ABSTRACT
Early video games were played from a top-down viewpoint which didn’t allow for any kind of jumping. To start with, the term “platformer” originally referred to games where players would climb up or down ladders with platforms between them; without any form of jumping. The accepted modern definition of a platformer is a game where the primary mechanic involves jumping—usually over or around obstacles. The player needed to jump over the barrels that would follow the platforms down. The player’s ability to jump would be tested in stage three, featuring the first use of moving platforms as an obstacle. The first game to make use of a scrolling screen was Sega’s Jump Bug released in 1981 after Donkey Kong. With rare exception, early platformers used a form of jumping that have been coined committed jumping.
