Hardcore Gaming 101 video articles

September 29, 2015 7:26 PM

Here is the new series of video articles started by the ultra-knowledgeable folks at Hardcore Gaming 101. The first two are up, the beginning of series on Pre-Super Mario platform games and on the early history of JRPGs. Related is the video adjunct to the Game Club 199X Podcast, with over 50 videos. (Previously.)
posted by JHarris (23 comments total)

no bagman/super bagman?
posted by lkc at 8:17 PM on September 29, 2015

sorry, just watched the first one, for the evolution of platformers, but i thought that predated SMB.
posted by lkc at 8:19 PM on September 29, 2015

Hardcore Gaming 101 is pretty great. I have their Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures, which is 772 pages and insanely comprehensive.
posted by naju at 8:33 PM on September 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

Bagman certainly does predate SMB, but they're doing it chronologically, a few at a time. This episode is the very earliest platformers they could find, then they're going forward from there.
posted by JHarris at 9:39 PM on September 29, 2015

I hope Miner 2049er is in there.

Hardcore Gaming 101 is a great site to lose an afternoon in. I especially like how they do comparisons of games on different platforms. And its contributors know their onions, unlike most games writers who think history started with the Playstation.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 10:50 PM on September 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ah, ok. somehow that "beginning of the series" part didn't register.

It was the first thing I thought of, and then again, early in the video when he says how SMB did a lot of things right and left off a lot that was wrong.

I was a little kid when bagman was out, and I always played it and hated it. There was soooo much cool stuff in there, and multiple screens, and picks, and you can hang over the railcart, and escalators and elevators,
but then you just ... die.

This is a video of bagman for people who don't know what I'm talking about. Super Bagman was more impressively possible.

Also, apparently synthesized voice sound effects, too!
posted by lkc at 10:54 PM on September 29, 2015

I've played a fair amount of Bagman. Its enemy AI is bizarrely stupid and can be taken advantage of in many ways, and in the end you have to in order to succeed. While they start out very slow, every time you deliver a moneybag to the wheelbarrow the guards get a little faster, and by the time you're getting the last few can easily outrun your cartoon convict guy, and he gets slowed down even more when he's carrying a bag. Ultimately you have to plan very carefully to get moneybags to easy-to-collect spots before you collect many of them, while the guards are still slow. Here's a playthrough of the "first level" (really the first loop of the game) that demonstrates this preparation.
posted by JHarris at 1:38 AM on September 30, 2015

Heh, I don't know how remarkable it is that Frogs used a overlay for scenario. I think it was pretty common later on to spruce up old machines (like Space Invaders) to make them look more attractive as technology advanced, and on early pong consoles. It might have been one of the first to do it, but it became common practice, and it's not exactly the fake-hologram ideas behind Time Traveller.

I do remember playing this on my Atari clone. And speaking of it, Keystone Kapers (1983) probably merits a mention later on.
posted by lmfsilva at 4:24 AM on September 30, 2015

Donkey Kong of course is the first platform game.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 4:32 AM on September 30, 2015

They stopped just before my favourite early platformer: Jumpman

Even after we had a NES and SMB1, I would go back to Jumpman on the C64 time and again for its punishing difficulty. I was a strange child.
posted by 256 at 5:49 AM on September 30, 2015

Also: That Dragon Lair video just gave me intense flashbacks to watching my father play Adventure on the Atari 2600 as a young child.
posted by 256 at 6:01 AM on September 30, 2015

Donkey Kong of course is the first platform game.

I would tend to agree. While Frogs may have had the first platform from which a character could fall, the existence of platforms doesn't make it a "platform game" any more than it does for Joust. Donkey Kong was the first game that I can think of in which you weren't just trying to survive or to collect items to score the most points, but where the premise can be accurately described as "I'm here and need to get past these obstacles to get there."
posted by dances with hamsters at 6:39 AM on September 30, 2015

Oh, this is good. It's about time we began taking our hobby back.
posted by _Synesthesia_ at 7:59 AM on September 30, 2015

Nah, Space Panic predated DK, it just had digging instead of jumping. (It just was not, and still is not, much fun)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:02 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah Space Panic felt like a shitty job, not a game.
posted by nom de poop at 8:04 AM on September 30, 2015

I remember playing Temple of Apshai on my friend's Trash-80. We were not very good at it. It was a couple years out of date, and didn't compare well to current Apple II games we coulda been playing at my house hurr. The possibility of secrets hidden within the booklet descriptions did spark the imagination, but in the actual play of the game it didn't seem to matter enough. I mean, it didn't compare well to Warlock of Firetop Mountain, or Ulysses and the Golden Fleece, either. We played a lot more Dancing Demon.

I've always had a fondness though for the kind of semi-arcadey adventure game (obvs), also like Venture, Space Dungeon, Shamus. Berzerkalikes? I suppose there's a line there that leads to Doom.
posted by nom de poop at 8:07 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Burgertime (a Space Panic style game) is actually pretty good, though it came after DK. Space Panic itself does seem half-assed.
posted by OnSecondThought at 8:49 AM on September 30, 2015

Nice length for the videos, and look forward to more in the series.. And wow, the memories.. Shamus, Apshai, miner 2049er, geeze..
posted by k5.user at 8:55 AM on September 30, 2015

I have their Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures, which is 772 pages and insanely comprehensive.

Seconded! I've got a copy too, and it's a great and in-depth read.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 9:06 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Nah, Space Panic predated DK, it just had digging instead of jumping. (It just was not, and still is not, much fun)

Again, it seems we have different definitions for "platform games". I would group that in the same category as Dig Dug or Mr. Do, neither of which I think anyone considers to be a platform game. (Or who knows? I seem to have an entirely different take on the concept.)
posted by dances with hamsters at 9:58 AM on September 30, 2015

While Space Panic, Dig Dug and Burgertime add a vertical superiority element (smashing enemies from above), I do think they're a lot closer to Pac-Man than they are to DK. It's still "evade/kill all monsters" instead of "survive obstacle course and get to the end" as the primary goal.
posted by OnSecondThought at 12:04 PM on September 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

In Dig Dug the gravity only acts upon the rocks, while in Space Panic, the player can fall through holes, which feels important to me.

Making the distinction reaching a location-based goal rather than defeating monsters then Mario Bros isn't a platformer which feels wrong to me. It has the jumping controls of a platformer down pretty well, and my instinct is to feel that trumps the fact that you beat the level by defeating all the creatures coming out of the pipes.
posted by RobotHero at 12:34 PM on September 30, 2015

And then there are later games like Snow Bros and Bubble Bobble that are about clearing the screen of monsters.
posted by RobotHero at 3:07 PM on September 30, 2015