Most games of this genre consist of multiple levels of increasing difficulty, that may also be interleaved by boss encounters, where the character has to defeat a particularly dangerous enemy in order to progress. Through the various areas of the game world, player may be able to collect items and powerups that can come in handy for different situations, and give the main character new abilities for overcoming adversities. Many platform games have environmental obstacles which kill the player character upon contact, such as lava pits or bottomless chasms. Falling from considerable height often causes damage or death. In some games, the trajectory of a jump is fixed, but others it can be altered in mid-air.

Jumping is central to the genre, though there are exceptions such as Nintendo's Popeye (1982). The most common movement options in the genre are walking, running, jumping, attacking, and climbing. Typical platforming gameplay tends to be very dynamic and challenges a player's reflexes, timing, and dexterity with controls. These games are either presented from the side view, using two-dimensional movement, or in 3D with the camera placed either behind the main character or in isometric perspective. In 2006, the genre experienced a decline in popularity, representing a 2% market share as compared to 15% in 1998 however, the genre still exists in the commercial environment, with a number of games selling in the millions of units.ДЄ platform game requires the player to manoeuvre their character across platforms to reach a goal, while confronting enemies and avoiding obstacles along the way. While commonly associated with console gaming, there have been many prominent platform games released for video arcades, as well as for handheld game consoles and home computers.Дuring the peak of platform games' popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, platform games were estimated to consist of between a quarter and a third of all console games, but have since been supplanted by first-person shooters.

Games where jumping is automated completely, such as 3D games in The Legend of Zelda series, fall outside of the genre. Other acrobatic maneuvers may factor into the gameplay as well, such as climbing, swinging from objects such as vines or grappling hooks, jumping off walls, air dashing, gliding through the air, being shot from cannons or bouncing from springboards or trampolines. Platform games are characterized by their level design featuring uneven terrain and suspended platforms of varying height that requires use of the player character's abilities (such as jumping and climbing) to navigate the player's environment and reach their goal. Platform games (often simplified as platformer or jump 'n' run games) are a video game genre and subgenre of action games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in a rendered environment.

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