A trip to 2D Mario and his time travel.
The “1-1” in the original Super Mario Bros. is probably the most famous level in video game history.
This road of bricks under the blue sky and white clouds created the type of side-scrolling games, and also set up a peak at the starting point of platform jumping games.
Since then, many new works have been launched one after another, and most of them have inherited the “Ren’s design ideas” and won a good reputation. But since the release of “New Super Mario Bros U” in 2012, there has been no news of the orthodox sequel to the 2D Mario series.
But just a while ago, a game that sounded like a new 2D Mario game – “Super Mario Bros. 5” suddenly caused a heated discussion on Twitter.
It is neither an official new work nor a fan work, but a game made by a fan with “Super Mario Creator 2” (hereinafter referred to as Ma Zao 2). Although there is no official bloodline certification, this complete game consisting of 8 worlds and 40 levels has been evaluated by many players as “very classic Mario flavor”.
For many players who like traditional 2D Mario games, this is a rare meal replacement for the past decade. For the author Mike, this is a long journey that lasted 7 years.
1
Like many children who have been exposed to games since childhood, Mike has always wanted to make a game of his own as a child. Since I especially like the Mario series, in its goal, this game can be more specifically positioned as “a Mario game”.
But like most people who want to make games, for a long time since then, this idea of it has only stayed in the mind. At most, it turns into scribbling drawings on paper and line-by-line text version settings, but that crucial step has never been taken.
After that, he still kept the habit of making lists with pen and paper
Until 2015, the original “Super Mario Creator” was officially released.
Whether it’s because of Nintendo’s tough copyright control or because of the natural threshold for making games, the emergence of “Made by Horse” gives Mike no reason to delay the idea of ”making a Mario”. Thus, he officially started his own creative path.
When he first started designing levels on the 3DS, he didn’t have the idea of making a “full game” yet, he simply made some loose levels. Since the graffiti on paper in the past was just talk on paper after all, he could only look back on the classic 2D Mario before, while groping to gradually improve and enrich his levels.
As the level of complexity in his hands has grown, so has Mike’s equipment. After initially finding the 3DS more and more inconvenient, he easily moved the battlefield to the Wii U. But when Mazao 2 on NS was released, Nintendo gave him a problem: the map of the second-generation game did not support one-click import.
According to him, the time to move each level is about 1 to 3 hours
Before the release of Mazao 2 that year, many players worried that if the maps between the two generations of games did not support one-click import, players who suddenly lost millions of maps would be able to rebuild the previously complete ecosystem. . But it turned out that they were completely overthinking it. The creative enthusiasm of these players quickly reinvigorated Mazao 2, and Mike was one of them.
At that time, he had designed 22 levels, and he could only honestly start this big project from scratch: open two games at the same time, and move his map to Mazao 2 brick by brick. Due to the changes in the details of the two generations of games, he had to reluctantly delete 3 of them during the re-enactment process.
When the 3.0 patch of Mazao 2 was officially announced, the world map function that was highly requested by players was finally launched. Players can finally experience a world composed of multiple levels in the game without resorting to third-party websites. It was also at this time that Mike realized that he finally had the opportunity to assemble those fragmentary levels into a complete game.
Before that, the player-made web version of the horse-made map editor
According to the grassland, snow, volcano and other styles provided by the Mazao 2 world map, he put these levels into 8 different worlds with mechanism and difficulty. He has made major changes to the existing 7 levels, and designed more than 20 new levels. Finally, on September 25 this year, the full version of this 40-level level was launched – a Mario game that belongs to him. .
The design ideas and materials used in it all come from “Super Mario Bros.”, “Super Mario Bros. 3” and “Super Mario World” that he used to play.
This also makes this map absent from “New Super Mario Bros U” and “Super Mario 3D World”, like a journey back in time to the last century, from the visual and experience, let players return to That era when platform jumping games and Mario evolved together.
2
In Mike’s “Super Mario Bros. 5”, a total of 24 levels use the “Super Mario World” style, “Super Mario Bros. 3” has 14 levels, and the FC version of “Super Mario Bros.” has two indivual. In addition, the game also added the transformation mushrooms from “Super Mario Bros. 2” (called “Super Mario Bros. USA” in the Japanese market).
This makes the entire game visually, like a long scroll that follows generations of games, magnifying the “time corridor” attribute that was crumbled in Mazao 2, just like a Mario’s “Evolution land”.
At the same time, because Mike rarely imitates the drawing ideas of other players when designing levels, the most common references are “Super Mario Bros. 3” and “Super Mario World”, so the levels he made also have a strong Nintendo imprint.
For example, in his 1-2 levels, we can see the obvious shadow of the first-generation FC version.
After giving a few question mark bricks and a flower reward, 5 completely corresponding bricks are placed immediately, and the player is guided to open them.
In these 5 bricks, he quietly put hidden gold coins, so that the player himself knows the existence of the concept of hidden bricks.
Then, in an apparently wrong way back, he also hid in hidden gold coins to strengthen the newly generated concept in the player’s mind.
Finally, on the ceiling at the end of the map, put a structure that clearly has a design but doesn’t know what it does. Aroused the interest of players, let us involuntarily think of the concept of hidden bricks we just learned, try to look at it, and finally get a US version of the mushroom reward.
This is how Nintendo has always thought of level design. First use the player’s intuition to introduce a new mechanism, then use the practical design in the level to teach us the various applications of this mechanism step by step, and finally increase the difficulty to take a comprehensive “big test”.
In a limited level, they will not rush to introduce too many mechanics, but will most likely play a lot of tricks around these two mechanics. Both help players understand and remember, and make the difficulty curve as smooth as possible.
In the video of the YouTube channel “Game Production Toolbox”, he analyzed and introduced two levels in “New Super Mario Bros U” and “Super Mario World”. The former wanted to teach players the characteristics of the “waterwheel” mechanism, and set up a relaxed training camp with a whole level.
Green and red represent safe areas and areas that may fall into the water, respectively, and the difficulty gradually increases
In the latter level, around the element of the rotating board, Nintendo also patiently gradually widened the distance and added enemies for players to get acquainted with. Finally, there was a smooth continuous jump that was both a test and a reward to reach the end of the level. Homologous to the mage that Mike uses in his level.
It’s just that this level design idea is a little too familiar to modern players. We have played too many similar games, and many times this slow rhythm means that the difficulty is too low. Therefore, in Mazao 2, the most popular map is not the official map, but some exquisitely designed automatic maps and poisonous maps.
But this is just like in Ma Zuo 2, these styles maintain the version of Mario games of that year. At first glance, it is still the same as it was back then, but too many new mechanisms and new props have been added. It can definitely be called a new game if it is taken out alone. It only continues the thinking of the year at the lowest level.
Saying this is the FC version of Mario, Link must be the first to refuse.
In Mike’s “Super Mario Bros. 5”, we can also see the influence of many modern horse-made maps on him, such as the combination of multiple props, the difficult “chasing scenes” or poisonous maps. The author’s mockery of the player.
Of course, none of this is most important to Mike. Because his original intention was not to make a most popular Mario game, but a Mario of his own. That’s why he chose the generations of old-school classics that he likes and is familiar with the most. As long as “someone likes to play their own game”, he is already very satisfied.
3
Before the release of the full “Super Mario Bros. 5”, Mike went to the Nintendo flagship store in Manhattan, New York, used the demo machine there to open his own horse-made level, and hid behind the container to quietly observe the reactions of passers-by when they played.
The moment when those players are smiling while playing the game is when he considers himself the happiest as a creator.
Mike’s Twitter avatar
During the 7 years of making the entire game, his creative life was lonely. Although he does not need to consider the thresholds of art, programming and music for traditional game production, he still needs to arrange a series of work such as planning, design and testing by himself. Before it was released as Super Mario Bros. 5, not many people played his levels, and even fewer were able to communicate with him.
The only “QA tester” beside him is his 4-year-old son. He designed the level to be as smooth and friendly as possible, not only to implement the “design idea of the department”, but also to take care of this little tester. Whether his son can understand the game and whether he can get stuck here has also become a major criterion for his design, just like what all-age games should do.
A pair of sons and daughters that Mike posted on Twitter
But fortunately, after 7 years of production, “Super Mario Bros. 5” has become a game that many people have played and liked. Three days after he released it, this map in Ma Zao 2 has received more than 20,000 likes, which means that at least 20,000 people have played it.
Now in an interview, he will laugh and complain that every 5 seconds, a reminder of other players will pop up in his Mazao 2, and it seems that he has harvested another sweet annoyance.
As a successful Mazao 2 map author, Mike still hopes that the official can add a better sharing mechanism to the game. This will prevent map authors from relying so much on sharing on social media, resulting in many authors working hard to make levels, but the number of people playing is always zero.
As an experienced person, he can understand this sense of loss, and sometimes this is the reason why newcomers are afraid to take the first step. So he always likes to mention the fun in those Mario games, whether it is in the process of playing, making, or watching others play, it has become the reason for him to persevere.
When he was asked what advice he would give to those trying to make their own Mario levels or games, he replied: “Make it fun…as Nintendo taught us. “
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