years.
My father still plays Nethack occasionally and will use od and a hex-editor to modify save files.
It's not about winning. It's about the "hacking" to win.
Re:The fact that you were younger and less jaded t (Score:5, Interesting)
Not so. My son (who is 5) enjoys 2D Mario games on the Nintendo better than he does Mario 64 on the N64 (the first of the genre to have full 3D, IIRC). And he enjoys the "mini-game" Donkey Kong throwback in SMB3 better than those.
Hell, when I was a kid of 10-13 I remember spending quite a few hours playing old Atari games when I had newer stuff available to me. The games had to be better because the graphics didn't compensate for a poor game experience by 'distracting' the player.
Re:2D vs. 3D platforming - why not both? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only that but even games like Rayman 2, Jak 3, the entire Prince of Persia series and even (if it can be considered one) Assassin's Creed have done brilliant things that truly take advantage of 3D to create an experience far beyond what would be possible with just 2D.
Of course, the opposite is also true as every 3D Castlevania is a lamentable testament to. So yeah, why choose one or the other? both have their advantages, and while I *would* like 2D platformers to have a bigger emphasis in today's "OMG shinies!" gaming, I wouldn't want 3D platformers to go away entirely either.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Simplicity of Gameplay/Wii (Score:2, Interesting)
With 3D (and starting with Mortal Kombat fighters) things started to get horribly complicated, as another poster pointed out. You threw the ball, you were the ball, you were the football player catching the ball.
But none of this made the game better long-term.
I think the Wii solved this by making the controller much more intuitive. Right now, I'm having a ton of fun on the iPhone with a game called iFighter. It's a ton of fun. And 2D. But 2D with the accelerometer.
Re:Nostalgia (Score:5, Interesting)
They seem to filter out or forget all off the crappy ones
Well, yeah, because there where enough good ones so that we didn't have to play the crappy ones. Look at the adventure genre, LucasArts had a new title ready every year and each of those was awesome. How often do high quality adventures released today? Not much at all, most are rather mediocre. And that is ignoring all the non-LucasArts adventure games from back in the day, some of them where pretty awesome too. And now don't let me start on the flightsim genre, as that is pretty much dead and burried today and the amount of good flightsim is close to zero.
Re:simple, simple, simple (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. Well Said.
The reason Wii became such a monstrous success is because of its simplicity. Its graphics isn't that great.
I took one look at XBox 360 controller and did not buy it because it looked "so alien".
I need a controller that goes with the flow. Like a joystick and one button.
Or two buttons max.
The key to earlier games being so good is because these guys knew human psychology and physiological limitations. Plus add to the constraints of those era.
The human brain can at most do 3-4 tasks parallelly with two hands.
The earlier CPUs can handle only so much on-screen painting. So the designers had to be clever to make use of psychology as much as CPU power.
The iPhone enforces that simplicity today forcing developers to use their brains instead of LoC.
The Wii does the same thing. No wonder EA hates it.
KISS. Its a principle that is universal.
Re:Complexity of input instead of gameplay (Score:2, Interesting)