Happy 30th birthday, 'Super Mario Bros.'!
On September 13, 1985, Nintendo released Super Mario Bros.
A few days earlier, lead designer Shigeru Miyamoto was line dancing. And he might dance again this weekend, when the world celebrates the 30th anniversary of the seminal video game.
"When we finished it, myself and Mr. [Takashi] Tezuka and Mr. Nakano — who has been working on the games with us for a long time; he's a programmer — the three of us went out to a small country music club close to the old headquarters in Kyoto and we all had a little kanpai [a celebratory toast] to celebrate the completion of the game," Miyamoto told Yahoo Games. "So maybe for the 30th anniversary, the three of us should get back together and go back to that same pub and do a little kanpai."
The team certainly earned the celebration. Nintendo would sell over 40 million copies of the original Super Mario Bros., which was initially released on the Family Computer Disc System (more commonly called the Famicom) in Japan. While Super Mario Bros. wasn't the first game to feature Mario (that'd be Donkey Kong, though he was known as “Jumpman” in that game and was a carpenter rather than a plumber), it was the one that really put him on the map. With insanely addictive gameplay that was packed to the gills with secrets, it was an immediate hit that turned Nintendo into a household name.
And it proved to have plenty of staying power. Taken together, the Super Mario games have accounted for over 310 million copies, making it the biggest franchise in video game history.
Exemplifying the credo of easy to play, difficult to master, Super Mario Bros. had no instruction booklet. But anyone could pick up a controller and quickly figure out what to do.
The game’s first level — World 1-1 — isn’t just instantly recognizable: it’s also a study in smart design. To showcase elements of the game, Miyamoto and his crew tried to create a basic outline in its initial moments.
"We simulated what the player would do," he told Eurogamer. "If a suspicious enemy appears, the player will need to jump over it...when they see a coin, it will make them happy and they'll want to try again...we kept simulating what the player would do, so even within that one section we knew that the player would understand the general concept of what Mario is supposed to be and what the game is about."
"We made sure that there were some parts that even if the player fell, it would be safe. By doing that, we wanted the player to gradually and naturally understand what they're doing. The first course was designed for that purpose...but then, after that, we want them to play more freely. That's the approach we've taken with all of the games that we make. Once the player realizes what they need to do, it becomes their game. And once that happens, we can start introducing surprises and then build upon that."
[Related: The 5 Best Super Mario Games]
Perhaps because it so gently welcomes players, Super Mario Bros. continues to be a fan favorite. The Nintendo faithful continue to purchase it, glitches and all, each time the company re-releases it on a new platform, from the Game Boy Advance to the Wii Virtual Console. It spawned several sequels, a Saturday morning television show, and even a breakfast cereal. About the only place Super Mario Bros. hasn't worked is the movie theater.
As part of the celebration, Miyamoto is also addressing some of the longstanding rumors about the game. For example, it turn out that Mario was indeed named after Mario Segale, the former landlord of the Nintendo of America warehouse. And in a statement that should have orthopedic surgeons smiling, Miyamoto confirmed that Mario breaks blocks with his fist and not his skull.
Of course, Nintendo's not about to let the anniversary go by without serving up a new game. Releasing September 11, Super Mario Maker for the Wii U, which we called 'superb' in our review, is widely expected to be the Wii U's top selling game of 2015.
Miyamoto says the game doesn't feature any courses designed by him, but we're cool with that. He's already given us plenty to play with.
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