Thanks for reminding me why I don't post on GameDev It's funny to see Matthew spamming someone else's board though hehe.

On the Matt Smith thing - it's hard to understand, now, the amount of fuss that Jet Set Willy caused. Pages were devoted to it in the Spectrum magazines for months. Every screen has a name, and people were poring over these names to figure out what the hidden meaning was. One example was "We must perform a Quirkafleeg" which was traced to a fairly obscure comic by Gilbert Shelton, called "The Adventures of Fat Freddy's Cat #5." A quirkafleeg is a dance to be performed in the presence of dead furry animals. For some reason, that fact has stuck in my mind for 20 years

Even for the time, the game was not technically amazing, but just incredibly well put together, with the feeling that there was always something to be discovered. The game even had a bug in it, which meant that it was difficult, if not impossible, to finish. Predictably, the fans thought it was a feature for ages, until the publishers confessed!

Pete

[edit] He's right about Wallasey, though
[edit2] btw I hated JSW, I was more of a Sabre Wulf guy....

Matthew Smith went a legend for me coz with Manic Miner he really started this hysteria of breeding platform games. "Miner 2049ér" (that game Matty got inspiration from), was also a platformer but had absolute not that magic which leads a such revolution like MM did.. (sorry for my strange english.. I am from Mars..)
MM had fluid animation not seen in any other platformgame of its time and really clever design for each level (the first one really hard for beginners).. just that kind of thing made it really a cult.

JSW was made under pressure from the boss coz of the enormous success from MM. Software Projects wanted this game out on the market on demand.
Matty didn´t like this "work-under-stress" so JSW went out in the market with bugs etc.. so its a wonder it really came out

You're forgetting that both these games are 20 years old or more. This was normal in the games of the time.

..

Name then, some really good games where touching an enemy invariably leads to you losing a life and having to restart the level. SMB does not count; if you are even moderately skilled you make sure to have a mushroom or two on ya at all times.

Have you ever played Manic Miner? It consists of jumping a lot over moving things and small plants. No matter what you touch, it's start all over again. You have absolutely no air control whatsoever - once you press jump, nothing's gonna change the way you're heading. Mess up by as little as a pixel and you're dead and have to start all over again. Your margins of error are infinitesimal. It's easily the most frustrating game of all time.

Again, just because lots of games did it doesn't mean it's a good feature; it just means lots of games sucked.

I suggest you try the game out for yourself. Then tell me that instant death thing is not frustrating.

No, the challenge just doesn't exist. See my post elsewhere on pansy gamers.

Kinda cool, but the game moves a little too quick. Is that just for me? EDIT: Seems to be running at over 300% speed. It'd be fun at a sane speed.

Perhaps it should be a balance between timing, puzzles, time limits, etc..?

If enemies weren't any real threat I think I'd get bored.

I agree it's more healthier now. But it also seems that platform games are trying to become a mix of all different genres now. It seems that people are getting bored with these kind of games to me.

Are there any good 2D or 3D platformers for the PC that you recommend?

Hmm.. Although what I expected, that's a pity.

I would have expected to see more 2D Allegro console style games actually. It seems ideal for those kind of games, yet I can only think of a couple of good platformers using Allegro.