Week Two: Super Mario Bros, Level One
Okay, so here we go: Super Mario Bros. I’ve played this on the Wii before, but it’s been a long time. The controls are pretty straight forward: left and right arrows to move, the ‘A’ button to jump, and the ‘B’ button to sprint/fire. During gameplay, I keep forgetting about that last one. By pressing the jump key in quick succession, the player also has control over the height of Mario’s jumps.
Immediately, I’m impressed by all of the auditory feedback: the springing noise whenever the jump key is pressed, the ‘blip’ whenever Mario lands on a goomba (little mushroom-looking guys), the single clinking chime whenever he collects a coin, the double chime whenever the game is paused, the “wump” and “crash” of jumping into bricks, the ascending ring as Mario grows in size, the reverberating sound of Mario finding a mushroom, the alarm as Mario shrinks in size, the echo of the turtle shell falling down into the abyss, the discordant notes as Mario dies, the theme song, the final triumphant sound as Mario finds the flag and ending theme music, the rushing clink-clink-clink of coins and time tallied, or, if the player is particularly unlucky, the consolation music of the “Game Over” screen. I never realized how loud this game was, but all of the noises are so satisfying.
The graphics are bright and pixelated. In the foreground: repetitive rocks on the ground, bricks and coin blocks overhead, green pipes, Mario and his enemies. In the background: blue sky, clouds, shrubs, and hills. Despite being 2D, the world has a sense of depth and layering.
Mario starts off in his smaller size; this indicates that he only has one life (I remember this, rather unfortunately, during my first attempt.) When Mario grows in size, he has two lives. The player has to avoid the koopa troopas (turtle-like creatures) and goombas by either jumping over them, or jumping on top of them (which defeats them, and gives the player points). When Mario lands on a koopa troopa, the shell spins off and knocks out any other character who gets in the way (goombas, for points, or Mario, which results in a lost life.) Mario has to make several high jumps, and avoid the occasional abyss (which results in loss of life).
I spend some time hopping around, checking coin blocks for rewards and stomping on villains, before I realize that the level is timed! On the top of the screen, I can see my score, the number of coins I’ve collected, the world/level I’m in, the time, and how many lives I have (3 total, and if those run out it’s Game Over.)
Surprisingly, it’s fairly easy to die in this level: the player can’t stand still at the beginning of the level, because a goomba is moving directly towards them. Goombas also pop out of specific areas, which means the player has to be careful where they rest. I also mis-timed several jumps, and fell into oblivion.
What happens when I run out of time? The clock starts counting down from 400 time units, but I can tell that the numbers are quicker than seconds, so I set a timer for a minute. 120 time units pass in 60 seconds, so there’s about 3 1/3 minutes of gameplay after the level starts before time runs out. When the counter reaches 90 time units, urgent music starts playing to remind the player that they’re running out of time. At 0 units, Mario loses a life. To that end, inaction is impossible in this game; the player can’t step away without pausing, and must play the level from start to finish.
