Game Design 101: How Mario's Mushroom Changes Everything | Game/Show | PBS Digital Studios
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- Опубликовано: 29 фев 2016
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Our Super Mario trilogy concludes with the strategy of power-ups.
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Super Mario’s various powerups do much more than simply make Mario stronger. In fact, they all have very specific advantages and disadvantages, even when you’re tiny! Your level of powerup will affect almost every aspect of how you approach the game, and we think that this is why Super Mario Bros. has stood the test of time as one of the all-time great examples of video game design. Let us know what other examples you can think of in the comments below, and we will reply to some in the next episode of Game/Show!
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ASSET LINKS:
0:56 A Game Design Legend Revisits His Theory of Fun
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1:03 Mushroom2.PNG
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1:11 Family Guy - Super Mario Rescues the Princess
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1:14 Chibi Toad mugshot
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1:17 Pixel-mario.gif
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4:04 Riding a Bike and Texting....DON'T TRY THIS!!!
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Deus Ex. Whether you have lock-picking skills, hacking skills, swimming, jumping, heavy object lifting, training in extreme or close range weaponry, et c. all determine witch paths are open to you, and how you settle a situation.
A fourth option for dealing with the 3 Goombas on 4-2: running back behind the gap with the coins, and letting them fall in before you proceed. The coins were bait and the goombas a trap, doing this is more or less "springing the trap"
As far as Mario power ups are concerned my favorites are the Fire Flower, Blue Shell and Raccoon Leaf. None of them are particularly rare in their respective games but all provide unique abilities that would contrast well with each other without becoming too complex. I'd love to see a 2D Mario game incorporate all three... or better yet add the Blue Shell to Mario Maker.
+Michael Davidson Wow I never thought of that. I'm impressed! -jj
I figured that one out, too. I kept dying at that part as a kid, because I was too used to the bounce mechanics all the sequels have. 😂
+Michael Davidson How do you run back? Screen doesn't scroll backwards in Super Mario Bros.
+shinburner It's possible if the player is moving slowly... I just watched a gameplay video of the level, and the goombas to seem a bit further in than I remember so the "trap" might not actually work as I described it. I'll have to try this myself some time.
Michael Davidson Then these goombas are a newbie trap.
Will watch this later when im not at work.
+Ziltoid TheOmniscient I love how this is the first comment xD
+Ziltoid TheOmniscient Why do we need to know this?
+Ziltoid TheOmniscient Everybody comment on this comment so it stays on top.
+Tyler Graham Ok
Mattheww00 maybe
You made an interesting point about the mushroom: It offers a big advantage, but it also takes something away from Mario - namely, his smaller hitbox. 90% of Mario's power-ups give Mario an advantage without taking anything away, meaning the question of whether to take the power-up in the first place is never an issue. The power-ups I usually find the most engaging are the ones that require you to sacrifice some part of your regular moveset in order to use them, such as the blue shell or tiny mushroom, both from New Super Mario Bros. DS. These power-ups feel like they are actually forcing you to play differently, instead of just giving you new, optional abilities, and I love that.
The original Castlevania, and some of its sequels like Rondo of Blood are also excellent in this, with how differently you can deal with situations depending on which subweapon you have, or whether you have enough hearts to do an item crash in Rondo.
A noteworthy thing with powerups in mario is the added defense Mario gets, as each level (small, mushroom, flower) adds how many hits you can take before dying, so a person with the flower will be more inclined to take risks compared to the others.
+Torbjörn Hagenstam That's the revised version (Forget if it was added with World or with 3), originally Super and Fire knocked back to regular rather than Fire going back to Super.
The two milestones in Mario's power-ups. Just perfect!
When I first played Nethack a few years ago, I was absolutely blown away by the amount of choice you could have in any given situation. If a pack of wolves bursts through a door, you'd have a choice to pacify a few of them as a distraction (throw surplus rations), hang back at the doorways and hold on (high defense character), pick your shot with a ricocheting magic bolt (z to zap!), or flash them with your tourist camera and escape! You might even read a random scroll that you happened to identify as a teleport two floors earlier, and let it sweep you off your feet to safety (or danger!). These days, roguelike and roguelite games still blow me away with the amount of choice they present.
I'd say Call of Duty BO2 has several distinct playstyles that manifest themselves depending on what you take into the match. The pick 10 system is pretty clever.
Gaige, a DLC character from the second Borderlands game had a skill tree which started with a skill called "anarchy", which gives you a counter that fills every time you reload or kill an enemy (IIRC?) but empties if you reload; the higher it is the higher your damage and the lower your accuracy. Most of the skills in the first half encourage the same style of play (faster fire rates and reload speed, etc). However, half way through the tree is a skills which changes things yet again; when you reload you toggle the loss of points in the counter and while they're draining you're put in a super mode; it goes from trying to keep a counter as high as possible to treating it more like a super bar. At that point you start getting more skills that let you "spend" accumulated points in other ways (so at this point you're juggling whether to spend the points, use them for the super mode, or just maintain the insane damage bonus) and having to use a variety of weapons (depending on if you wanted to build up points or damage enemies).
Essentially it constantly changed your options as you levelled up and forced you to play in absurd ways to boot (most of which went against or even parodied the way FPS games are normally played), which I absolutely loved.
Transistor. Not only does it affect your playstyle, but the abilities you use even have an effect on character development and how you understand the world, since you unlock character bios depending on how you dole out your abilities.
I always liked how Megaman's stage choices were. Some bosses gave you powers that were strong against specific enemies. But some powers were ineffective on others.You had to watch how much you used up. Also you had to be careful not to use up your powers so you could save them for the boss.
I thought the MGS1 dock was a great tutorial of telling the game is about hiding. The level shows how you can go prone under objects, leaning, and do the basic hand to hand combat such as the throw and choke. It also introduces you to the radio system then and there. It also sets the cinematic feels of the game as the opening credits appear as you play.
Dark Souls is the best example of this. There are 2 major aspects to the combat in Dark Soul. Firstly the weapon, secondly the environment.
Each weapon has different reach, different swinging arcs, different damage, different speed, different chance to stun/stagger an enemy and different timings leaving you vulnerable.
The environment (and enemy placement) change how you have to approach combat. Maybe you have a cliff face where you or the enemy could fall to your death. Maybe its a tight corridor and longer weapons will bounce off before hitting the enemy. Maybe there is a ranged attacker behind the melee attacker causing you do have to re-consider your openings. Maybe you are in water slowing your movement.
+Ross Edwards True that. DS is very much like an old NES game where you have to fight and do traversal at the same time. -jj
Kirby's Dreamland! All the different enemy abilities you can absorb vs. all the ways levels toss obstacles at you! Perfect! :D
Mark of the Ninja is a game which I adore for its design. It also allows you to get through a level in many ways, but it has many more moving parts - stuff like items, outfits etc. It's a very replayable game, but it achieves that by adding a lot of content - which seems to be the "modern" way of designing games. It's not necessarily worse, but as a designer, I value games which do more with less, too.
An example of that could be One Finger Death Punch, which only uses two buttons, but manages to milk them for all they're worth.
It's not "Big" and "Little" Mario. It's actually "Mario" and "Super Mario". After all, "Big" Mario has always been considered to be "Normal", or "Super" Mario. All of the boxes and artwork show Super Mario, not Regular Mario. And in games like Super Mario 64 and all of the Mario Karts, Mario is always in a perpetual Super Mario state. Just wanted to point that out.
+Samuel Baugh Super Mario Sunshine
+Samuel Baugh thank you, I was wondering why all mario game titles contained the obligatory "super" in them.
+Nicholas Boudreau Actually, there's
a fun bit I just remembered. It's by far the easiest way to prove this idea. The first game to feature Mario as the playable protagonist is Mario Brothers. Notice, in Mario brothers, you can't become Super Mario, the sprite resembles "Small" Mario much more that Super Mario, and you die in one hit in this game, which is a mechanic unique to Mario (no Super) brothers and Mario's (again, no super) cement factory, reinforcing the point that you are "Mario", and NOT "Super Mario". In every game with the "Super" moniker, you can survive more than one hit, including Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, which have no magic mushrooms for Super Mario to become "Big Mario". You're in a perpetual Super Mario state for those 3D games, and Mario state for Mario brothers and Mario's cement factory.
interesting, I wonder if there is an in-universe explanation as to why/how he became super and never went back.
+Samuel Baugh
How does Smash Bros fits in this ? Because theoricaly he is normal mario ... but one of his taunts is to grow =O
Also the bigger Marios--big and fire--get an extra "life" so you can damage boost or just take more risks, whereas little Mario is more vulnerable while being more agile so it's really a second layer of choice on top of the ability of each on their own
I thought about situational choice before this when I was thinking about Mario Kart Wii XD . Especially Rainbow Road. It doesn't depend on your powerup as much, but there are several ways to handle some of the parts of the courses even though you're only going down one road.
You forgot an important change of Mario Power Ups ... they work as en extra health point. 2D mario is one of the few games where you begin the game with a "low health bar" and make it full as you progress, with the look of mario working as a health bar, so fire and big mario has that in their advantace, since they can make mistakes more than mini mario ... or even taken calculated damage boosts
Pretty much any MMO is all about building abilities, along with deciding which ones to use based on the given situation. That in itself could open up a discussion about tactical awareness.
Terraria getting a summon really opened up the map for me.
Including Super Mario Land in your Super Mario analysis? That's daring.
I feel like the most crucial part of the mushroom is that it gives room for failure, which allows players to explore the possibilities of the game more, rather than being quite as cautious.
Hey man , Thanks for the clip , currently I'm working on 2Dplatformer game and this video helped me a lot. TNX
Monster Hunter is a great example for this. depending on what weapon or armor you choose before the quest determines the optons you have.
like does the weapon you have have the ability to block, or will you have to dodge an attack?
Does your armor have earplugs on them to counteract the monsters roar, or do you actually need to initiate evesive options, or do you just keep attacking and get those one or two extra hits in before the roar stunns you?
Do you chose a fast weapon that does small dammage with each hit but hits more often? or do you prefere a slower more hard hitting one?
Do you choose to look for armor skills that boost defense or rather boost your attack?
Do you pack steaks into your inventory that give you more stamina but take longer to eat or do you prefere Energy Drinks, which you can consume a lot faster but don't regenerate as much stamina?
.
.
.
.
All of those aspects (and many many more) tetermine how you will react to certain situations whise hunting the Monsters
+Tomderdep get the infinite stamina drink and get the lance and just charge!!
that will also result in several interesting situational choices, especially if you do that online
You forgot damage boosting and effort to power ratio, in the original game you had to find two consecutive power ups without getting hit in between to get the fire flower which is the most powerful, and fire flower and large Mario are almost always better in all situations(except for tight corridors) because they have the power to take a hit and transform into little Mario, then use invincibility frames to dash through dangerous sections
I love Game Design 101!
Shovel Knight give the player different types of play styles. It starts as the player being able to buy relics, health upgrades, magic upgrades, or a Chalice to hold potions. If the player buys relics and magic, he is more like fire Mario, and spams magic attacks. If he gets the Chalice or health upgrade, the player can run forward faster and take more risks and doesn't depend on magic items as much. I don't want to spoil the game much more, but later the player can get more armor. Each of which has their own play style. Like how the purple armor gives the player more magic to use, but is not a good defense. The silver armor allows the player to do a charge attack after shoveling on top of enemies. With means the player will be more likely to do attack from above.
Personally I think the best powerups in platformers are ones that change your mobility. I think the fire flower is actually the worst powerup in this respect. Items like the tanooki suit or cape, which give you dictation over how fast you fall (and sometimes let you fly) while also letting you attack enemies from the side are some of the best examples.
Pretty much ever powerup in Mario does this except for the fire flower. Yoshi, cat-suit, penguin suit, blue shell etc. all change the way you move as well as the way you approach enemies. And a platformer is ultimately far more about movement than it is about enemies.
+IsiahGames I'm not sure the other projectile powerups, like Hammer Mario, are any different. Unless you count being able to duck into a shell as mobility.
And the Fire Flower does change your mobility in enemy prone places--especially under water. And, from SMB3 on, you can use fire balls to destroy certain blocks, which open other paths.
I often wonder whether these situational choices were actually planned by the makers or, in retrospect, we have found something that wasn't there and created a label for it. To use your example, did Miyamoto really think about all the different ways Mario would get through that tight area with the 3 goombas or did he just design something he knew would be hard and move on to the next section?
I like these videos, a lot.
Dark Souls changes your play style so much depending on what mêlée weapon class you use and if you use miracles/sorceries/pyromacies. Even to the point of changing a boss from super hard to piss easy.
elder scrolls games come to mind for me as for having lots of options to complete the same task
While there was ridiculous favoritism towards the Mage class, I really appreciated how Planescape: Torment played radically differently depending on whether you made the Nameless One primarily a Fighter, Thief or Mage. Focusing on different stats meant you could unlock different aspects of companions (as well as depend on different companions), approach problems differently, solve different quests etc provided you were looking at like your chosen profession.
I also really liked the discussion in Game Maker's Toolkit much darker, but really in depth, video of how Fallout: New Vegas set up players with multiple options in quests: ruclips.net/video/yM1yR7WYqgM/видео.html
But for simple mechanics changes that change the whole gameplay - I think MGS V's multi-player mode, Cloak and Dagger is kind of amazing in how much difference being limited to non-lethal weapons and being given free stealth fields makes when you're on the Offensive team, compared to Lethal weapons on the Defensive team. You have to re-wire your whole approach and priorities every time you shift roles or else you'll find yourself either strapped to a balloon or tucked away in a body bag.
You forgot the Starman!? It encourages players to play confidently, inviting risk. Do you go speedrunner to get the most distance or hurry past a hard spot, or do you hussle to build up 1ups way more efficiently than normal (SMB was super stingy with lives).
There's a mechanic that needs discussion: do lives still matter?
Minecraft. The first night I have to huddle in a small shack as I can get owned by the mobs, but as I gradually gear up and have an increasingly better chance against the mobs I'll venture out more and more, to the point where I go looking for them.
101 lol 101 lol 101 lol
*edit
on a more serious note, the first game that comes to my mind after watching this video is Rocks & Diamonds. it has a few interesting game changing things too. fun and simple with very clear separate elements to interact with.
Funnily enough, this sort of thing is something I sort of mentioned in my defense of Battalion Wars:
www.reddit.com/r/Advance_Wars/comments/441kk3/the_no_doubt_hated_defense_of_battalion_wars_116/
"Since the player is given 6 unit types on Titans of Tundra, now becomes a good a time as any to figure out how to coordinate the AI units with the player's manual unit in mind. The game's balance has armor units as such a threat that any units with anti-armor tend to be the most efficient manual unit candidates, as they can chip down the armor units and have the AI units stump the significantly more frail support. However, other units have some degree of viability, with the manual Grunt being able to distract Gunships and sneak in commands against backliners, the manual Flame Vet clearing the way for anything the enemy infantry is meant to stagger, and even the manual Missile Vet can snipe the bandits 12:00 high to restrict enemy threat to the ground forces. While this is something to still streamline, it does give identity to the units."
The manual unit choices do of course have their weaknesses: the infantry are frail with the Grunt having low attack power, the Flame Vet being completely useless against air units, and the Missile Vet needing to close the distance on land units to contest them, and even the Bazooka Vet can reliably hit enemy infantry only up close and struggle to hit air units at all. The Recon being bigger restricts its mobility and makes it easier to hit. Even the Light Tank is an even bigger target, and slower to boot to make enemy anti-armor even more perfectly able to hit it, and like the Bazooka Vet has a miserable time hitting air units whatsoever. And these are the choices provided on Titans of Tundra.
May as well provide a quick list of the pros and cons of each of Mario's forms on the subject of the video:
Small Mario:
Pros:
-Small size (Evasion)
-Small size (1 block path choices)
Cons:
-Dies if hit
-Can't destroy bricks
Super Mario:
Pros:
-Lightest penalty for being hit
Cons:
-Offense problems otherwise
Fire Mario:
Pros:
-FireballsAHAHAHAHAHA!
Cons:
-Penalty for being hit is becoming Small Mario (particularly hurts against enemies like Bullet Bills)
when you think about it, ghosts and goblins is kind of the opposite of this, kind of. Just the idea where there are two ways of playing, really
+Jason Garden Good point! I suppose the opposite of Mario is something like Kaizo Mario -jj
Just as in life, providing people with opportunities for meaningful agency enhances experience.
Fallout can change based on what specials and perks you use, but I always just end up shooting everything that breathes.
+TheJaredtheJaredlongThat's my basic problem with every action RPG. Several ways too play. Yet you'll be sticking to the same thing for dozens of hours.
+TheJaredtheJaredlong Choices in Fallout is more than the way you fight. Often combat is just one option. For example, in order to go into a restricted area, you may kill the guard but gaining infamy, or if you have a high speech, you can come up with some excuse and trick the guard to let you in, or you can bribe the guard, or you can complete a quest the guard gave you and earn trust, or if you have high stealth you can steal the key, or pick the lock and sneak in...... These choices are part of what makes Fallout so great.
Patchy .E.
Except unlike Mario you'll only be sticking to one of these methods through the entirety of one very long playthrough, rather than giving you multiple tools earlier in the game for a more varied experience.
you look like someone who would enjoy my mario maker level, c712-0000-0175-5bb6. I hope you like the concept. also, I have really enjoyed your videos about Super Mario.
yes... level design is paramount. All these player mechanics would not be as compelling with out levels that present challenges to use them...
I want to play super mario now >.
Little and big Mario's proper names are Mario and Super Mario respectively.
I posted basically the exact same thing at the same general as you. Weird.
Unless... GASP! You... dare I speak it... Possibly copied?
3 Mario vids in a row really
Is there some kind of Muse - Bliss remix? its awesome
I once knew a guy named Big Mario...
Breaks his little *FIST* on.
No mention of the ability to take an extra hit while big?
Hey PBS Gameshow.
Why does the double jump exist in games?
+Stephan Ennen Because two jumps are better than one? -jj
Well, for a lot of the games the double jump is used, most Famously Yoshi's island, Smash Brothers and Mario Galaxy, it's a mechanic integral to the type of gameplay. For example, the double jump in Yoshi's island, or "flutter" jump is important for the type of game Yoshi's island is. Platforming isn't so much as an obstacle between life and death in that game as it is Flower or Red coin to reach. And, since exploration, and not survival, is the goal of that particular game, it's simply a way of both being more forgiving with jumps, and a way to make hunting collectables more interesting, with some requiring the flutter jump to slow down to a pixel perfect ledge, and some needing a perfect arc of momentum to barely reach a ledge.
Smash is pretty self explanatory, it makes aerial combat more interesting in a game where the core mechanic is being knocked into the air. As for Galaxy, Galaxy is a completely different kind of platformer that has the player travel around in all 3 dimensions in every direction. Because we typically associate our movement to that of a 2D plane, a truly 3 dimensional environment where Mario goes upside down and sideways just as smoothly as forwards and backwards and up and down... Is disorienting, to say the least. So, a jump that would make Mario brightly visible, give him vertical height, and slow down his momentum, makes complicated platforming of jumping around spherical planes that much more forgiving.
+PBS Game/Show NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH POWER.
SUPER POWER!!!
I'm still unhappy you stopped making the end segment where you discuss peoples comments on the previous video
original deus ex is also a great example of this
Lol I text on my bicycle all the time. It's easy, cus I usually ride without using my hands.
The problem with Bioshock, at least with the original and to much extent, Infinite, is that the powers don't matter. Something you don't mention in this video is that any power-up Mario gets also lets him take a single hit. So, whether or not you tackle a problem as Super Mario or Fire Mario isn't just a matter of preference, but also a matter of skill and strategy. Bioshock on the other hand, doesn't care what power you're using. Every power does the same thing in nearly the exact same way. Sure, there are little nuanced things like using electricity on water or fire on oil, but, if I remember correctly, the better choice of all the powers was electricity.
As for games with situational choices, what do you think of card games like Magic: The Gathering as games built entirely around situational choices? Afterall, you only have options that are limited by your hand and resources. Never do you have all your options at your disposal and even two games with the same exact decks might not go the same way.
world of tanks. Each type of tank performs a different role in the game. else I would also say maybe csgo depending on what weapon you choose to learn
Is it just me or have there been a lot of mario episodes lately?
+RickWitha W Yep it was a 3 part series. Variety returns next week. -jj
+PBS Game/Show Smash Bros. episode?
+PBS Game/Show As a (very) longtime fan of Mario, and also of this channel, I thank thee for the Mario content. The breakdown of the franchise into a study on game design has been well worth watching.
PBS Game/Show Ah okay! didn't realize it was a series, thanks for clarifying. =)
What about the super star?
_Came here to find the lame drug jokes... None. I'm proud of you RUclips._
i eat tums like candy. they should make candy flavored with tums. tums are delicious.
Lame drug joke? Why does the Carribean have so many drugs?
Because, In the tropics that's what Jamaican the money with!
+MegaMat or lame schlong jokes.
counter strike global offensive; the economy that you have will differ greatly each match and the entire game and it's tactics hinges on the economy and weapons/utility available to your team
Last!
I agree that the various powers may provide the option for varied play
But I don't think it demands the perfection or learning curve you imply.
I am a careful player and never run in mario.
mostly because I focus on getting to my next objective, not beating a score or time.
there are people who find satisfaction more in perfecting the approach to a game, but for me that actually saps the fun from it.
To learn a new skill and gain some proficiency is good, a demand to be 100% perfection with it, for me, is not.
It's why I have far more fun watching someone play dark souls than I do playing myself.
But can still enjoy playing Monster Hunter or Castlevania.
Skill based games to be sure, and yes you can perfect your play with them but that is not mandatory to enjoy them.
Dark souls punishes you just for being okay or wanting to take your time, or for playing your character in the form you made for them (The community element is geared toward Greefing). Demanding that you learn an odd button layout, unintuitive jumping, obscure stat screen and counter intuitive HUD on top of being naturally challenging
In mario this is not as much an issue or focus as it is very intuitive and simple controls that give direct and immediate consistent feedback. but I will say Mario 3 was the first game I ever played for three days straight. the levels at the time were challenging but once done I felt no need to go back and do better, I moved on to the next challenge and learned to over come it then.
Don't do shrooms kids
#MakeRUclipsGreatAgain
+Ali Naqvi #MakeDonaldDrumphAgain
But big Mario does not offer anything fire Mario cannot do. There is no trade-off here. Fire Mario is superior in any way than big Mario.
+Patchy .E. That's because so much is opened up with Fire Mario that they don't need to take anything away to get you to play differently. You have Fire Balls, you will use them.
teeworlds
Wow 256 views
***** lol hahahaha
Hi a traditionalist I'm dad
Texting on a bike ain't hard, bikepleb
Please use the proper terminology. It isn't little and big Mario. It is Mario and Super Mario.
wow you are really glorifying every little Mario detail! the fact is, Mario was so popular when it first came out because it was the first home console game with large (by 80s standards) side scrolling which meant a large world you could get more immersed in that world. It was a shiny new gimmick! All the details you are glorifying were actually pretty common in that day: a few actions\verbs in which the gameplay pivoted around and some power ups. I remember the consensus being that we had much better games that we preferred on the NES within a year of its release, and then nobody played the original Mario Bros anymore, except on rare occasions. that's why the cart sells for only a buck: there are much better games