The Rise of Expressive Platforming

A mod­ern pre­ci­sion platformer’s dash turns move­ment into a lan­guage, not a bar­ri­er. Trac­ing the genre from Su­per Mario Bros. to Su­per Mario Odyssey shows how plat­form­ing shift­ed from strict tim­ing tests to ex­pres­sive toolk­its built for flow, re­cov­ery, and style. Chal­lenge stays, but it be­comes some­thing you per­form.