MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Donkey Kong was the first platformer

> Necroing this because it’s important.
>
> I’ve been told that many people consider Space Panic to be the first platformer and
> that really bothers me. They argue that it has platforms and that makes it a
> platformer. It’s such an asinine way of defining the genre; not to mention that
> nobody fucking played this game back in the 80s or whatever anyway. It reeks of such
> a ‘well actually’–level of pseudointellectualism that I don’t even want to make an
> argument against it, but I will.
>
> Donkey Kong has jumping. Donkey Kong’s third level is specifically centered around
> timing and jumping, a protoypical ‘athletic’ level. It’s so analogous to what the
> genre is and what it’s evolved into that to argue otherwise is an insult.
>
> Space Panic doesn’t have jumping. It’s a puzzle action game that happens to be
> vertically oriented, but it’s no more a platformer than Solomon’s Key.
>
> So generally when someone tries to ‘correct’ me by bringing up some ancient ZX
> Spectrum ‘game’ or Amiga demo or whatever that no one’s heard of, no I’m not going to
> accept that just because it’s older. There’s more to a genre than its parts. It has a
> cultural context to it, and that context is part of its definition.

Well, actually any game can be a first even if you did not heard about it. That doesn't mean anyone else did not played it. Culturally speaking, platform games on that era were labeled "ladder games" when the term "platform" did not exist. Donkey Kong was reviewed as a ladder game, just like Space Panic. So in 198x, Donkey Kong was the first ladder game where you could jump.

I chuckle at the idea some people catalog Metal Slug like a shot'em up. If that were true any platform game where you shoot could be a shot'em up instead. Contra is as 2D sidescroller platform game as Mario Bros, just like Metal Slug. The issue in fact is how specific you personally want to be in order to define a genre. A new mechanic like jumping doesn't make a complete genre, but you can make a subgenre out of it. Marketing nand subjective views at its best.