3D Realms has published a small documentary entitled Halo: The History Of The PC Side-Scroller in which reviewed the history of the PC platform games; from Pitfall or Dangerous Dave to Jazz Jackrabbit or Hocus Pocus, many of them distributed 3D Realms (Apogee Software, at that time). You can see it above; takes fifteen minutes.
The protagonists of this oral history of a decade (more or less: from the mid 80s until the mid-90s) are known to all: Cliff Bleszinski, Bill McIntosh, John Romero and Tom Hall; leaders of that generation trospida of 2D platform games for PC that had to live with the shadow of Super Mario, but also with the technical limitations of the time. Is interesting check that it’s id Software comes from afar: before Doom, already revolutionized the panorama in 1990 with Commander Keen, and there began the business of licensing engines graphic; Surely you remember that prototype of Super Mario Bros. 3 for PC that developed id Software to demonstrate it well that could handle the scroll in a time in which the screen fixed was the ceiling.
The influence of Miyamoto is crucial, as explained in the video. Commander Keen, has Romero, had as greater influence to Super Mario e even mimics some of their peculiarities (e.g., it of that the protagonist is strain behind the walls, as in them blocks white of Super Mario Bros. 3), although wanted to innovate making that the exploration out more free and them levels, more vertical. Them games of platforms were, explain their responsible, perfect by how allowed create games more legible within the limitations of the technology of those years.
Each one progressed by his side, but, as says Bill McIntosh, creator of Duke Nukem (another that started being a side scroller), «all them games is developed in clones, in some measure, of the gender Mario». Shortly after id Software would create another game that is a genre: like many of these PC games are clones of Mario, you could say that all games are Wolfenstein 3D.
