Core Features of 3D Platformers

Abstract

It is important for a game developer to know the genre or genres they intend to work with. By having at least a basic understanding on what games in the chosen genre usually look like and what parts they consist of and why, one can utilize that knowledge in one’s own game projects and save valuable time and energy in each project. Even if a developer chooses to go in a different direction with their game, they will at least know which “rules” they are breaking. This knowledge can help when planning for ways to put a new twist to an old genre, for example. The goal of this research was to shed light on 3D platformer games. The data for it was collected from the internet, from better known sources focused on video games.

The objective was to find out the core features of 3D platformers: that is, the features that are common and vital to games in the genre of 3D platformers. In the practical portion, the features were implemented into a small-scale video game or, in case implementation was not viable due to time or skill constraints, there was some theorizing on how they might be implemented in future.

Therefore, the results were a description of each core feature, examples on how they might appear in games, as well as a small demo for a platformer game. It was concluded that 3D platformer games have at least seven features that flag the genre.