The Lion King

About This Game

Gameplay

The Lion King is a side-scrolling platformer where players control the protagonist, Simba, in the events of the film, going through both child and adult forms as the game progresses. In the first half of the game, players control Simba as a cub, who mainly defeats enemies by jumping on them. Simba's roar consumes a replenishable meter, and can be used to stun enemies or solve puzzles. In the second half of the game, Simba becomes an adult and gains access to various combat moves such as scratching, mauling, and throws. Simba starts the game with a certain number of lives, depending on the difficulty setting, which are lost if he runs out of health, falls into a bottomless pit, or a lake of water or lava, or is hit by a rolling boulder or falling stalactites. Passing through checkpoints throughout the level allow Simba to restart from that point when he loses a life. The game ends prematurely when the player loses all of their lives. If players have any continues left (collected via a Circle of Life icon in any stage), they can restart from the beginning of the last stage they got a Game Over on. Otherwise, it's back to the title screen and starting over from the beginning.

History

The sprites and backgrounds were drawn by Disney animators at Walt Disney Feature Animation, and the music was adapted from songs and orchestrations in the film's soundtrack. Game designer Louis Castle revealed that two levels, Hakuna Matata and Be Prepared, were adapted from scenes which were cut from the final movie. The game's development started in January 1994 and finished in July. Near the end of development, the monkey puzzle in the second level, "Can't Wait to be King", was expanded and made more difficult to meet Disney's playtime criteria to fight game rentals, as time constraints made it impossible to add more levels.