Side-scrolling video game
A video game genre with side-view scrolling gameplay.
A side-scrolling video game is a game viewed from a side-angle camera where the screen follows the player's horizontal movement. The transition from single-screen or flip-screen graphics to scrolling graphics during the golden age of arcade games was a significant advancement in game design, comparable to the later shift to 3D graphics. Hardware support for smooth scrolling backgrounds was built into many arcade games, consoles, and home computers, including 8-bit and 16-bit systems.
Quick Facts
- Field
- Video game genre
- Known for
- Side-view camera angle with scrolling backgrounds
Facts from the source article.
History
The side-scrolling video game format first appeared in arcades with Sega's Bomber, a shooter released in April 1977. The style became widely popular thanks to side-scrolling shoot 'em ups in the early 1980s. Williams Electronics showed Defender in late 1980, and it went into production in early 1981. Defender allowed scrolling in both directions with wrap-around, expanding the game world, and included a mini-map radar.
Konami's Scramble, released in early 1981, scrolled continuously in one direction and was the first side-scroller to feature multiple distinct levels. The first scrolling platform game was Jump Bug, a platform-shooter from 1981 where players bounced a car onto platforms like buildings, clouds, and hills. It mostly scrolls horizontally, but one section has coarse vertical scrolling. Taito's first side-scrolling platformer was Jungle King (1982), later renamed Jungle Hunt due to a legal dispute over its resemblance to Tarzan.
Parallax scrolling added depth to side-scrollers by using multiple background layers that move at different speeds. Jump Bug used a limited version: the main scene scrolled while a starry sky stayed fixed and clouds moved slowly. Irem's Moon Patrol (1982) fully implemented parallax scrolling with three separate layers moving at different rates, and it is often credited with making the technique popular. Jungle Hunt also had parallax scrolling and came out the same month as Moon Patrol in June 1982.
In 1982, Activision published two side-scrolling racing games for the Atari VCS: Barnstorming, featuring a biplane, and Grand Prix, with a top-down view. By 1984, other side-scrolling racing games included Nintendo's Excitebike, SNK's Jumping Cross, and Williams Electronics' Mystic Marathon, a footrace between fantasy creatures.
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