The following is a “minimal essay” on the varied representations and interactions with the landscape in NES games of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. With the videos shown, all attempts were made to find high quality videos that were not “speed-runs” or attempts to play the game perfectly as fast as possible, since those do not show the full and normal range of gameplay.
LANDSCAPE AS ENEMY
Pitfall
Where the landscape is itself an enemy, constantlly in a state of collapse. Much like the first scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark this cave, more than creatures or people, are the danger.
PSYCHEDELIC GEOMETRY
Marble Madness
Like Edwin Abbott’s book Flatland, a sort of “transcendental” or psychedelic geometry.
Solstice
Isometric rooms floating in black nothing, filled with strange and non-representational geometry filled with roaming monsters.
Willow
Psychedelically-patterned trees and grass that shake with wind when enemies appear.
LANDSCAPE AS FULL OF TREASURE
Spelunker
A landscape hiding that it is chock full of treasure. Super Mario Bros and its coins hidden in ordinary-looking bricks would be another example.
INFINITE LANDSCAPES
Adventure Island
An infinitely-running corridor of trees full of seemingly harmless animals (like snails) that are deadly. Part of an interesting sub-group of games with clouds that can be stood on (subject for further investigation).
Paperboy 2
Located in an infinite suburban neighborhood, when watching a video of gameplay this seems to be more like drive looking at the details of people’s houses (a pig turning on a spit in the front yard of one house). The pure-black streets seem like space, with the blocks of houses floating space stations, similar to Solstice above.
LANDSCAPE BUILT FOR DESTRUCTION
Rampage
The entire landscape of this game is built for destruction in a never-ending cityscape. Could equally have been listed with Spelunker as a landscape full of treasure to be horded (in this case weird dollar-signs and other objects hidden in the buildings) or with Adventure Island and Paperboy 2 as an infinite city, but the idea of the destruction of the landscape as both the purpose of the place and of the creature was too interesting not to list on its own.
HISTORICAL/VIRTUAL
North and South
This game somewhat re-creates the Civil War as gameplay, mixing historical and virtual landscapes. Maps and simple, stylized battlefields are the majority of the game. Extra points for 8-bit banjos.
SLOW-MOVING HOTSPOTS OF DANGER
Snake’s Revenge
Graphically very interesting search lights puncturing pure black create sparse landscape with “hotspots” of danger. Similarly, guns shoot extremely slow-moving bullets (reminiscent of hunting in the game Oregon Trail) that, rather than dissipate quickly, fill the space with dangerous particles.