First platform videogame

The first true platform videogame was the 1981 Nintendo arcade game Donkey Kong. It was the first game to star Mario – although he was called Jumpman at the time – and the first game created by legendary Japanese designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Space Panic, an arcade game from 1980, is sometimes credited as being the first platformer. While it contains platforms and was certainly influential on the genre, Space Panic misses a crucial element that defines a platform game: the player has the ability to fall, but there is no jumping over platforms or obstacles to advance through the game. Jumping is a crucial part of a platform game. As Games Radar says, "when Donkey Kong introduced the need to jump over approaching enemies and between gaps of space in hopes of getting to the next area safely, it wasn’t just a new idea, it changed everything."