Gaming

So yeah, as mentioned in the post, I'm currently playing Astro Bot and absolutely loving it.

The gameplay is fun and varied and everything is so playful and full of joy. The music is super wholesome and I love how tactile everything feels.

I'm going through a bit of a harder period mentally and I find that this game can bring moments of wonder and surprise like few others can.

I had a similar experience with Astro's Playroom and Super Mario 3D World. Sometimes a simple, colorful world with happy music and fun mechanics is all you need!

I love platformers. For 2d, I usually prefer action platformers over pure platforming. So, let's see what comes to mind.

You gamers HAVE to play Sheepy: A Short Adventure. It's free and has an exceptional atmosphere.

I started with what I had fond memories of and came to mind, but of course, I went to my steam library, and looked through games tagged platformer. And now I'm wondering if I should also link my reviews of the titles, specifically the most interesting ones. Either way, the list of fond memories / very positives became too long for one list, so it's split by category now.

3d ego platformers

• A Story About My Uncle, left a lasting impact on me back then as a very good if not exceptional title
• Portal
• Hot Lava, great, pure 3d platformer, a lot of of quality content
• Supraland, 3d puzzle and action platformer

3d 3rd-person platformers

• New Super Lucky's Tale, a great 3d platformer
• A Hat in Time, a great 3d platformer, with cute characters, good humor
• RiME, I remember I wrote a very positive review about RiME
• A Short Hike, great
• Yooka-Laylee

2d platformers

• Sheepy: A Short Adventure, free, exceptional atmosphere
• Ori, with its great atmosphere and visuals
• Webbed, very cute, great theming, playing as a spider
• Yoku's Island Express, great mixing of pinball and platformer, in a great setting
• Spiritfarer, great atmosphere
• Battleblock Theater, great absurd humor
• Super Meat Boy, ok, this has been a long time ago, but it was incredibly fluid and fast, with a ton of content
• Dustforce DX
• Jubilee, I played this on my Steam Deck quite a bit (unfortunately no save sync)
• Trine, for its great physics approach and narrated humorous storytelling
• Wunderling DX, an "auto-runner platformer", quite interesting, well polished, so try to for something different
• Braid, I don't actually know if it holds up today, it's been so long ago

I'd love to hear your opinions on

• A Highland Song, deep lore, great atmosphere - I felt a bit lost though, or wasn't captivated beyond that, and beyond one run
• Treasures of Aegean, another "roguelite" platformer, with interesting progression and discovery - still, I found it well made, but ultimately not personally captivating, maybe because of the disorganized nature [of re-runs and timeloop-crossing story]
• Sable, only partially platformer, and not the best quality overall, but great atmosphere, exploration, and platforming discovery
• Verlet Swing
• Viking Hiking
• Grow Home

My favorite platformer is hollow Knight (if that counts), and Celeste is my second favorite. I like my platformers to be challenging.

I love 2D platformers, especially metroidvanias. Some of my favorite ones (not just metroidvanias) are Battleblock Theater, Dead Cells, Hollow Knight and the Ori games.

I also think 3D Platforming sucks, so I try to avoid games, where this is the main gameplay. I've played some, like Portal or Grow Home, which I thought were good, but you probably won't ever catch me playing some 3D collectathons or something.

I absolutely adored Hollow Knight, but my favourite platformer gotta be Celeste. In no small part due to its accessibility, but also great character writing, organic learning curve and gorgeous soundtrack!

On a more replayable side, my most played platformer is Dead Cells - which is understandable, since it is a roguelike.

Overall, in a platformer game I value learning curve and ease of controls more, since I'm not very good at this genre (as opposed to soulslikes, where I usually welcome the challenge). But of course, a good story transcends genres.

WTF is Mascot Platformers? Is it just platformers? If so megaman zero is still hands down the best series

Love ~~playformers~~ platformers especially 2D, although Astro's Playhouse was a favourite too, but mostly for the creativity with the controller.

For 2D I particularly liked the Ori games, so much love in the design of those games and the gameplay yo match

There are surprisingly many great 3D platformers coming out atm. Last year we had Pseudoregalia, Cavern of Dreams and Corn Kidz 64. This year we've had Penny's Big Breakaway and The Big Catch: Tacklebox, which itself is a free demo/prologue chapter for The Big Catch, coming out next year (and is also my most hotly anticipated upcoming game, even more so than Hollow Knight Silksong. I mean just look at that trailer and tell me the vibes aren't peak!).

It's a good time to be a fan of 3D platformers.

For me, great platformers have fluid and responsive controls, and either implement a forgiving persisting experience (climbing the environment) or quick and not too far-off resets (level screens).

Platforming can be great in pure platformers, action platformers, 2d or 3d. They may shift but do not limit how stories can be told and how worlds or progression can be designed.

I imagine it can be difficult to balance forgiving platforming with challenges between novice and experienced players. Often, we see alternative or stretch-goal paths for collectibles or challenges, which is a good approach to serve both kinds of players - even if maybe not total novices.

Introducing game mechanics step by step can give good introductions and learning controls, preferably in-game without dialogue, popups, or text-only introductions. They can guide into a natural level and mechanics design progression, giving a natural progression across longer gameplay.

Platformers are amazing. I think I like most of the big series that I've played---Mario, Sonic, DKC, Crash, Mega Man, etc.---and I really enjoy indie platformers.

Recent indie games that have taken the tried and true formula of unforgiving precision platforming to the extreme are also amazing. Celeste is a gorgeous games, Kaze kicks ass and retro throwback games like Byte the Bullet and Bzzzt are soooo satisfying.

I like a good pick up and play game, platformers fit the bill.

Once muscle memory kicks in, you're golden. As long as the learning curve is right.

Going back and playing the first levels with the skill gained by completing the game is such a good feeling.

For me, SMB Wonder is a 10/10 platformer if we're looking at recent 2D only. I don't know many 3D platformers, but Crash 4 is a must play (I think that's the most recent 3D platformer I've played).

What I don't like about the genre, is that I'm bad at it. 🙃

More seriously, I do find it kind of frustrating at times. Restarting ten times in a roguelike, no problem, because it's always a new challenge.
But if I miss the same jump ten times, or have to retry the same platforming passage ten times, you'll see me getting impatient, which means I'll fail the next ten attempts, too...

I personally have a soft spot for 2D platformers from the Sonic series since I got a copy of the Sonic Mega Collection on gamecube when I was young and loved it. I don't care if some games do a better job of having worlds where they're speedy like Green Hill or slow like Carnival Nights (or whatever it's called), I just like running across the screen. Same thing applies to the 3D games (even the flop I still think was a pretty good game: Sonic '06). Hell, I'm the type of guy who absolutely loves the beat-em-up style gameplay they introduced in Unleashed just for the Werehog sections. The gripes I tend to have are more or less either skill issues or being unable to play around the glitches in the case of '06 (despite not having played it in over a decade).

I'm also big on the Ratchet & Clank style 3D shooter platforming (only played 1, 2, size matters, Into the Nexus/Pirated Booty, and am only in the beginning of deadlocked). I love some of the more wacky weapons (plasma whip, bouncer, black hole gun, etcetera) you can get in the series, which allows me to not get ultra bored part way through the games. The stories also capture me, for the most part, in a first playthrough. They're not something I take super seriously, so I tend to have a good time with them. Probably my biggest gripe with the game, from what I can remember about Into the Nexus, is how short it felt in comparison to the original trio and size matters. Getting a copy of the first in the PS3 series of games soon, so I cannot wait.

I also had a pretty good time this year with Corn Kidz 64, a shorter platformer that plays like an n64 title in how it controls. Fun enough mechanics but my biggest gripe is how in the end I was left wanting more, in a "I want a sequel" fashion.

Though I did have the misfortune of playing Macbat 64 this year too. It just felt too generic and shovelwear, in my opinion, for me to like it. Play as a bat in small levels with simple puzzles and not much exploration, random mario kart inspired race level in the middle of the game, and also a 2D level based on kirby. I don't remember the story being much better either. Personally not a game for me.

What do you think about full-degree aiming in platformers?

I like being able to play platformers with gamepads, but the Steam Controller has no right stick, and the track pad doesn't feel appropriate/consistent enough for aiming.

Not that I have not played platformers with keyboard and mouse and enjoyed them. A good title will still win over a worse title, but in general, I think nowadays I prefer platformers without aiming anything.

Thinking of Webbed, I think I may have tried that with gamepad first, but had to switch to keyboard and mouse. Which worked well, and was a very enjoyable game. But I can't chill on the couch with that control scheme.