I’m pretty old ok, and I pretty much witnessed the birth of computer games and their subsequent evolution.
The format of your game doesn’t matter too much, not what people will have you believe, today we are swamped with fps as opposed to being swamped by side scrollers.
When mentioning side scrollers, I didn’t quite realise that there’s whole swathes of folk who’ve only known “Mario”.
Side scrollers don’t have to be Mario.
In Turrican, we get to go down into caves and up into the sky, the artwork and music in Turrican is incredibly detailed (so long as you’re not playing via Nintendo/Amstrad cpc64).
Side scrollers keep the action moving, now getting that pace just right takes talent, maybe luck.
People have told me they feel restricted withing side scrollers… this is because there are a lot of side scrollers that make people feel restricted!
like this, in Turrican we go left right up and down, exploring all the way, always nice treasure/eye candy to be found.
Mario’s more cartoony graphics, and more…
In Turrican we had proportional movement, so we move the joystick a little, we move a little, move a lot, we move a lot. This leant itself to having greater control.
Mario is left right, fire button to jump, it’s a real killer of mood, it makes it feel so so restricted.
But what about fps’s? A 3D environment! it’s so exciting? Right? Wrong!!!
Gawd I’ve played enough awful duff 3D shooters to make me wretch if ever I go close to one.
Whatis the difference between side scroller and 3D virtual world?
Here’s the difference, in 3D when you want to go up or down this is clunky, a huge dissapointment, it makes me wanna die. In 3D worlds, you can go left right, forward and back…
Keep thzat in mind.
Side scrollers wecan go left right, up and down…. if they try to put 3D in side scrollers, the effect is uncomfortable.
So wait, the big difference between the 2 genre’s is???????? No real difference, we get the same amount of options in side scrollers as we do in 3D!
Side scrollers suit out tv’s better in my opinion, out tv’s are 2D displays.
I play 3D too and that can be used successfully also.
But is one genre better than the other?
Well, the best games I remember used different effects, check out “The Lone Raider”, you’re playing an arcade shooting side scroller, then leaper, then a puzzler, first You’re playing side to side, the bottom to top, then in and out.
Keep your audience busy, don’t let them get bored.
adriands3's Blog 