thecatamites has been posting about Snow Bros on twitter... goddesses/small green rears his head... I have some thoughts on the matter... I'll have you know that I simply adore single screen arcade platformers, or as the genre's entries are known to their aficionados "comical action games". Or "Bubble Bobble clones". This is a poor generalization of an awesome section of gaming that I think distills some of the most fun, worthwhile and pleasing elements of an arcade game. Higher-class developers tended to stay away from this genre, making most of the games b-grade and therefore usually much more interesting and willing to be weird. The joy in these games lies in tight and punchy mechanics, pleasing colorful items, playing it in MAME so there are no real consequences to death and therefore a zen-like acceptance of constant bullshit enemy patterns, and the generally satisfying spectacle of a tiny box full of stubby cartoons bouncing around and exploding. Lots of them bootleg and appropriate graphics in strange patchwork ways. Gamers nowadays tend to not talk about the comical action genre I guess due to the basic-ass money-grubbing pavlovian ripoff nature of its constituents and not everybody has MAME to freely dip into the wide ocean of doofy single screeners, but it's free and they should, because they're some of the gamiest games around.
I've found arcade games have ended up fitting my tastes more than most other systems because I like games that let you die constantly and still make gradual progress through the levels, and lots of arcade games expect and yearn for you to credit-feed through them.
Anyone I just played a CAG called
Jump Kids (by Comad, makers of the infamously weird porn game Miss World Nude '96 and its mysterious graphic hack Miss Mister World Nude '96, for which I have logged in over 4 combined hours of mame time), it's okay. You play as a baby and your attack is flailing around.
hahah the motionless screen after title and before attract mode.
Default highscores
Moon level, you can select your levels from a list a la Megaman, which is a mechanic that shows up in some other comical action games and which is very cool and I appreciate a lot (it's tedious to start off on the same level every time you play). it also means a pretty level select screen.
Slapping wildly. The bonuses are very meh in this game, just some differently colored stars. The items the enemies turn into are part of the very lifeblood of a comical action game - they're a fundamental aspect of the genre rooted in Bubble Bobble tradition.
Oddly, when you die, you have a regular death animation and then one in which you fly a plane into a dimensional door that closes and disappears. Then you respawn.
i'm probably going to make more posts about more games like this if nobody minds. possibly in its own topic.
Gaming World Forums
Dump topic for stuff thecatamites/bonzi_buddy/etc. might like