Why are platform games on the Amiga really mediocre?

[Photon]

I think the answer to the question in topic headline is:

1. because we compare all platformers to Super Mario Bros, where absolutely tons to time and effort was spent on perfecting the playability.

That was because it was the killer app that would sell NES consoles, i.e. the game would ensure success for something else.

That meant no expense spared, and that is not possible in an already existing, vibrant competitive market like the Amiga games market where publishers pay to have games developed and incur huge fines for any delay past deadline.

The same can be said for Megadrive and Sonic.

After these were released, they became the benchmark to compare to, which is unfair. On the Amiga we were spoilt for choice with hundreds of platformers from small 2-3 person developer companies, on consoles you had a very few "hits" from developers who hired 3 people just to playtest games...

2. because a joystick using up to jump is plain cumbersome.

Just voltagefix a Megadrive compatible controller and connect its B button to "up" and quite a few Amiga platformers come alive! Snow Bros, Bubble Bobble, Giana Sisters, Turrican, Rainbow Islands...

So I don't think platformers are as bad as all that on Amiga, in fact I think you can't find a single home computer with more good platformers.

[wanderer]

Originally Posted by Photon

2. because a joystick using up to jump is plain cumbersome.

There was always something very natural about pushing Up to jump - you are moving upwards, after all. It makes perfect sense to me and never liked the addition of an extra button for such a natural movement.

For complex games with extra weapons etc. obviously extra buttons are great, but just for the jump? I can't recall a single platformer that caused me trouble for jumping and climbing ladders for example with one button alone.

(I might have already written all this in previous pages, this thread is a bit like a David Lynch film).

[Photon]

Originally Posted by wanderer

There was always something very natural about pushing Up to jump - you are moving upwards, after all. It makes perfect sense to me and never liked the addition of an extra button for such a natural movement.

For complex games with extra weapons etc. obviously extra buttons are great, but just for the jump? I can't recall a single platformer that caused me trouble for jumping and climbing ladders for example with one button alone.

(I might have already written all this in previous pages, this thread is a bit like a David Lynch film).

Just having the joystick+1 button limits the number of things you can do in the game, and the increasing number of buttons is what made increasingly more interesting and fun platformers possible on consoles.

Some Amiga platformers had fine-tuned gameplay requiring accurate moves on the part of the player. One requirement for many games was to hit diagonals correctly every time, and that is quite hard to do on a joystick. If you didn't you could fall off a moving platform, catch a bullet, land on an enemy instead of jumping over him, etc.

Joysticks are made for flying planes or spaceships. Thumb + A + B button is perfect for platformers because it moves the most important control in a platformer to a separate button.

Amiga supports multiple buttons, but few Amiga-enabled joysticks were made. So almost all the game developers made the games for single button joysticks and mapped jump to "up".

A gamepad really makes the difference where you have to time the jumps, try the suggested gamepad mod with f.ex. Bubble Bobble and you'll notice you don't curse anymore

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by Photon

A gamepad really makes the difference where you have to time the jumps, try the suggested gamepad mod with f.ex. Bubble Bobble and you'll notice you don't curse anymore

I couldn't agree more.

I spent my youth playing games on the Spectrum using a joystick. After playing console games for the past 20 years using gamepads I can't even begin to think how I managed using a joystick.