Hi there! If you’re joining us now, the month of march is gonna be all about platforming games – 2D, 3D, maybe even 2.5D.

Sometimes a platformer franchise will churn out installments on the regular, and sometimes they very much won’t. Luckily theres’ a vibrant indie scene to pick up the slack in the latter case, with an ever growing pile of loving homages, ranging from critical darlings to Mighty Number 9. To be certain a lot of indie games borrow a lot from preceding games, but here we’re thinking about those that are overtly striving to be “Another Game Like [X]” – your Bloodstaineds, Axiom Verges and Sparx the electric Jesters.

So, what are your favorite platformer homages/spiritual successors? And which ones totally missed the mark?

Bonus prompt: What languishing platformers (or specific franchise iterations) deserve a spiritual successor?

Extra Bonus prompt: Any tricks from these platformer successors that should be adopted by their inspirational platformer franchises?

Extra Bonus prompt Deluxe: Any cases where the platformer successors went overboard, incorporating things better left behind?

Extra Bonus prompt Triple Deluxe: Favorite/least favorite platformer homages or references in games that weren’t necessarily full-on spiritual successors?

TOMORROW: Indie platformers in general – basically, if you have an indie metroidvania you like that isn’t specifically trying to ape the look/feel/vibe of actual Metroid or Castlevania, I’d say that goes here