Clamoring for the Single-screen Platformer!

As mainstream gaming congeals into a paltry menu of subscription-based freemium services, MMOs, and first-person shooters, the once-popular genres of yesteryear continue to fade from collective memory. Some, like the adventure-platformer (aka Metroidvania) or arcade shooter, have been somewhat restored by the tireless indie scene. But others, like the once ubiquitous single-screen platformer, remain underappreciated…even dead.

But what is a single-screen platformer, otherwise known as the SSP? It’s arguably a subset of the typical (scrolling) platformer as defined by Super Mario Bros., Pac-Land, and the like. But really, it’s the other way around—games of the hop n’ bop variety with scrolling maps and “get-to-the-end” objectives are the true derivatives, stemming from the original template that confined play to a single, static location. “Reaching-the-top” was usually the objective in these early single-screen releases, with the focus placed almost solely on survival. Nintendo’s Donkey Kong is the most obvious example, but the goal would eventually shift to enemy elimination (clearing the stage of every baddie) as seen in Taito’s 1985 sleeper The Fairyland Story. Bubble Bobble would better develop the formula in 1986, and now often serves as the quintessential example of the genre...if not necessarily the best one. Snow Bros., Rod-Land, Joe and Mac Returns, ZuPaPa!, YoYo's Puzzle Park—the ‘90s would deliver a fine, final flash of the genre before the 3-D Age completely claimed the zeitgeist, relegating the once esteemed SSP to tragic irrelevance.

For this slowly expanding feature, we’ll be examining a list of the genre’s best and, occasionally, notorious. Anything of the Bubble Bobble template set in the mid-‘80s/early '90s is likely, but anything non-scrolling and hop-happy is still possible, no matter the period.

Indeed, there’s much to see!

More always being added!