#cinematic platformers

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American Arcadia was so great!

I've seriously never seen a blending of genres done so expertly as in American Arcadia. It's only outdone by the quality of the narrative and the characters. Give this one a play!

[cinematicplatformerjourney]

Just finished Planet Alpha.

This game is all about setting and atmosphere, and it's absolutely gorgeous. The amount of imagination that went into the variety of beautiful and foreboding alien landscapes is just crazy. I started playing on my PC but found the graphics so detailed it was hard to follow them, so I got the Switch version instead, and found it much better on my TV screen.

The actual story in this one is quite vague, although there are definitely hints and clues about what might be going on. It's not uncommon for cinematic platformers to have ambiguous stories, but I found this one even more ambiguous than usual. After finishing it, I still feel like I could make about a hundred different theories about what's going on, but that doesn't really seem to be the point. Like I said, it's a game about setting and atmosphere.

And what it did excellently with that, besides just having incredible settings, is making you feel tiny and overwhelmed in them. Tiny, overwhelmed, and almost powerless, but not quite: just powerless enough that you suddenly feel epic when you manage to overcome an obstacle in an unexpected way. You have no fighting skills, and survive mainly by stealth and simple puzzling, but some of those puzzles involve turning environments and enemies against each other in ways that are just so satisfying. And the camera angles and zoom shift in each scene to accentuate the scope and grandness and sense of relative size.

Also, the sliding. I can't fully describe how much of a thrill some of the sliding scenes are in this game.

I didn't get quite as attached to the main character as I have some other games, but they're still pretty cute. I can't say I was highly drawn into the plot either, probably because it was so vague; but the game still kept my attention, although less like a drama and more like a semi-abstract art piece. That's not to say there was no emotional element though: the vibes in this game are powerful, the backstory is implied to be quite sad, and some of the escape sequences are excellently heart-pounding. Oh, and the ambient music is really good too.

Overall, while not my favorite cinematic platformer ever, I would definitely recommend Planet Alpha to anyone who wants an atmospheric experience that's just incredibly visually beautiful and surprising. Make sure to play on a big enough screen.

[cinematicplatformerjourney]

I absolutely loved Full Void!!!!!!

This game is underrated and you all should go play it. 💛💛💛

OK so here's the thing. Was it groundbreaking, innovative, revolutionary? Maybe not that much. But was it beautiful, charming, exciting, and fun? ABSOLUTELY. It may not have shocked me with any particular gaming concepts I'd never seen before -- but it just took so many of the ingredients I love and combined them so well.

Playing this game felt like when you find a new bakery that sells one of the best chocolate chip cookies you've ever tasted. Sure, you've had chocolate chip cookies before, but THIS one is just such a REALLY GOOD ONE, and now you need all your friends to come try it.

This game was comfort food. It felt just right, like a cozy blanket. (Was it a cozy story? Nope, it was sci-fi-dystopian-mild-horror. With a happy ending. Good stuff.)

Here's what you're in for if you play Full Void:

Really gorgeous atmospheric pixel art

A combination of ambient sounds and occasional music that does a good job of setting the tone of each scene. No dialogue.

Although the protagonist isn't rotoscoped, their animations are realistic and varied enough to make them really endearing and real-feeling. (I still can't get over the army-crawl -- so cute 😭)

Puzzles! I would call these puzzles fairly easy, but they were still challenging enough to keep me engaged. Also, from an in-story perspective, I will always love a character who fights with their brain and their computer rather than with guns. You play as a teenage hacker -- what's not to love??

A lot of focus on the tone, setting, feeling, and experience of the story. Which is core to what I love about cinematic platformers, and this game does it well.

Adorable robot sidekick 💛

A tense atmosphere, stealth, escapes, and some intense chase sequences!

Trial and error, instadeath, frequent autosave points. Plenty of death animations, but no blood or gore. (This game was intended for all ages, and I think they did a great job of making it OK for kids without making it feel like a "kids' game.")

Mysterious world-building enough to make you wonder and theorize about what's going on. The game is linear, but there are hidden things you can find or not find that will give you more clues about the story.

Despite being dystopian, it's colorful. I found that this helped it feel less depressing and more exciting.

It's pretty short, but not so short as to feel incomplete.

This game is on lots of platforms, and I hope it becomes better known, because it's so good!!!!

Which cinematic platformer should I play next?

[fictionz]

The video game Full Void does so many things that catch my eye.

First, the filesize.

45.95 MB, in this computer economy? That's a GIF. That's chump JPGs. The great granddaddy of the genre, Another World, requires a whopping 841.71 MB of space. You might think Full Void is a tiny lil game if that's all the space it needs, but it's a fully realized cinematic platformer with myriad environments, cutscenes, fluid animations, physics, voxels/3D images?!, game mechanics, music, and on and on. It's a whole game squeezed into less than 50 MB. The developer has discussed how they made their own custom engine in C programming language, and that checks out in spades. They're getting deep into the guts of every machine that runs it and really making the most efficient little game they can without wasting processing power on the many layers of abstraction typically foisted upon games by modern engines. Minimal bloat, maximum art.

Then there's the way they designed their movement.

I completely missed this during my playthrough, but a review I read later pointed out that everything on the screen moves along a grid. The bot programming sequences, like the one above, make it crystal clear, but I just didn't connect the grid movement mini game with the free movement in the scenes.

Source

That character is fluidly moving through the space but the game is always ensuring that the character moves from one grid space to the next. This also means that every room is built around this grid, and every moment, such as falling through that grate, is aligned with the grid. I suppose there's some subjective thought on whether this makes it too stiff, but I loved learning this. It feels like a great way to manage level design and control precisely where things occur from one room to the next. The "cinematic" in cinematic platformer implies a higher measure of control over the player's movements and actions as they solve puzzles in the environment, so it's a great choice.

Then there's the most obvious hook for me: they're just a kid!

Kids in peril. The locus of my creative efforts and interests these last few years. I find it so horrifying and unfair when kids are placed in peril, which makes stories about kids in that peril really compelling, in particular in a fantasy and horror context, because I want them to make it out okay. I don't want this kid to fall and die again and again, and the luxury of a video game is having an infinite number of chances to help that kid get past one particular horror or another.

It's not a perfect game. I have my issues with literally the final moment of the game and question the developers' intent based on that moment (yikes), but players who ignore that tonedeaf choice are rewarded with an experience that is so solid, visually stunning, and enjoyable to play.

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In their hearts, cinematic platformer video games are about carefully staged and directed vulnerability. Being made of flesh in a world of horror and pain and lacking the support to rely on others, at least most of the time. A cinematic platformer character isn't a super-powered hero punching and blasting through enemies. (The ones that try to hybridize with action platformers typically fall flat in both worlds.) Weapons are scarce or completely absent, the enemies and hazards are numerous and almost always instantly lethal, and the game typically asks, "How can you flee from this situation?" Escape this room to escape again in the next room for a fresh new danger to confront.

Run, run, run away. Perhaps that's what really speaks to me. Asked to face the monster or run from it, it only makes sense to me to get the hell out of there, as risky as that may be. If it's all a world of horror then we may as well move forward to the next scene.

[cinematicplatformerjourney]

My current (and flexible) cinematic platformer list

Games I have played:

Another World

Heart of the Alien

Flashback

Inside

Limbo

Ico (it's 3D but I think it counts)

Games I want to play:

Full Void

Somerville

Lunark

Planet Alpha

The Way

Black The Fall

Planet of Lana

Games I'm interested in but might have to figure out how to run them (e.g. need an emulator, etc.):

Heart of Darkness

OnEscapee

Project Firestart (not technically a platformer but I feel like it belongs on this list)

[cinematicplatformerjourney]

I finished Flashback!!

OK so it seems like when people talk about cinematic platformers, the two games they always trace them back to are Another World and Flashback. It's hard to find one mentioned without the other, and they seem to be implied to be very similar. But I actually found them to be really different from each other!

Similarities

They do have some things in common. They both have a pixelated but surprisingly realistic rotoscoped cool dude with a gun. They both have a combination of action and puzzles, although I would say Another World leans toward the puzzles and Flashback leans toward the action. They're both sci-fi with escape themes, and an open but hopeful ending. And of course, they were both put out by the same game company, Delphine.

Minimalism vs. More Interface Stuff

But the gameplay felt quite different to me. Another World took the minimalist approach of just a couple basic controls, and no inventory, dialogue, or HUD at all. Flashback had a lot more moves the character could do, which required a bit more learning, but so were so cool and beautifully animated to be worth it. It also had a simple inventory, occasional dialogue, and apparently a score (which I didn't pay attention to at all). But the thing that made the most difference in gameplay was the presence of shield charges, which essentially functioned as a health meter. In other words, you could take multiple hits before death, in stark contrast to Another World's instadeath system.

Instadeath vs. Health Meter

I might write another post later about why instadeath and trial-and-error don't bother me the way they seem to bother a lot of players. But for now, I'll just note that instadeath seems to pair well with puzzles, whereas a health meter seems to pair well with action. Personally, I'm more of a puzzle fan, but when I saw those shield charges, I knew there were going to be more action sequences that I would have to drill until I could pass them with minimal hits (rather than the main challenge being to figure out what to do).

Action/Combat

Which leads me to another point: Flashback is HARD. I initially started the game on easy mode only because I wanted the full rewind capability, but right at the beginning I got disappointed when I realized that easy mode actually erases a lot of the enemies entirely. I wanted the full experience, so I started over in normal mode, and played that way through the first and second stages. However, once I got to the third stage, the enemy combat sequences got so hard, and the save points far enough apart, that I knew I was going to have to drill the same sections for hours if I was going to beat them. While some people love that, I frankly don't find it fun. I got frustrated enough that I started the game over again so I could switch back to easy mode, and I had to replay stages one and two, but I knew that was the only way I would have the patience to get through the rest of the game. And even on easy mode, there were some sequences in the last stages of the game that I had to drill to the point of being bored with them in order to beat. (Of course, this is a matter of preference. A player who enjoys tough action sequences and perfecting their timing skills would probably love this stuff.)

Platforming Style

Also, a lot more of Flashback felt like standard platforming to me: recurring enemies and familiar challenges rearranged in different patterns. Another World, on the other hand, felt like almost the whole game was comprised of interactive setpieces and unique situations. The "cinematic" nature of Another World was woven throughout the gameplay, whereas in Flashback it felt like it was mostly confined to cutscenes and a few occasional setpieces. (Well, except for the second stage. The second stage incorporated the most story and character interaction, and was easily the most fun, in my opinion.)

OK, I'm done complaining now! If it's starting to sound like I hated Flashback, that's actually not true at all! I just didn't love it as much as Another World. That being said, there was a lot I liked about this game, the main thing being:

The VIBE!!!

The 80s-90s neon techno futuristic over-the-top sci-fi vibe was just . . . so perfect. The whole opening sequence with ray guns and a space jet-ski. The message recorded via holograph for no apparent reason. The cyberpunk moon base city. The slime blob alien planet. The casual teleportation. The explosions. The MUSIC.

Music

And that's another contrast I must point out: Another World had hardly any music. It had ambient sounds that were so well done and added to the immersion so effectively, and that was one of the things I loved about it. Flashback, on the other hand, I loved for not only having great old sci-fi music but for using it so blatantly. Pull out your gun? Hear sneaky gun music! Look at your map? Hear snazzy map music! See a cutscene? Hear awesome cutscene music! Maybe it's just because it was made in 1992, but this game is so self-aware of its own coolness that it doesn't even try to be subtle about it, and the result is delightful. Even picking up an object gives you a classic ta-da sound (which starts to get hilarious once you acquire an object that you can set down and pick back up at will).

I need a Flashback movie

Another thing I'd like to mention is that I would really love to see this game made into a movie. It definitely has a story, although we only get the bare bones of it through a handful of cutscenes, without much in the way of character development. But what story there is is quite fun (although didn't always make total sense, but that could be easily remedied with a bit of writing). I would love to see it fleshed out. All the classic sci-fi stuff is tied together with the classic drama of captures and escapes, old friends, imposters, amnesia, death games, and a secret mission to literally save the human race. If it were taken too seriously it would spoil it, but a Flashback movie made in awareness of its tropey retro-futuristic fun factor would be an absolute blast.

In summary:

Flashback. Vibe: excellent. Character animations: excellent. Story: fun, but I want more of it. Gameplay: in my opinion just ok, but if you're more action-oriented than I am you'll probably love it.

Up next on my to-play list is Full Void, a new but classic-inspired game from just last year. It looks like it's gonna be great in a lot of ways and I'm super excited to play it!

[cinematicplatformerjourney]

I played a little bit of the original Prince of Persia, and while I didn't really get invested enough to play the whole thing, I loved the rotoscoped animations. Never knew there was such a realistic game character being made in the 80's. I think there's something about such a high ratio of humanity-per-pixels that fascinates me.

Anyway, found this video of the original shoots used for rotoscoping, and thought it was pretty cool.

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Check out my new side blog: @cinematicplatformerjourney