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

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…

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 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.

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.