In the beginning of most games, designers would implement a tutorial to teach players how to play the game and explain to them what they are expected to do with these skills. However, there are some games that forgo the explicit explanation and merge the tutorial within the level itself. Most Mario games follow that design philosophy and a primary example of that is World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros.
At the start of the level, Mario is facing to the right. This shows the player where they need to go. Upon seeing the Goomba, the dark brown mushroom with angry eyes, the player is expected to identify it as an enemy and react to it. Since there is only one possible action command, the player is expected to either jump over the Goomba, avoiding certain death, or jump on it and defeat it. This exposes the player to the jump mechanic, the core upon which the game is designed. By learning this, the player can play around with it and get a feel for Mario’s movements. They learn that they can modify the height of Mario’s jump based on how long they press the button and interact with other objects and defeat enemies.
The floating ‘?’ block, normally glowing, entices the player to jump to it by promising something good out of it. However, if the player has only tapped the jump button, they will find out that a small hop just won’t do. There, the player intuitively learns that by holding the jump button, Mario will jump higher. They also learn that different items can come out of ‘?’ blocks. Most of them in this picture have coins in them. However, the one next to the first brick block contains a mushroom.
When designing this power up, the designers wanted to find a way to make it satisfying to obtain. During an interview with Eurogamer, Miyamoto recounted, “What is that magical item that we need? And we thought a suspicious mushroom would be globally understood… You try to run away but by being hit you become bigger and that makes you feel really happy.” When the mushroom comes out of the ‘?’ box, it will start to move to the right, notably in the same direction as Mario. This and its brighter colors suggest that it could be something that can help Mario. Should the player still be afraid of it, the pipe is there to make sure they touch it. Here they learn the mechanics of the Super Mushroom. They can destroy brick blocks to reach greater heights, the higher ‘?’ block, in this case, and shrink when coming in contact with an enemy, the Goomba, in this case.
The result of all of this is an incredibly instinctive form of exploration. Players can play through the level and experiment with the different kinds and compositions of enemies and obstacles. This comes from the simplicity of the game’s rules, and this kind of simplicity serves as the basis for all of Nintendo’s games.
By Jose T.
