A brief history of the Platform Racing series
#1
Originally posted on reddit https://old.reddit.com/r/PlatformRacing2...series_by/. Also posting here cause it might be relevant

The Platform Racing series were a series of multiplayer Flash platformers made by Jacob “Jiggmin” Grahn.

Platform racing 1 was released in 2007 and had around 15 maps. You could play a level in groups of 4 with online multiplayer and use items from item boxes to get ahead. You could also goomba stomp on other players and stun them. Due to bad netcode, you could stomp on someone and they wouldn’t get stunned. If you fell off the level, you got teleported back to the last safe location. It was interesting but didn’t have staying power. The levels were made of blocks on a grid. Many blocks had unique properties such as moving you left or right, making it impossible to jump (you can still hold down to charge a super jump), making you jump at all times, or breaking when you hit them with your head.

Platform racing 2 was released in 2008 and had 9 campaign maps. However, it also had a level editor which was the main feature. People created lots of levels, most bad, some good. The “all time today” tab was very popular. At its peak in 2008 and 2009, there were 2000+ players online (Source: Me. I was there). Each server had a cap of 200 players. You had to repeatedly connect to a server and hope someone logged off at the same time you logged on. Good times. Before the rise of mobile gaming, Flash games were the most popular form of casual games. Although no accurate stats are available, PR2 was probably the most popular multiplayer flash game on Kongregate, and one of the most popular multiplayer flash games worldwide. It was also playable on Armor Games and Newgrounds, as well as Jiggmin’s own site.

It also introduced new blocks like move blocks that moved in a random direction every few seconds (you could see where a second before they moved), push blocks that players could push, crumble blocks that would break after being collided with a few times, and vanish blocks that vanished a second after contact, but would come back after a few seconds.

The netcode was still as bad as PR1, as it was entirely client side with significant latency. We tolerated it. In PR2, you could level up your character and gain stats on level up (speed, acceleration, and jump) and redistribute as you saw fit. You could redistribute stats anytime when you weren’t in-game and there was no cost. This made veteran players objectively more powerful than new players. Back then, no one, not even the developer, knew it was bad game design. We were having too much fun. You could also get hats to give you gameplay bonuses like slowing your fall, being immune to weapons and mines, or freezing the blocks you walked on. If you took damage your hat fell off and other players could steal it.

My PR2 username was first Ugly Mcstick. I stole it from another player in Stick Arena, another multiplayer Flash game, but I got phished and I created a new account called !X!

I made some levels. They’re ok, but nothing worth writing about.

Platform racing 3 was released in 2010 and had around 30 campaign maps, as well as a level editor. Jiggmin had made a deal with a site called Sparkworkz to make PR3 exclusive to them. Because of this, the only way to discover it was to play PR2, get involved in the Jiggmin community (there was a forum), and from there find PR3. This made it very difficult for new players to discover PR3. At its peak, PR3 had 260 players (source: Me. I was there). PR3 was outshone by PR2 for the entirety of PR3’s lifetime (more on that later).
The netcode was still as bad as PR1.

PR3 had new features. The biggest was custom blocks. You could make a block with custom art and behavior. For example, an item block that gave you an item if you walked on top, but hurt you if you touched it anywhere else, or a one-way barrier. There were also Change Blocks which would change block type randomly every few seconds.

PR3 also had new level types like:
Deathmatch: Exactly what you think.
Coin rush: Break blocks to get coins. Attacking other players doesn’t let you steal coins from them, so it was mainly done just to antagonize people.
Hat collect (damage other players to knock their hat off, hold all hats at the time time to win)

After some updates, Jiggmin added custom move blocks and change blocks. You could specify exactly what pattern move blocks and change blocks moved and changed in, as well as how often they moved/changed. Custom move blocks could be used to create harmful projectiles, or moving platforms. Custom change blocks could be used to create unique obstacles, such as blocks that alternated between being a normal block and a harmful block.

There was an exploit where you could have 9 players in a level instead of 4. It was fixed, but the official ability to have 8 players in a level was added. Maybe because 9 looked broken in the UI, or Jiggmin wanted to remind everyone who’s in charge.

My PR3 username was ~~!X!~~

Some of my levels:

Fort Gunfight: A deathmatch level with forts. Players inside could block off entrances to make it harder for enemies to get in, but each fort had at least one entrance that was always open. There were 2 forts on the sides, 1 sky fort, and 1 underground bunker.

Gold Dig: A coin frenzy level where you went underground to break blocks and get coins. You also could use weapons found throughout the level to kill enemies for coins, or attack other players.

Choose your own adventure: what it says on the tin

The Factory: Traditional race level with lots of hazards like timed electrocution fields, conveyor belts, and mines. Very thematic.

Long traps: A “trap” type level, where failure meant you got softlocked. However, if someone beat the part where you got trapped they could free you. These level types were popular in PR2 and PR3 because they raised the stakes. This one had 20 sections, and 4 themed areas.

Metal traps: A thematic metal themed level. Like literal metal, not metal music. This one had 20 sections but each section was shorter than in Long Traps.

Both my trap levels had unique platforming like ledge jumps, indestructible bomb jumps where you had land in the center so you wouldn’t get knocked off, and moving platforms.

Climber (forgot real name): Like the flash game Avalanche, you had to jump on top of move blocks that continuously fell and not get buried. It was janky but it worked.

The playerbase of PR3 declined over the years. The most popular period was in 2010 right after launch.
In 2015, Sparkworkz shut down, taking PR3 with it. Everything was lost. Every account, character, private message, custom block, and user made level. There was no official way to download levels, and no one figured out an unofficial way.

Back to PR2

Despite the death of PR3, PR2 was still going. It was still being regularly updated, but players continued to dwindle. This part is less accurate because I left the Platform Racing series in 2011, only stopping by to check on the Platform Racing series occasionally and wasn’t as involved with the community.
As flash games fell out of popularity, PR2’s playerbase declined. It was showing its age. Things that never seemed like a problem before were suddenly noticeable. For example, 30 FPS cap, 4:3 aspect ratio, bad netcode, and as mentioned before, veteran players having objectively more powerful characters.
Sometime, Jiggmin abandoned the game and it was picked up by the dedicated fans. The transfer was orderly and all data was maintained, so players didn’t lose anything.

Sometime later (or maybe earlier) Kongregate, one of the sites it was hosted on, introduced a pay to win update, where players could pay real money for “Kreds”, and pay Kreds for temporary stat boosts that only lasted one day. No one was outraged. This was because the game was nearly dead, so there was no one to buy the stat boosts, and no one to complain about it.

The PR2 playerbase took note of PR3’s demise, and someone downloaded all the PR2 custom levels. They are about 6 Gigabytes in a zip file.

Around 2015 after PR3’s shutdown, someone got access to PR3, and created Platform Racing 3 Reborn.
It was dead every time I checked on it, except once when I 1v1’d someone in a deathmatch. It had an average of 2 players online whenever I checked.
There is still no way to download levels in PR3. When the fan hosted servers inevitably shut down, everything will be lost again.

After the Flash shutdown in December 2020, PR2 is still alive, but barely. You can download the SWF file (or a .exe or something) and play. All the user accounts are preserved and you can log in with your old account and play all the levels.

As of March 2021, there are about 40 players online in PR2, and 1 in PR3 Reborn. PR2 is still being regularly updated. Who is updating the game? Who’s paying to host the servers? Why? I dunno. Some tournaments and events are held in PR3 Reborn as well, so it’s still kicking.
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#2
also never forget "the drums" !!!! probably the most iconic event behind the rank glitch day
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#3
nice thread bro. it's too bad i wasn't around when pr2 first came out, it sounded like it was popping
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#4
It's always nice to have a reminder of how Pr2 used to be, versus now.
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#5
I was right there when PR2 first came out, in the Summer of 2008. It was a magical time. Literally, the first 4 servers were full or nearly full every time I logged in that Summer. I even made my own levels. I made a whopping 15 levels on August 30th, 2008, just a couple weeks after the original campaign levels were made. Search up gay16 to see them, but be warned, they're terrible. I remember the Campaign tab being packed full of usernames, it was a sight to see. I always loved Candyland when I was a kid, and it's still my favorite PR2 level to this day. So many good memories were had. Honestly, the nostalgia factor alone will bring me back, and makes it worth keeping up for that alone. The fact that this scrappy little game I played 13 years ago is still kicking with updates and users... it warms my heart. Sure, the user base is much smaller than it was way back then, but I still love this community. I've been given a lifetime of memories.
Zack means everything to me 💛
[Image: Zp4SiOJ.png]
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#6
gay16
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