Game Design as Explained by Super Mario Bros.

A response to A Game Design Vocabulary by Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark chapters 1–3

Authors Anthropy and Clark open their book by arguing that video games need a specific set of vocabulary to allow players, developers, and scholars to be on the same page when discussing the theoretical, mechanical, and narrative elements of games.

In the first seven chapters the book breaks down the elements of design into categories of rules, dialouge, storytelling. This is when being able to relate the authors’ arguments about game design to the Mario series comes in handy.

The category “Rules” is divided into subgroups of “verbs” and “objects.” The authors argue that ideally, a game should be able to explain all the rules of the game to a player wordlessly, relying only on the player’s ability to explore and make deductions for themself.

The rules for Super Mario Bros. are pretty simple: run to the right to reach the tower while avoiding contact with enemies and gaining power ups by breaking blocks. All this information can be gathered on the first screen. At this point the player can only jump and run, so that is inevitably what they will do. By exercising the only abilities they have the player will interact with the only other items on screen, a Question block that rewards them with a coin, a single Goomba, a platform made of both breakable and non-breakable blocks and a second Question block. Here the player has every skill they need to know to progress the game.

Question block number one introduces the concept of coins, the Goomba shows a low-level enemy and how it can be defeated; All Mario can do is jump so the player would naturally try to either avoid the Goomba, or squash it, both good ways of handling the enemy. The platform introduces the genre’s namesake, “platforming.” Lastly the second Question block gives Mario a power up allowing him a free hit from and enemy.

This example shows Anthropy and Clark’s distinction between “verbs” and “objects.” The verbs are the things players can do to interact with their environment. Run, Jump, Dodge, and Break blocks are all the verbs in Mario, (until later in the game when these fundamental principles are expanded upon.) Player choice is all about how and when a player will uses those verbs. With an understanding of those tools the player can progress to the next stage with no confusion over how the game is played.

Objects are items the player can interact with. Some objects effect the way verbs interact with them, for example ice blocks make running less responsive. Other objects are effected by the way a player uses a verb to interact with them, as is the case in Mario, the player can carry and throw turtle shells. The addition of the verbs “carry” and “throw” expand the players figurative tool belt and give them more ways of interacting with the game.

Having language to discuss the rules for a game is the first step to discussing games in their entirety.