Mr. Platformer is probably the best platformer you've never heard of

Terry Cavanagh's latest offering is a brilliant subversion of genre tropes

Terry Cavanagh is not necessarily a name many people will know, but its one you all really should. The man behind gravity bending platformer VVVVVV, hand-eye coordination nightmare Super Hexagon and the brilliant rogue like Dicey Dungeons, he’s a somewhat understated game designer who alongside his commercial work, produces a bunch of low fi games that hide brilliant experiences in such unsuspecting packages.

This weekend I've been playing his latest, Mr Platformer, and between quietly cursing out the more difficult levels and uttering ‘ahh no way’ at moments of realisation,  I've come to appreciate just how clever and surprising a game it really is.

It is here that I have to break my promise to you, dear reader, about making these posts self contained, that you don't need to do any outside work to enjoy what I've written. In this case, if you haven't already played Mr Platformer, I implore you to stop reading, go play it, then come back because I am about to spoil the surprise for the rest of this post.

You can play it for free, in browser, on itch.io, link here: https://terrycavanagh.itch.io/mr-platformer

If you've had any time with platformers in the past it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to complete, maybe even less if you're a shit hot epic gamer.

All done? Let's continue.

Mr Platformer starts you out on this 4x4 grid of seemingly randomised tiles representing each level. When you complete a level, you are given a choice between adjacent tiles to move forward. You have four chances to complete a run before it's game over and you have to start from scratch. New grid, new arrangement of tiles. 

Levels are short, sharp, and often can be completed in a matter of minutes, the victory state being only that you need to touch a bell, sometimes in plain sight but behind a locked door or two, other times easily accessible if you know where to look. Levels often also have optional collectibles, with the added invitation of a scoring system, you might be tempted into risking it all for a grander prize.

Everything about the game when you first play makes it seem like it’s a genre that it ultimately is not. When I first spent time unpeeling Mr Platformers many layers my thoughts returned to Spelunky, and games of its ilk. Pods of deliberate design laced together faintly to allow this wonderful mix and match of ideas with the ultimate goal of running a gauntlet with a single, fragile life. But if that was to be the case, then why does the counter after you die read this:

At first I thought this was going to be some even tighter meta fail state, the further you venture the closer to locking yourself out of even being able to play the game at all. Would have been an incredible shitpost of a design decision, but certainly would have turned heads.

Thankfully instead what it meant was that the further you venture through the game, with each level complete new options get added to the board until eventually your path to chime the final bell.

So it’s not a roguelike. But it’s also not a conventional platformer either. It celebrates player freedom by letting them pick the order of events; keeping things fresh by rewarding success with greater variation and dampening failure by allowing you to delay the inevitable. Which in my case is one particular fucker of a level that I’ve been rattling my head against all evening.

It’s a great little experience made by someone who really understands the joy of play, and as the world fawns over ambition and polish I will continue to think about this weird little pixelated man in this smart little pixelated game.

Another winner, special thanks to Chris Schilling for first bringing it to my attention.