A few months ago I played Kung-Fu Fight on XBLIG for the first time and immediately thought, “I want to make a game like that!” I have no problem confessing to my source of inspiration – I loved the simplicity, loved the gameplay, loved the look, but most importantly I was really turned on by the idea of a continuous scrolling platformer. Now this idea isn’t new. A game like Moon Patrol is almost 30 years old and is one of the pioneers in the genre. SMB3 was famous for its continuous scrolling levels. So I began tinkering with graphics and ideas in both Flash and XNA trying to come up with the right look, theme, and gameplay. However, this past weekend’s IndieCade left me feeling a tad hesitant. After seeing talks by people like Gaijin Games and Adam Saltsman, I started worrying that perhaps there are already too many indie powerhouses in this genre (games like Canabalt and BIT.TRIP RUNNER). When is a genre played? When do you move on? I really don’t have an answer. I guess for me, I just want to make the kind of game that *I* want to make regardless of what else is out there. Anyway, T2B did some brainstorming and we have a list of ideas that could potentially put a new spin on the genre so we’ll see… Heck, if Pac-Man would have been the last of the maze games, then we’d never have seen K.C. Munchkin. Wait… that argument doesn’t sound right.
-MattKain

[Below: Kung-Fu Fight, Moon Patrol, Canabalt, BIT.TRIP RUNNER]