Dispute About Classification of Early Platformers
The term "platform game" is somewhat ambiguous, particularly in reference to many games predating the widespread international usage of the term. The concept of a platform game as it was defined in its earliest days is somewhat different from how the term is commonly used today.
The genre of non-scrolling platformers featuring ladders was initially referred to as "climbing games." These included Donkey Kong, Canyon Climber, Miner 2049'er, Lode Runner, and others. The two most common gameplay goals of climbing games were to get to the top of the screen or to collect all of a particular item. The first two screens of Donkey Kong illustrate both of these.
Beginning with Space Panic, a small genre of games emerged, characterized by a profile view, and a game field consisting of a number of tiers connected by ladders. By 1983, press in the UK began referring to these tiers as "platforms" and started calling these titles "platform games" not long after.
The term has since gained wide use in North America, and across Europe, and since the earliest uses, the concept has evolved, particularly as the genre peaked in popularity during the latter half of the 1980s. Many of the games that were part of the early platform genre, such as Donkey Kong and Miner 2049er are still regarded as platform games in the modern sense.
Read more about this topic: Platform Game
Famous quotes containing the words dispute about, dispute and/or early:
“Your next-door neighbour ... is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a pianola; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are better than yours.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“As for the dispute about solitude and society, any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plane at the base of a mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Pray be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, see, however, all that is to be seen there; know as many people, and get into as many houses as ever you can.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)