A Brief History of the Platform Game Genre

Platform games (or platformers) are a popular video game genre. A platform game requires the player to guide their character through a game world, completing levels by jumping to and from suspended platforms and over obstacles. Platforming mechanics consist of jump mechanics but also include swinging from extendable objects or bouncing from springboards or trampolines, floating, walking, running, and swimming. Games in this genre use platforms to set the difficulty and focus of each level which the players movement relies heavily on the the "Jump" button.

The platform game genre began in the early 1980s and became big part of popular culture in the 1990s and at one point was the most popular game platform.  In 2006 platformers seem to have plateaued becoming a smaller percent of the market share. In 2010 a variety of endless running platformers  for mobile devices breath new life into the genre. 

This genre has been released to many different mediums such as arcades, personal computers, handheld systems and consoles.  In the early 1980s arcade games such as Donkey Kong were confined to a static playing field, generally viewed in profile.  Shortly after Donkey Kong was released Jump Bug, a simple platform shooter introduced scrolling movement.  In 1982 games such as Jungle hunt and Pitfall introduced the swinging mechanic to the genre.  Each release in the early1980s had a lot of improvements on the genre and in 1985 Super Mario Bros was released and became the archetype for many platformers to follow. 1990 marked the release of 16 bit home consoles and featured 2D games like Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. With the release of 32 bit consoles came the decline of 2D games and the emergence of 2.5D games, such as Donkey Kong Country, as developers struggled with creating a fully capable 3D game. With the evolution into 3D platformers developers frequently couple elements of other genres such as shooter, adventure and RPG essentially blurring the line between the platform and other genres creating some interesting sub-genres. 

2007-2008 brought the release of titles such as Super Mario Galaxy and Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction and the hit Little Big Planet which paired traditional 2D platform game mechanics with physics simulation and user created content earning strong sales making it critically acclaimed. More recently in 2012, Nintendo release New Super Mario Bros 2 for the 3DS and New SuperMario Btros U for the Wii U.

There are plenty of platformer gams on mobile devices these days.  Ski Safari represents mobile gaming's 2D platformer and the new Pitfall, a game based on the original 2D platformer now represents the move to 3D platforming on mobile and Shadogun, a modern first-person shooter platform game is one that keeps me busy these days.  What platformers are on your list of favorites?