Platformer game templates
A platformer is a jump you can read before you take it. These templates disagree about what a miss costs, and about whether the level has an end.
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Read the landing first
A 2D platformer is one screen, three platforms and a gap. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Nintendo, 2023) still teaches run and jump. Shovel Knight (Yacht Club Games, 2014) teaches the gap with a downward strike. A 3D platformer makes the camera part of the jump. Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo, 2017) keeps the landing readable from behind you. A collectathon platformer uses that camera so you can see a thing you cannot reach. Banjo-Kazooie (Rare, 1998) and Super Mario 64 (Nintendo, 1996) are one level and ten heights. If you can take all ten in the first minute, the heights are fake.
A cinematic platformer slows down. Inside (Playdead, 2016) is hazard, pause, hazard. A jump at Mario's speed has left the template. A co-op platformer needs a gap one player cannot cross, which is the whole of It Takes Two (Hazelight Studios, 2021). Test alone. If you finish, the second character is a guest.
What the miss costs
A precision platformer makes the retry faster than your annoyance. Celeste (Maddy Makes Games, 2018), Super Meat Boy (Team Meat, 2010) and N++ (Metanet Software, 2015) respawn on the screen you died on. Coyote time, the moment after you walk off where the jump still works, is tuned in frames. A physics platformer makes the miss a recovery. Getting Over It (Bennett Foddy, 2017) is a fall you earned. Tune friction before you add a checkpoint. A puzzle platformer asks you to change the room, then jump once. Braid (Number None, 2008) rewinds the miss. Portal 2 (Valve, 2011) moves the exit. One mechanic, one room.
An endless runner deletes the goal. Canabalt (Semi Secret Software, 2009) is one button and a roof. Speed rises until a mistake ends the run. A roguelike platformer puts a bag on that death. Spelunky 2 (Mossmouth, 2020) keeps almost nothing. Dead Cells (Motion Twin, 2018) keeps a little. If the thing you keep makes the next run trivial, you skipped the jump.
The AI platformer maker and make a platformer with AI cover the jump as a genre. An endless run is the AI endless runner maker, not a level that forgot its flag.
Every template in this genre
Every build and style in this genre
- 2D platformer template: build it step by step
- 3D platformer template: build it step by step
- Neon runner arena template
- Cinematic platformer template: build it step by step
- Co-op platformer template: build it step by step
- Collectathon platformer template: build it step by step
- Endless runner template: build it step by step
- Physics platformer template: build it step by step
- Precision platformer template: build it step by step
- Puzzle platformer template: build it step by step
- Roguelike platformer template: build it step by step
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Describe your version in one sentence. The AI writes a brief from the template, and nothing is built until you approve it. Free for Windows and Mac.