Platformers Have Platforms

May 14th, 2009 Zen Posted in Game Concepts, PC Gaming |

A little while ago, Andrew - lead artistic designer for Day of the Tiki (and in fact, most of Secret Lab’s projects) approached me on the Internet and asked how random platforms flying around a level could be made to fit the theme of Tiki Bar TV. Obviously, platforms with no hint of a mechanism controlling them can be explained by gypsy magic, but this felt a little tacky and cheap - and didn’t really explain why tiny pieces of what we can only assume to be driftwood had been enchanted in such a way so terribly convenient for Johnny Johnny.

Over the course of the conversation I realised, with delight, that finally my ideas didn’t really have to make sense anymore. Tiki Bar TV fits fantastically well with our surreal sense of reality. “How about,” I began, pressing enter and waiting a few seconds for dramatic effect. “Platforms,” I continued. I began a new line here as well. Dramatic effect was getting a little annoyed. “Carried by crabs,” I finished.

This was the first suggestion for making platforms more than magically enchanted slabs of wood, and it changed history forever my vision of the completed game. Ideas flew around about vertical traveling platforms and how they could be explained. Admittedly, my first suggestion was “flying crabs”, in response to which Andrew ingeniously coined the term “birds”.

Here it is: the first image of the Platform Crab.