The Coyote Jump
The 1st jump
Between Space Panic (1980, Universal Entertainment) and Donkey Kong (1981, Nintendo)…
Who is the pioneer for the platformer subgenre ?Donkey Kong popularized video games all over the world by its simple yet addictive gameplay, but before that, one year ago, a way lesser-known game, Space Panic already had maybe all the ingredients to be the first platformer.
Space Panic has ennemies, ladders, platforms, score, movements in all basic directions : to go right, left, up, down…
But it’s lacking one thing :Jumping
Jumping across gaps and time
In Donkey Kong, you jump a lot to survive by dodging barrels being rewarded for doing that by increasing the player’s score.
In Super Mario Bros. you also jump a lot, but this time to go across gaps, stomp on top of ennemies and of course to grab the final flag of sweet victory !
And even 20 years later, we keep jumping in Celeste, but this time after jumping, you have to manage to reset your jump, then dash, then reset your dash to dash again to finally close the gap.
Jumping is a core mechanic for a platformer.
And of course with the amount of games created in this subgenre, many differents ways of jumping were introduced to diversify gameplay such as Wall Jump for example.
Jumping needs to have 3 important characteristics :
- responsive - the player is able to do precise jump by trusting that your input will be treated fairly
- satisfying - exploring and trying new jumps should feel rewarding
- risky : while in the air, you may sometimes be restricted to not do certain actions, and it should also be a huge commit !
I swear I pressed the button just in time!
Dying in a platformer is often the cause of only one parameter : the player.
The player can sometimes, even if it is difficult to accept, misstime a jump.
And in order to maintain this risky/satisfying feeling, the player should be punished by failing by having to do it all over again or simply losing a life.
But what about the remaining characteristic, to be responsive ?
By clicking or tapping the JUMP button on mobile, R-Square, our protagonist, will try to jump the gap.
If you succeded on your first try, congratulations, but it is very unlikely…
The Jump needs extreme precision to be succeded.
It does tick the box of risky and satisfying, but not responsive.
Jumping at the last possible moment mostly bring the best results possible, and is of course very exciting.
So how can we trick the player by thinking they did the almost impossible ?
The Coyote’s ignorance
One of the most famous gag of the show Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner is the Coyote floating in mid-air, realising that gravity exist and falling straight to the ground.
Let’s make our game a tiny bit more Coyote-like. Let’s ignore gravity for a bit !
We have a way more responsive experience. The player expects to be able to jump last second, and we gave them some extra seconds too to do it without them even noticing.
Players don’t need to be conscious of those slight rule deviations, as long as it benefits them.
Next time you make or play a platformer, think about the inclusion of those hidden mechanic that help make games more responsive.