ABSTRACT
So could read the opening of Mario Bros., one of the earliest, and certainly one of the most famous, platform games (or platformer). First appearing in Donkey Kong in 1981, the Mario brand has gone on to sell more than 200 million units worldwide, with most of these sales being platformers. Such financial accomplishments contributed to the platform genre representing around a third of the games market in the 1980s. This success rested, in part, on the fact that platform games produced some of the industry’s most iconic characters-Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lara Croft, and the Prince of Persia to name but a few. Yet, despite being dominated by world-renowned, franchise-building characters, most people do not associate platformers with narrative, or with writers.
