Why are platform games on the Amiga really mediocre?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

I hope i never have to look at Mr Beanbag fan art.

Should we put that on the pro side of being an Amiga dev?

[Arne]

A lot of Amiga platform games felt very 'walky' to me, but I guess there were exceptions. I was thinking about trying out some movement feels in AMOS a while ago but derailed and drew Ork inspired stuff:

Couldn't make multidirectional scrolling go fast enough anyways.

Speaking of going fast, you can google any name and add " the Hedgehog" to it. Quite reliable.

[Dastardly]

Originally Posted by TCD

You can compare Gods to Super Mario World, but that would be missing the point of the game. It's like comparing Chaos Engine to Smash TV...

This. You can't compare a Mario game to Gods. The Mario games are pure platformers where platforming IS the point. Progressing through the game from start to finish, the platforming becomes more difficult because that is the point. Gods is an action/puzzle game with platforms. The platforming in Gods is secondary and is no more difficult at the end of the game than it is at the start. The puzzles and action gets more difficult because THAT is the point.

Fair enough if you don't like it, but at least dislike it for the right reasons.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Dastardly

Fair enough if you don't like it, but at least dislike it for the right reasons.

[commodorejohn]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

I hope i never have to look at Mr Beanbag fan art.

So I guess you wouldn't want to see my...no, I suppose not... ;P

The point about mascot-itis is a good one, but I don't think it coincided with any particular increase in the amount of polish; something like Awesome Possum might've looked a little bit nicer than a lot of the pre-mascot platformers, but it was just as terrible from a design standpoint, and Bubsy was a poop sandwich even before the infamously terrible Playstation game.

[nobody]

Where exactly did i compare Super Mario to Gods? Gods was mentioned from other members as a great platform game, which isn't in my opinion and i think i stated the reasons already.
But anyway, feel free to write whatever you like if that makes you happy.

[TCD]

Well, err...

Originally Posted by nobody

Truth is that those games paled compared to the magnificence of Super Metroid or Super Mario World, Contra 3, Megaman X, Castlevania plus many others that no need to add.

There you did it, but feel free to try to make me look like I put words in your mouth

[nobody]

Hmm i see the word "those games", not Gods. Why not write Castlevania then instead of Mario. Something's wrong here or not.

[TCD]

You might want to re-read your whole post and especially the part about Gods' flaws. Sounded pretty obvious to me that you added Gods to the line of 'those games' there. I could say the same about all the games in that list with a slight exception for Super Metroid to a certain degree (still a very odd comparison, but at least the games have some aspects in common). I hope that makes you feel better.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

The point about mascot-itis is a good one, but I don't think it coincided with any particular increase in the amount of polish; something like Awesome Possum might've looked a little bit nicer than a lot of the pre-mascot platformers, but it was just as terrible from a design standpoint, and Bubsy was a poop sandwich even before the infamously terrible Playstation game.

By coincided i only mean that both trends were happening at the same time, not that one was the cause of the other. There were certainly still "unpolished" games being produced, but the rules of platform game design were being established, conventions were emerging. Of course even once you know the rules it is still possible to implement them extremely badly.

I never heard of Awesome Possum, but one thing i find interesting is that it uses an information panel at the top of the screen, with the character's face on it and everything. That is more usual of Amiga games than console games. Also they clearly got overexcited by the possibility of using sound samples.

[Retro1234]

I love Gods there I said it

As for "logic" gods and chaos engine are well beyond the average console game just look at Exl's CE editor.

[Nekoniaow]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

I know exactly what you mean. I never felt that games had to be forgiving and lead you by the hand back then, I thought it was the norm having frustrating controls and insane difficulty spikes, that was certainly my experience with lot's of c64/amiga games. As I got older I would just play those ones less.. The sheer effort in trying to finish some of these old titles was really quite something. Maybe it's a generational thing? Having started from the gaming school of hard knocks :-)

I don't think it's generational. It seems to me that we did not have much of a choice at the time. Very few Amiga developers cared about playability, because very few *knew* that it mattered.

I recall spending months on Shadow of the Beast, memorizing stupid surprise after stupid surprise in order to be able to discover what lied next. I clearly remember that the only thing that kept me going was the hope to see more beautiful sceneries and monsters ahead. Had there been an equally beautiful but appropriately playable game I would likely never have played SotB much but there wasn't much competition back then.

Add:
Also note that bad playability was not limited to Amiga (or console) games at that time. The arcade game Rastan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastan_(video_game)) which was mentioned recently in another thread is relatively nice to look at (a few levels only though, some are pretty bland) but is dreadful to play: jumps and shots are not easy at all to master and must be executed perfectly. As Mrs Beanbag mentioned, people were experimenting with gameplay ideas at the time and playability wasn't too visible on the radars.

There must be some good examples of Amiga developers using these techniques? Can't think of any off the top me head though. Ah, chaos engine had some pretty cool design, especially the music changing dynamically throughout the levels.

The fact that many Amiga developers were clearly hired guns by unscrupulous publishers (Probe with US Gold is the best example) certainly didn't help generate productive and gameplay focused teams. The Bitmap brothers certainly stood out because they were indeed a self constituted team of like minded creators but even them made their share of gameplay errors (cf the Gods's issues listed by Mrs Beanbag).

But I think the main factor is experience:
It took reflection two iterations to approach acceptable gameplay for SotB so it shows that teams get better at playability with practice. Another good illustration is that Turrican I and II have fantastic gameplay which draws directly from the experience of Manfred Trenz who was a seasoned and mature C64 developer.

It's possible that the arrival of consoles took away enough programmers from the Amiga development scene that this prevented experienced ones to create outstanding Amiga games and we were left with more beginners or simply bad ones than should be expected.

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

yes Retro. Japanese devs spent a lot of time polishing the game logic, while Euro devs were all running after a short deadline.

It's evident that when work is polished, it's obviously better than when it's rushed

But it's true that crap games can be found on all platforms

It's true that the Japanese teams gave more attention to playability but they were also running like mad after even more ridiculous deadlines. The main difference was that the Japanese had enough arcade experience to know that playability mattered while the European/US ones were still learning the ropes.
Nintendo had arcade and handheld experience long before the Amiga was even born so they could afford structuring teams more professionally.

Work that is polished and rushed is better than just rushed.

There are exceptions though: Jordan Mechner's clearly did put a lot of attention to the gameplay even for his early games. His diary from this era is quite instructive in this regard.

[dlfrsilver]

Yes, that's true But all in all, japanese used industrial production means, while it was not the case "here".

[CodyJarrett]

In case you want a reminder of the highest and lowest rated platformers, you can check out the Amiga Lore page:

http://www.abime.net/games/genre/platform

[Gordon]

Nice to see Soccer Kid so highly rated. Surprised to see Putty Squad so high though, i guess its just a combination of excitement and sentiment that got peoples votes.

[CodyJarrett]

It's based on magazine scores as well as user ratings and it was quite highly rated back in 1994.

[Mrs Beanbag]

um, you mean 2013

Robocod was, imho, the best platform game on the Amiga

[CodyJarrett]

Putty Squad was reviewed in the major magazines in 1994:

http://hol.abime.net/4395/review

They include screenshots from later levels so they must have had review copies.

[phx]

Originally Posted by Arne

Did you make these graphics? Great stuff! How many colors?
Just one score column is too many, to be able to display them with 16-colour attached sprites.

[Mrs Beanbag]

Originally Posted by CodyJarrett

Putty Squad was reviewed in the major magazines in 1994:

sorry! i feel really rude now! and before breakfast as well