Hi Tom.
To be honest, while Tmnt (like turrican or metroid), was very advanced for
alternate routes, ---- it even featured different perspectives in levels, I
was thinking on a much smaller and less profound scale with my example.
To put it another way, in all the audio side scrollers thus far, ----
including Monti (and possibly mota), your character only can interact with
what is to their left and right. You cannot jump up to a ledge above you, or
fall down to one below, much less jump up a series of ledges to go through a
complex route.
I know that both of your games employed stairs and ladders for vertical
movement which was certainly a step in the right direction, ---- but is stil
imho far less than what might be achieved in a side scroller in audio.
In a game like Mario, you can jump to ledges above you or to one side, fall
down onto ledges below (often avoiding enemies on the way).
Games like Mega man took this to an extreme, ---- for instance the dreaded
moving ledge section in guts man's stage where you had to time your drops
from one moving mine cart to the other, or elec man's stage where you had to
alternate betwene standard left to right movement, or jumping on
progressively higher ledges to scroll upwards.
Metroid and turrican really took vertical movement to it's ultimate
progression, where making your way through the game required moving left to
right, or up or down, in any number of combinations. I remember for instance
one section in Turrican 1 which was shaped like a square. you walked across
the bottom, then jumped up some ledges at the side, then had to make your
way across some ledges at the top to the top left hand corner exactly above
where you entered, ---- however if you fell, you'd be on the bottom again.
This was why Turrican was probably the game that really made me fall in love
with gaming (and weerd miner music chords), at the age of nine, the feeling
of totally unrestricted movement and exploration, even though the game
featured comparatively symple arcade style gameplay, with only a choice of
two or three basic shooting weapons (a third was added in Turrican 2), a
close range but multi directional surround shot weapon, and three special
limited use weapons. Actually, I think Mota already has more weapon choice
than Turrican did, however it was the huge explorable levels (and the award
winning music), that means there are stil a bunch of developers who use
their free time to produce turrican remakes and extra levels today, 20 years
after the game was first released.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
---
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