8:00 It's also worth mentioning that Shigeru Miyamoto has cited Pac-Land as an influence on SMB, although he says he'd already had the idea for a side-scrolling Mario Bros game and was just waiting for the right time to make it.
Some other impressive early ones were Aztec, Below the Root, Pharaoh's Curse, Montezuma's Revenge, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Spelunker and Impossible Mission. But these all go in an action adventure direction, in fact a couple of them could be considered very early Metroidvanias. Good video!
Great video. It's important to recognize why Super Mario Bros was so much better than e.g. Pac Land or the earlier Mario games. SMB had a revolutionary control scheme. It featured pretty advanced physics with acceleration and deceleration, it allowed for variable jump heights depending on how long you press the jump button, and it allowed for steering while in the air, e.g. to aim where you fall on.
It's might be worth mentioning Snokie (1983, if the in-game copyright is to be believed). It did coalesce several platformer elements, albeit not to the same degree as Pac-Land, of what would be codified into the genre as we know it. There's no way to be sure if this obscure American-made game was any influence on Pac-Land. On one hand, foreign computer games are occasionally cited as inspirations for Japanese games (e.g., Drol on Sega's Flicky). On the other hand, could've just been independent convergence.
8:00 It's also worth mentioning that Shigeru Miyamoto has cited Pac-Land as an influence on SMB, although he says he'd already had the idea for a side-scrolling Mario Bros game and was just waiting for the right time to make it.
Some other impressive early ones were Aztec, Below the Root, Pharaoh's Curse, Montezuma's Revenge, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Spelunker and Impossible Mission. But these all go in an action adventure direction, in fact a couple of them could be considered very early Metroidvanias. Good video!
Great video. It's important to recognize why Super Mario Bros was so much better than e.g. Pac Land or the earlier Mario games. SMB had a revolutionary control scheme. It featured pretty advanced physics with acceleration and deceleration, it allowed for variable jump heights depending on how long you press the jump button, and it allowed for steering while in the air, e.g. to aim where you fall on.
I didn’t even know about most of these games
That digging the alien game looks fun.
"Lode runner" is very close.
Released 3y later, and better known I think.
It's might be worth mentioning Snokie (1983, if the in-game copyright is to be believed). It did coalesce several platformer elements, albeit not to the same degree as Pac-Land, of what would be codified into the genre as we know it.
There's no way to be sure if this obscure American-made game was any influence on Pac-Land. On one hand, foreign computer games are occasionally cited as inspirations for Japanese games (e.g., Drol on Sega's Flicky). On the other hand, could've just been independent convergence.
Frog was also a game were you can jump from left to right and back again.
But that game might be boring after a while.
I was born in 1979… so close!