Platform Games
The last genre that still has levels. Sixty-two of the hundred and sixty-four builds we could read still open with a level-select screen.
48 games · hand-picked, then filled from the catalogue
Count the games on this page that open with a grid of numbered squares, some of them locked.
How this list is put together
Sixty-two of the hundred and sixty-four platform games whose build we could read still ship a level-select screen, and ninety-four of a hundred and nineteen write your progress into your own browser's storage. Nothing else in this catalogue holds on to that structure the way platformers do. Most browser games gave up levels for an endless run and a high score, because a score needs no memory and an endless run needs no design.
A platformer needs both. Somebody has to build level seven, and the game has to remember that you got there.
The floor is the game
Strip a platform game down and what is left is a floor with holes in it. You jump between the solid parts, you fall through the rest, and every other rule is arranged around that one. It is the oldest working idea in video games and it survives because it is legible at a glance: you can look at a screen you have never seen and know immediately what will kill you.
The variations on this page are the usual four. Precision platformers, where the jump is exact and the level is short. Adventure platformers, where there is a world to cross and things to collect on the way. Physics platformers, where the fun is that you do not entirely control your own body. And the modern mutation — runners, where the game moves you forward and the only verb you keep is jump.
Read the titles on this page and count how many contain run or rush. That is what happened to the genre in the mobile decade, and it is why the ones that still hand you the whole level feel like a different medium.
Light, for once
The median platform game here downloads 6.4 MB, against 7.8 MB for the catalogue as a whole, measured the same way: opening each game in a real browser and counting the bytes that arrive.
The reason is flat art. A platformer is tiles and sprites, drawn once and repeated, and tiles compress. The heavy ones on this page are the 3D exceptions — the ball-rolling and lane-running games that took the platformer's rules into a third dimension and had to carry a camera and a skybox to do it.
Where to start
If you want the genre at its purest, start with the short, hand-drawn ones. If you are on a phone, the hundred and nine marked for touch are the ones built for on-screen buttons — every card says which. And if you want the whole shelf rather than this selection, the arcade games category is where the rest of the jumping lives, next to parkour games for the ones that never stop moving.
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What counts as a platform game?
A game where the floor is not continuous. You jump between ledges, you fall if you miss, and the level is a shape you have to read before you move. Everything else — the enemies, the coins, the timer — is decoration on that one idea.
Do they save which level I reached?
Most do. Of the platform games whose build we could read, ninety-four out of a hundred and nineteen write to your browser's own storage, and sixty-two ship a level-select screen. That combination is rare now and it is the reason this genre is still worth a bookmark.
Do they work on a phone?
A hundred and nine of the four hundred and one are marked for touch, and we label which. A platformer on a touchscreen means on-screen buttons, which some of these do well and some do not.
How big are they?
A median of 6.4 MB, measured by downloading each one. That is a little under the catalogue median of 7.8 MB — flat 2D art is cheaper than a 3D city.
Do I need to download anything?
No. They run in the tab you already have open, with no account and no install.