Platformer in the context of "Action game"

Luigi (/luˈiːdʒi/ ; Japanese: ルイージ, romanized: Ruīji) is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Part of Nintendo's Mario franchise, he is a kind-hearted, cowardly Italian plumber, and the younger fraternal twin brother and sidekick of Mario. Like his brother, Luigi's distinctive characteristics include his large nose and mustache, overalls, green hat, and high-pitched, exaggerated Italian accent.

Luigi first appeared in Mario Bros., a 1983 platform game, in which he was originally designed as a palette swap of Mario with a green color scheme; Luigi has since appeared in multiple games and other media throughout the Mario franchise, in which he developed a personality and style of his own. As his role in the Mario franchise progressed, Luigi evolved into a physically distinct character, and became the main protagonist of Mario is Missing! and the Luigi's Mansion series. Charles Martinet voiced Luigi from 1992 to 2023, when he was succeeded by Kevin Afghani.

Super Mario Bros. is a 1985 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Directed and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, it is the successor to the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. and the first game in the Super Mario series. Players control Mario, or his brother Luigi in the multiplayer mode, to traverse the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Toadstool from King Koopa (later named Bowser). They traverse side-scrolling stages while avoiding hazards such as enemies and pits and collecting power-ups such as the Super Mushroom, Fire Flower and Starman.

Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka designed Super Mario Bros. as a culmination of the team's experience working on Devil World and the side-scrollers Excitebike and Kung Fu. Miyamoto wanted to create a more colorful platform game with a scrolling screen and larger characters. The team designed the first level, World 1-1, as a tutorial for platform gameplay. Koji Kondo's soundtrack is one of the earliest in video games, making music a centerpiece of the design.

Takashi Tezuka (手塚 卓志, Tezuka Takashi; born November 17, 1960), sometimes called Ten Ten, is a Japanese video game designer and gaming company executive. Since 1984, he has directed, produced, or supervised development of numerous games released by Nintendo. He is now executive officer of their board of directors, and senior officer of their Entertainment Planning & Development division.

Tezuka assisted designer Shigeru Miyamoto on the platformer Super Mario Bros. (1985) for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The game was incredibly innovative and influential to the medium; it began the Super Mario game series, and revived the North American gaming industry after it had suffered a recession in 1983. Tezuka helped Miyamoto design the action-adventure game The Legend of Zelda (1986), which began the Zelda series. The duo have had a creative partnership on many projects in the four decades since.

Crash Bandicoot is a video game franchise created by Naughty Dog as a flagship title for Sony's PlayStation console. The series began with the development of the first game in 1994, inspired by the emerging capabilities of 3D consoles and games like Donkey Kong Country (1994). The protagonist, initially conceived as "Willy the Wombat", evolved into Crash Bandicoot, a goofy, genetically mutated eastern barred bandicoot who escapes the clutches of the mad scientist Doctor Neo Cortex. The original trilogy—completed by Cortex Strikes Back (1997) and Warped (1998)—along with the kart racing game Crash Team Racing (1999), received critical praise for their vibrant visuals and polished gameplay. After Naughty Dog's departure following Crash Team Racing due to creative exhaustion and ownership issues, the franchise transitioned from Sony exclusivity to multiplatform releases under multiple developers and publishers, including Universal Interactive, Vivendi Games, and eventually Activision.

Gameplay centers on 3D platforming with a linear or hub-based level progression. Players control Crash through linear, obstacle-filled levels viewed primarily from a third-person perspective, with occasional shifts to a side-scrolling perspective and levels in which Crash flees a pursuing hazard by running toward the screen. Core mechanics include jumping, spinning to defeat enemies, and collecting Wumpa fruit for extra lives, alongside breaking crates for bonuses and gathering crystals, gems, and relics to unlock content. Later entries introduce abilities granted by defeating bosses. Set in a fictional archipelago with diverse biomes, and including time-traveling and multiversal elements in later games, the series features a cast including Crash, his sister Coco, allies like the protective spirit Aku Aku, and villains including Cortex, Uka Uka, and various mutant henchmen.

Spyro is a platform game series originally created by Insomniac Games as an exclusive for Sony's PlayStation console. The series features the adventures of the titular character, a young purple dragon. Since the series' introduction in 1998, there have been numerous sequels and a reboot trilogy. The series was originally produced by Universal Interactive, later became known as Vivendi Games; the rights to the intellectual property were acquired by Activision after its merge with Vivendi in 2008.

The series went dormant for a decade, until a collection of remakes of the original Spyro PlayStation trilogy called Spyro Reignited Trilogy, developed by Toys for Bob, was released for the PlayStation 4 (also playable on PlayStation 5 through backward compatibility) and Xbox One in November 2018, and later for Microsoft Windows and Nintendo Switch in September 2019.

Super Mario 64 is a 1996 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It is the first Super Mario game to feature 3D gameplay, combining traditional Super Mario gameplay, visual style, and characters in a large open world. In the game, Bowser invades Princess Peach's castle, kidnaps her and hides the castle's sources of protection, the Power Stars, in many different worlds inside magical paintings. As Mario, the player traverses levels and collects Power Stars to unlock areas of Princess Peach's castle, in order to reach Bowser and rescue Princess Peach.

Director Shigeru Miyamoto conceived a 3D Super Mario game during the production of Star Fox (1993). Development lasted nearly three years: about one year on design and twenty months on production, starting with designing the virtual camera system. The team continued with illustrating the 3D character models—at the time a relatively unattempted task—and refining sprite movements. The sound effects were recorded by Yoji Inagaki and the score was composed by Koji Kondo.

Commander Keen is a series of side-scrolling platform video games developed primarily by id Software. The series consists of six main episodes, a "lost" episode, and a final game; all but the final game were released for MS-DOS in 1990 and 1991, while the 2001 Commander Keen was released for the Game Boy Color. The series follows the eponymous Commander Keen, the secret identity of the eight-year-old genius Billy Blaze, as he defends the Earth and the galaxy from alien threats with his homemade spaceship, rayguns, and pogo stick.

The first three episodes were developed by Ideas from the Deep, the precursor to id, and published by Apogee Software as the shareware title Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons; the "lost" episode 3.5 Commander Keen in Keen Dreams was developed by id and published as a retail title by Softdisk; episodes four and five were released by Apogee as the shareware Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy; and the simultaneously developed episode six was published in retail by FormGen as Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter. Ten years later, an homage and sequel to the series was developed by David A. Palmer Productions and published by Activision as Commander Keen. Another game was announced in 2019 as under development by ZeniMax Online Studios, but was not released.