Sunday, January 6, 2013

Moving

I'm moving into a new apartment in the next couple days, so I'll be a bit busy until it's all over and done with. I'll have no internet until Wednesday, but I'll still have my phone, so it won't effect support, if you need it.

That aside, I have question for you,

What is your favourite side scrolling platformer Mario game, and why? Be it for specific design choices or simply for nostalgic reasons. I plan on making an H game like Mario sometime in the future, and in the midst of thinking about it's design choices, I wondered what other people might think about the games in general. For instance,
-What are your favourite parts of a Mario game,
-What do you think is the most important thing about it's design
-What design choices do you dislike,
-etc.

Anyhow, be back in a few days.

50 comments:

  1. paper mario! Everyone's flat so that counts right?

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  2. -What is your favourite side scrolling platformer Mario game, and why? Be it for specific design choices or simply for nostalgic reasons

    Oh yea, I like Castlevania :) why? eh its fun! because its err.... fun? >.>; sorry for stupid answer

    about your design choices, I love how Kurovadis is it :) future town, high tech equipment, mystery equipment etc :)

    -What are your favourite parts of a Mario game

    Hmmm I'm not fan of Nintendo T.T I don't have will, I do play famicom Mario before so I might answer this question perhaps.

    I like the stages of the game maybe? its feel like I traveling around the world?

    -What do you think is the most important thing about it's design

    You mean for your new game right? monsters! xD would be boring if you crushing the same old enemies all over again and again.

    This is maybe hard and make you got alot work on making new enemies perhaps so don't serious about my answer ^.^;

    -What design choices do you dislike

    Dislike hmhp? to be honest, I hate 'short' game >.>;; haha weird answer isn't it? no serious lol

    By the way if I didn't answer your question, forgive me!

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  3. Probably you know of Iji? A free indie game. Blend between platformer and RPG.
    A very deep plot, both funny and moving, worth more than most big-budget RPGs out there. A big number of customization option, none of them wrong, with their associated ton of secret paths to find. This gives it incredible replayability. Can adapt to both laid back playing and hardcore difficulty, even in the same run. (with secrets or special achiements, pacifist run for example).

    Now that I think of it, it's not really a "Mario game". Oh well ! You still had my opinion! :)
    Keep up the great work! Don't hesitate to release imperfect demos! These build up excitement way better than blog posts ;)

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  4. Hmmm... Interesting question. To be honest, I still enjoy the older versions of mario aboove the newer ones. Give me one of the classic GameBoy versions and you've got a happy man here.

    My favourite part of any game is the "tricky" part. The part which is damn hard, optional, but with great rewards. Best ofcourse is multiple parts, where you need to use parts of one area to complete the other area. Except for that part, I often like the mandatory boss battles. No easy ones, nor any you can retry a bazillion times without it costing you, no, the ones where you're sweating because you've just lost your power-up and can't afford to get hit once more, or you're done. Oh, don't forget secrets. I loooove secrets. :3

    The most important part of the mario games are it's simplicity, no big detailed backgrounds, just good old retro quality and the color scheme. Colors can give very different moods and they've always managed to use their palet in the best way imaginable.

    I still dislike Mario's chubbyness though. It's just a bit overdone, just like with Luigi. Their bodies are pretty good, but their faces look like they've been eating too many shrooms lately.

    For etc., I'm curious to what extent you mean Mario-like. Could just be following the same side-scrolling pacing, but could also be the whole Mario crew into a somewhat "suggestive" location, hehe. Either way sounds good, but some clarity would be great.

    If it's going to look alot like Mario (or even use Mario himself) I'd enjoy a bit less chubby face on him, perhaps some of the same power-ups, but with "funny" side-effects, koopa's disregarding the classic Mario rules, such kinda things. If it's nothing like Mario at all, I'm sure you'll make a masterpiece out of it.

    So, quick summary: Secrets, trickyness, simplicity, colors, not too chubby. Hope this helps you out.

    Greetz, Tomster1000

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  5. Congrats on moving.

    For the question, the best Mario game for me is Super Mario World.

    To tell the truth, I think i like it mostly for nostalgic reasons.
    I also like having branching maps and side quest or secrets.

    Hope that helped.

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  6. I think my favorite was Yoshi's story I, if that counts as a Mario platformer.

    Reasons why:

    1. (Pizza) Health Bar, so the gameplay was a little more forgiving. This goes hand-in-hand with...
    2. No time limit. This lets you take your time to relax and enjoy the atmosphere. Speaking of which...
    3. Really creative facade. It's not a very cookie cutter good guy/bad guy environment. The who area seems very psychedelic. The areas were also very expansive, which is great, when you have all the time in the world to explore it out. Although other Mario games had aspects of this as well, Yoshi's Story really stood out for me. Maybe it's because it felt like the other perspective, seen through the yoshi dinosaur.
    4. Lastly, having to take care of baby Mario was an interesting twist, and second objective in the game, and kept the game fresh!

    Good luck on your games, and the new move! :)

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  7. I'd mostly go with NES Mario. And the biggest reason would be because it feels a lot more solid than the other ones.

    Sure the SNES version looks a lot better, but it feels like it's jut a sprite and all that. There's a lot of really apparent sliding going on.

    The NES version didn't look like "sliding". It looked like his foot was really pulling him forward, instead of him moving his foot and his body sliding over there because he's magic man.


    Although these problems don't exist on the New Mario Bros. for the Wii, NES Mario probably wins over by nostalgia alone. :P Pretty much everything else about the New Mario is superior.


    You probably don't have to worry about these though. Overall art style in kurovadis matched pretty well (another point I really like to consider with games) and everything did look as solid as can be (there might have been a little bit of sliding, but it's hard to avoid that completely). I think on NES mario, the sprite animation speed was directly related to your horizontal speed, which is probably why it felt so solid. On SNES Mario there doesn't seem to be a complete 1:1 ratio on animation speed and movement speed (Although it probably is. It's possible the art style just makes it LOOK like it isn't).

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  8. I grew up on NES and SNES games, but I never really warmed up to the Mario games. The first word that comes to mind when I think of them is "tedious" :)

    As to elements of game design that I like in the series, they're almost all stashed away in SMB 3:
    - Themed levels (each island you reach has another theme, including completely crazy ones: why not nail giant metal plates onto the background for no apparent reason? Airships made of logs, why not?)
    - The controls are completely basic and more complex concepts (like flying with the cape or raccoon costume) are introduced on the go, often by nudging the player to accidentally trigger it.
    - You always knew where to go: to the right. Pipes sometimes branched the level, but to advance, right you go :D
    - (in the opposite case with a roamable world like in Super Metroid, every location needs to be unique and make spatially sense - things like pipes would be guaranteed to destroy the player's sense of direction)
    - The world map. Now every game has it, but it really helped put the places and Mario's journey in context a bit.

    What I didn't like so much was that it is missing a sense of progress. Yeah, you want to rescue that princess, but there are no permanent skills Mario gains and no feeling of exploration - you're just making it to the end of a stage over and over ;)

    Have you checked "Mario is Missing" on the "Legend of Krystal" forums by any chance? Its controls are a bit wonky but it is an interesting take on the Mario genre.

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  9. Super Mario World 2 on the SNES, was my first Mario game so left the biggest impression.

    I really like the colors and environments, my favorites environment would probably be the Ghost Houses, I like spookiness, yet there's a tingly feeling of danger from the boos.
    Here it is if anyone wants some memories.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fCx1m0tQT0

    I also liked the Castles, having dangers other than enemies was fun, like getting crushed by the moving walls... And the Bowser battle was really fun, throwing his toy koopas back at him xD Also I liked the Star Road secret area that you could get access to.

    Best part of the design was that it was simple, yet hard.


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  10. I would say Super Mario World 2 (Yoshi's Island).

    It kept most of Super Mario World improvements like the camera controls to take a look at what's under/above you, added a lively "background/enviroment" and defeat by having Baby Mario kidnapped instead of an HP bar make it more tense when the counter kept going down and Mario crying increased.
    You could play the game without completing anything, but the extra stages and the possibility of playing the unlocked minigames over and over for items where a really nice bonus.

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  11. Pinning down my favorite Mario game is much more difficult than I thought. Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES was one of my first games ever, and I later got the Super Mario All Stars collection for the SNES (which contained most of the NES Mario Bros. games, including the Japanese SMB2 under the name 'the lost levels' and the western SMB2 which was a non-mario game that had its characters swapped for Mario ones).

    I also had a lot of fun with New Super Mario Bros and all the RPG titles over the years. If I had to choose, my all time favorite would have to be Super Mario Bros. 3.

    For me, the biggest part of Mario's appeal is that it balances the simple, the whimsical, and the bizarre; mushrooms that make you grow, leaves that give you the ability to fly, flowers that let you throw fire, angry mushroom and turtle monsters, floating blocks, pully platforms, pipes that lead to wondrous sections and shortcuts...

    This extends to the gameplay as well. The controls and objective are simple, with each world being separated into easily digestible levels that are long enough to have substance without overstaying their welcome. There are several 'breather' points between hard parts in levels where you can just enjoy smashing blocks or stomping goombas and play with your power ups, and levels that break away from the main style of gameplay for a short while like the water levels in the first game, the minigames for power-ups in 3 and NSMB Wii, the ghost houses in World...

    The variety is important; even in the first mario game which had relatively few enemies types, they were used to great effect in different situations and had traits to set them apart. Using a koopa's shell to clear a line of goombas felt amazing, as did using bullet bills as impromptu stairs or finally managing to hit a block as the hammer bro lands on it, and as frustrating as dodging a lakitu's spiny barrage could be, it made the levels it appeared in feel different.

    SMB3 took it to the next level, combining various different platforming elements to make encounters with certain enemies memorable and different from the other times you ran into them.

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    1. Also of note is that the Mario games provide choices in the paths you can take. Not just in the world maps where there are usually at least two paths to the end so you can progress even if you simply can't get past a level, but also in the levels themselves.

      For example, there's a line of question mark blocks with goombas passing under it. You can choose to jump onto and run across the blocks to avoid the goombas, or you can go under and risk the encounter and be rewarded with coins and power-ups. If you fought a koopa or earned a fire flower earlier in the level, you're rewarded for your skill by being able to just clear them and get at the boxes easier. It rewards taking risks and playing well but also doesn't punish being cautious.

      To stop myself from rambling further, I'll address one last thing that makes up the winning formula of Mario: pleasant surprises. I remember the joy finding a mushroom or fire flower in a question block always brought me, of how new power ups put a smile on my face whenever I first saw them.

      I would crouch on every warp pipe because finding one was always so satisfying, and I remember having my mind blown when I ran across the top of the screen in world 1-2 in the original and found warp pipes, and again the first time I hit a block and a beanstalk shot out of it. The ominous atmosphere of the airship levels and the peaceful feeling of swimming through the sea stuck with me from their first appearances.

      I was driven to keep playing by my curiosity of what the weird world with fire-breathing turtles and mushroom monsters and hills/clouds/plant life with eyes was going to throw at me next, and every power-up and new challenge was presented just as I started to get tired as if the game itself was rooting for me. Mario games are by no means easy, but they are fair in their difficulty, and they encourage the player to keep trying.

      That's just the impression I got, at least. It's not just the formula, but the extreme amount of polish and attention to detail that goes into each game that makes them so fun. There are very few unfair deaths or traps, rewards are carefully spaced and enemies are used with each other and the environments to make each battle feel a little different, barring a few breathers with a simple line of goombas or a koopa patrolling a platform.

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  12. Good luck with the move!

    -What is your favourite side scrolling platformer Mario game, and why?
    Super Mario Bros. 3. The whole map thing allows for a lot of player choice in the path they take, providing bonus powerups for those who go out of their way or just letting the player decide to do the levels they prefer. Super Mario World is also great, but you pretty much have to do most levels in a specific order. Plus, I personally don't like World's powerups. Who wants a glidey cape when you can fly with the raccoon tail?
    -What are your favourite parts of a Mario game,
    The levels that do something unique, like with those verticle pipe maze levels and that later level where you have to keep grabbing starmen to run across a field of chompers.
    -What do you think is the most important thing about it's design
    Give every object and enemy a purpose, but still give the player choices. Encourage the player to do something in multiple different ways. Split paths are a good way to do this: does the player go below a row of blocks, where there are enemies but the chance of finding a hidden powerup, or take the upper path, where there are no enemies but no powerups?
    -What design choices do you dislike,
    The warp whistle lets you skip way too much of the game. I feel like I'm a fool if I don't use it, and feel like I'm cheating if I do.
    -etc.
    The most important things for a Mario game: gravity, and momentum. You MUST get these down if you want a good feeling Mario. Anything less than perfect will leave the player feeling cheated at every death.

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  13. Favorite Mario games for me are Supermario World2 and Supermariorpg both for the snes, mainly because they have memorable moments that I'll never forget like the level "touch fuzzy get dizzy" will never get old for me, and the frog boss that eats you then you fight it form the inside avoiding it's acid in the stomach, and that time Bowser,Princess peach and Mario fought together against a giant sword.
    And the big question I always have and it never explained is what the hell does Bowser want with peach anyways?

    Main strengths Mario games is that it's timeless, the placement of everything, and memorable enemies that are trying their best to kill the plumber but to no avail.Got a turtle shell hit it that way follow1000,2000,3000,4000>>>>>>> 1up!!!! The levels are very well planed and if you know what you are doing you can blast run trough most levels without stopping.

    Fluid movement and variable jumping, running and grabbing shells, jumping up a stairway of flying kuppa turtles,shells bouncing back bringing your demise.

    The power ups also give the games much more depth and strategy not just the normal large mushroom that give you a second hit, but the raccoon suit, the Boot, fire flower etc....

    Only design choice I've begun to dislike is the coins galore in the recent games
    I don't like having 80 1ups just because I'm walking into 8000 coins in the path of the first level.

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  14. Of the side-scrolling variety definitely Yoshi's Story. The egg throwing mechanic being used for both attacking AND collecting items made it an incredible addition to the game mechanics, not to mention the star point reward for banking shots off of walls before hitting enemies.

    Honestly the biggest star of that game was the level design though. Ever single level was crafted with such care and detail that I still find it worth referencing and studying. Hidden areas and red coins side-step the common fault of fore-knowledge by subtly giving them unique details that allow observant players to spot them on the first try.

    There are so many instances of game mechanics having "risk/reward" facets to them. Do you kill the enemy or turn him into ammo? Do you use eggs to take on the enemy or do save them for collecting otherwise impossible to reach items?

    Topping it all off, the removal of the time limit made the exploration and collect-a-thon elements much easier to work with. A subtle change that allowed the game to have more expansive, less linear levels than it's previous counterparts. The time limit was only brought back for rare and brief set-piece sections, which are the weakest part of the game imo.

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  15. hmm well i grew up with all of the games so i want to give my share as well

    -how fun it is exploring and the secrets (hard or not) with good rewards, much like in SMB3 with this i loved going out of my way in a hard area to be rewarded with something awesome like the "hammer bros" suit or something along the lines of that and also how simple but rewarding the tight controles are (like SMW) and the tricks you can pull off as well

    -again simplicity but rewarding for hard (even hard optional) lvl's with secrets everywhere but also with the tight controles which is what all of the 2D mario games do well (even the 3d ones get this well but you wanted talk of the 2d's lol) and the great fitting music combind with gameplay (with bit's and pieces of humor here and there also helps lol)

    -what i hate? one hit and the power ups go away XP it is annoying as hell getting something like the HB suit only to lose it by a accdent and how easy it is to get cheap deaths
    i like my mario games hard mind you (not kiazo hard >>) but when the game has to be cheap in order to seem "hard" is bothersome

    -ect well if you are going to make a h-game using mario's platforming ways then just remember
    1 tight controles, 2 rewarding for difficult things but not "pull your hair out" type of difficulty and 3 simpleness but fun and grand areas/lvl's"
    also i think a good idea is not to get hurt/killed when getting "attacked" by a enemy but rather only get killed (like knocked out but still in the lvl) when rightfully hit with a attack (or fell off a cliff) so that way you can get enemies to "attack" you until you restart the lvl

    oh and gallery = win :D ... please? :3

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  16. Tonnes of good advice by the looks of things. People know what they want from their platformers! They're certainly harder to design well than it might seem.

    In general I feel like the thing I enjoyed the most from mario (and sonic) was the feeling of momentum in all of your actions. Everything moves naturally and it makes your actions feel significant. So basically characters shouldn't reach full speed immediately. Momentum/Speed should be earned. It's the reward for playing well. Other than that, use the force, trust your feelings etc. :)

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  17. Super Mario World on the SNES. What I really liked was that each level was different, and you explored lots of different locals with different enemies and challenges. You had neat power-ups, but there wasn't an overload. You also had one really powerful and useful power-up in the form of Yoshi, which you could turn to if you were having a lot of trouble with most stages, or to just have a blast with thanks to the shear versatility that he offered. He even offed the option to sacrifice him if you messed up a jump to avoid an instant death. Expert players could also take the challenge of not using him at all on later runs through the game.

    Alternative endings to many of the stages, with many hidden secrets that could take you multiple playthroughs to find. One of the coolest parts was that almost of third of the stages in the game were off the beaten path, and the star world allowed you to skip to the end of the game if you happened to find one of the entrances and get far enough on the extra levels in it.

    I think the most important thing I liked about it was that you could replay stages that you'd already beaten as much as you wanted, with no restrictions or transition stages involved. So if you did race to the end and beat the game, you didn't miss out on anything. You could then just keep going and beat the earlier stages at your leisure. Same with any stages or alternative paths that you skipped earlier.

    Clearly labeled mid points to stages was also really nice, and I like the idea they had to give big status to players that didn't have it when they hit that point. Give them a small reward for their achievement.

    What did I not like? Probably the two hit system that it reintroduced, and I prefer the later re-released versions of the game that grant you that third hit before death.

    Just as an off hand thought, because I happened to remember it right now; I really was disappointed in New Super Mario Bros Wii when I finished the game and found that they'd not put in a single stage into the game where it was night time with a bright stary sky (probably my favorite background). They had it on the map for the special world stages, but not on the stages themselves.

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  18. My favourite Mario game is SMB3 for the NES.

    The best part of that game for me was the various powerups. Each one completely changed how you approached levels. Even similar ones, like the fireflower and hammer; they both gave projectile attacks but followed very different trajectories. Stockpiling powerups so you could choose what to use later was also pretty handy.

    The most important thing about the design was probably how the levels were and enemies were designed around the powerups. I remember the adverts for the game put emphasis on Mario's new abilities and having new powers like flying and turning into an indestructable statue.

    In the game, in addition to having specific items to help in certain levels [racoon tail to fly, frog suit to swim, boot to walk on spikes] the enemies were placed according to how powered up Mario would be at that part of the level. The begining would have things like goombas or cheep cheeps; enemies that die in one hit just like little Mario. Mid and late parts of a level would have the various koopas, who revive if only hit once and so need two hits to take out, just like big Mario. And at the end of each level you fight a boss who takes three hits to kill, just like fully a powered up Mario. This meant that each level in a world had a difficulty curve that allowed you to start anywhere in Mario's weakest form and could still expect to get somewhere.

    And beyond enemey and level design, the powerups informed the design of the world maps. At the end of each level you got a card. Three cards got you a powerup. So each world had optional levels to give you more chances to collect powerups. There where sites with minigames to award the player with powerups at certain points along a world and friendly sites that gave you powerups for free. Later levels would have more linear paths with several levels in a row to account for the use of a powerup that skipped levels.

    SMB3 really gave a lot of attention to the powerups but that was probably because it was the first Mario game to have more than: mushroom > fireflower > star. It's a shame all the new powerups replaced the fireflower in that chain, could have been interesting to have alternatives to the mushroom as well.

    The only thing I really dislike about that game was that the controls could be a little too sticky and too floaty at times. The game uses a momentum system where you speed up the longer you run but Mario starts so slow it can be difficult to get anywhere from a standing jump, and when sprinting at top speed the controls feel a little too sensitive. It's nothing that you can't get used to but after playing something with much tighter and precise controls, like Megaman, it can be quite jarring.

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  19. Bros 3. The aesthetics of the game, the multitude of powerups, and all the hidden extras. Really enjoyed it more than any other mario game before or since.

    Something I didn't like in mario games was the direction they took when they tried to take the nostalgia route - new super mario bros is where I think it really started going downhill. It's like they didn't even try anymore, and I really hate the aesthetics in that series.

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  20. I never really had a favorite Mario game per se, but if I had to pick one that stood out above the rest, I'd have to say Super Mario World.

    Mario 3 was a lot of fun, and it had some really interesting power-ups and gimmicks, but I always thought it got a bit too hard toward the end of world five (leaping from beetle-back to beetle-back, for instance).

    Super Mario World, on the other hand, cut down on the redundancy, added abilities to the powers that remained (the racoon and tanuki suit got combined into the cape, which could now dive-bomb or glide, for instance), and I feel that the difficulty just progressed better. I also like how SMW had branching paths based on whether or not you found the secret exit in a stage. It rewarded players for finding things, sometimes offering shortcuts or bypasses around difficult stages.

    I also have to agree with the comment a couple up from me. The controls in SMB3 were a little funny, and I just feel like somehow, SMW's were a bit better.

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  21. Super Mario Brothers 3 is the zenith of the platforming games. World was really, really fun, but incorporated too many external elements that interfered with the simple joy of the platforming. I like both, but 3 is just Mario, pure and unadulterated.

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  22. What I really liked in SNES Mario games its the grapping of a turtle or block and shoot it or shoot it straight in the air, also Mario Land 3 evrything from this game was fun ^^

    the worlds where so diffrent and Tank and airship lvls I really loved them

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  23. Super Mario World and Yoshi's Story, because nostalgia. If I had to say something about their design, all I can remember is that movement was pretty fluid in my opinion.

    Yoshi's Story is also particularly colourful...

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  24. I can't choose a single favorite Mario game, but I can certainly go over what I liked from Mario 3 and Mario World!

    Mario 3
    =======
    I feel like one of Mario 3's most important elements is its style. It's definitely the most visually robust NES Mario game; probably one of the most of any Mario game at all, actually. Think of the world map for each level. It's not some static image where you go from one level to another; everything's on the move! Plants dancing, trees swaying, water moving, and so on. Additionally (and this may be a bit old hat at this point), I like that each world is based on a central theme. Grass world, desert world, water world, GIANT WORLD, etc. Mario 3 was one of the first games to do that, and it's always stood out in my mind how well it was done.

    Going back to the world map for a moment, I liked how the maps offered various routes to get to your final goal. Some levels are entirely optional, and you only have to complete them for completion's sake (or for the mushroom house on the other side). The "mobile" levels (by which I mean hammer bros, airships, that hand in world 8) added to the dynamic of each world, as well. Every time you completed a level, the hammer bros would move, possibly changing your approach as to where to go next. Die on the airship, and it moves to a random location on the map--possibly behind a level you hadn't completed. The hand in world 8 would randomly grab you on one of a short set of tiles, each one taking you to a different course (or maybe you get lucky and you pass it by entirely). It made each world a different experience every time you play.

    Speaking of mushroom houses, the multitude of powerups in the game are another boon. I'm not sure any Mario game since 3 has had that many abilities in it, and for the life of me I can't figure out why. It took over 20 years to see the tanooki suit again. Sure, it's pretty much Raccoon Mario + Worthless Invulnerability Move, but it's the thought that counts.

    One last thing about 3 that I want to establish--it had an extremely clever World Select via warp whistles. And it's not just the whistles themselves, it's how they work. It only takes two warp whistles to access any world in the game, and the game very deliberately puts two easily-retrieved whistles in the first world (one in level 3, one in the fortress). This means you can start a new game and get to World 7 within 5 minutes if you want to. Looking back at it from a design standpoint, the notion of incorporating a level select that is accessed mid-game (instead of from the main menu or through a cheat code) strikes me as astonishingly well thought-out. This has sort of been made moot since the widespread implementation of save systems, but I like how Mario 3 was able to get around that without resorting to passwords.

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    1. Mario World
      ===========
      The ability to replay completed levels was great, as well as the increased complexity of the levels themselves. Vertically-orientated levels, multiple exits, an optional special world with harder levels... Mario World was a great experiment as far as Mario games had seen up to that point, and I think it was a highly successful one, for these reasons and more.

      This next part is largely up to personal taste, but... I liked how the music in every level was the same melody with different instruments and tempo. This was done so well that I only noticed it a few years ago (much to my shame).

      Next, there's the world map. I looooove the world map in Mario World, and how everything is interconnected. You don't just warp to the next world when you clear a castle, you progress logically to the next area, and in some places you can even look ahead to where you'll go later! One of the coolest feelings from playing Mario World for the first time was beating the first castle, moving past it, and seeing that what I'd cleared was only a tiny part of a huge world. THAT is a cool feeling.

      One thing I'll say I didn't like: the save system. Making me clear a ghost house or castle every time I want to save instead of giving me an option from an overworld pause menu? Dick move. (We're probably well beyond this sort of thing by now, but I just thought I'd point it out).


      Not sure how much any of this will help at all, but maybe it'll get some mental gears turning. Inspiration comes in strange ways!

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  25. Just want to say,after Mario,Kurovadis-is best mario platformer. :D

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  26. Hears "H game like Mario" and brain explodes.

    Okay seriously, my favorite hands down is Super Mario World, mainly for the emphasis on "world". Because of the overworld map, it really felt like you were exploring this amazing new world. The map for SM3 had lots of branching paths, but the straightforward nature of the paths, visible with coin like markers, really felt limiting. The New Super Mario games are a little more along the lines of SMW, but you switch between areas like a menu, which robs the feeling of exploration.

    SMW, however, felt more like the map of an rpg like Elder Scrolls; you could see paths, but there were secret ones that only became visible after discovering them. Areas flowed from one to the other, levels had different exits, depending on luck or powerups, as well as newly discovered "!" blocks. nothing made me feel cooler than finding all the "!" blocks, gliding with the gape and discovering Star Road. And certain areas, like the Forest of Mystery, had their own mini-overworld maps that helped make the game world feel larger.

    It's those little things, the organic nature of the branching paths, the use of different powers to access them, as well as the standard great gameplay that make SMW stand out to me.

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  27. I liked Super Mario World the most for SNES. I played a ton of Mario games, but that one and Super Mario Bros 3 are the best.

    I liked to Koopas and how their color coding helped you decide how to deal with them. Red shells don't fall off the edges or something like that?

    I hated... HATED Shy Guy. Especially in Super Mario Bros. 2. Them and the phantoms that chase you when you get the keys. Most of Mario Bros 2 is disturbing.

    It wasn't until Mario party when I started to be ok with the Shy guys.

    Also, Birdo was made for sex.

    Trans, female, whatever, dat mouth is for sex.

    ReplyDelete
  28. For me the best Mario games were definitely Mario Land for the first GameBoy and Super Mario Bros. 3. The reason I love Super Mario Land is for one part nostalgy, and also that for me, that game expanded on the original Mario Bros. the most, while staying true in spirit to its predecessor.

    Mario Bros. 3 on the other hand felt similiar to Super Mario World, but instead had more interesting ideas (or at least that's how it felt to me). While in Super Mario World was more centered around the idea of riding different kinds of Yoshis, Mario Bros. 3 felt more centered around the protagonists themselves, giving them funny transformations and abilities to play around with. Another big plus is also the world map, which if I remember correctly had interactive event stages spawning randomly in Mario Bros. 3, while in Mario World the world map was essentially a stage selector with a few twists and hidden stuff here and there.

    A game that is also a favorite of mine from when I was a kid, is Yoshi's Island. Not really counting as a Mario game I guess, since Baby Mario is only riding Yoshi around, this game had alot of charm and great ideas to it.

    ReplyDelete
  29. - What is your favourite side scrolling platformer Mario game, and why?
    All of them... Up until Mario's jump to 3D and out of side scrolling, he's tried to revisit it, but the from what I've seen the new games don't quite hold up like the old ones do.
    Each game at the time of its release had tight controls, interesting levels,
    pretty graphics, and presented a challenge that could take multiple sittings to
    conquer. Each Mario game is a refinement of the previous games so it is a little
    unfairto say that the most recent one is the best, they were all the best,
    and nostalgia of course helps keep it that way =)

    - What are your favourite parts of a Mario game
    The Tight controls,
    The Interesting methods of level traversal,
    The simple, understandable, and quite pretty graphics,
    and most importantly the levels.

    - What do you think is the most important thing about it's design
    Level design, and the most important part of a Mario level is...
    Challenges that allow the player to exercise Mario's abilities to complete them.

    runner up, is another one that important for all games.
    The ability of the artwork to convey the challenge to the player, Mario games
    have always done this very well.
    i.e. switches look like switches, enemies look like enemies, power-ups look like
    power-ups.

    -What design choices do you dislike,
    choices that cheapen the challenges:
    SMB1/2:
    warp pipes
    SMB3:
    warp whistles (skip maps)
    P-Glove (skip stages)
    SMW: In terms of life, yoshi essentially turns mario into sonic
    mario/yoshi <-> sonic/1-ring

    ReplyDelete
  30. Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2. I love the art style as in the previous one, but this one had considerable improvement as far as the little tweaks in the movement, as in how smooth it became between SMW and SMW:SMA2.
    Other than that, I can't really answer the rest of your questions. For some reason, for me, the rest of the side-scrolling Mario games just... Bit the dust. To this day, SMW:SMA2 is the -only- Mario game I can fully play through, 100%.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Wow, wall of text!

    In any case, Super Mario Bros 3 was my favorite...probably a bit of nostalgia, but it also had neat things like the hammer and tanuki and frog suits for the first time, along with a few small ways of interacting with the map such as the cloud, the boat and the boulder-breaker.
    And of course, the warp whistle thing.

    New Super Mario Bros (the one for DS) was nice in that it focused more on making neat enemies, and added in some of the 3D elements like wall jumping and such into the game; which worked because it was simple to do.

    I think that's probably one important aspect:
    Making the character controls as simple as possible.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Mario 3 and Super Mario World.
    Later Mario games introduce too many optional objectives, IMO, which increases your production costs a lot. SMW and Mario 3 generally have at most one secret/trick per level. I'd recommend this format, because it reduces your workload. I felt like Kurovadis did a good job in this respect, of having mostly-linear stages with a few secrets.
    Mario level design tends to do a really good job of mixing up the level design. SM3 world 1, for instance, has: an auto-scrolling level, a constrained, underground level, a level that encourages flying high as the raccoon, a level with lots of slopes, etc. SM3 has fortresses, SMW has haunted houses, both of which feel very different than "normal" levels and serve to break up the gameplay. Each world introduces one or two new gameplay elements or enemies (ice blocks, giant enemies, wrigglers, etc.)
    If you're designing a Mario-like game, make each stage as different as possible from the one before.

    ReplyDelete
  33. I know it isn't really a Mario game, but ==Super Mario Bros. 2== or Doki-Doki Panic is by far my favorite Mario game. My favorite part is the combat, and how seamlessly it flows with the platforming, while still being more engaging(to me at least) than more traditional mario games. The lifting mechanic,as well as the super jump add a great deal of variety and spice to the bosses and the exploration.

    ReplyDelete
  34. When referring to 2D, Super Mario World hands down. I didn't get to have a SNES as a kid, so I didn't get to spend as much time with it until I was older (as in, an adult). The one thing that distances it from the New Super Mario Bros series (which I dislike) is the tightness of the controls and the speed at which action was happening. One thing I felt they did lack was abilities like wall-jumping but New SMB ruined that by making this wall-sliding nonsense that made it far too easy to execute and dull as a result. Close runner up would be Super Mario Bros 3, but the differences that put one above the other for me are really in aesthetics and feel, rather than functionality. SMB3 had more things like powers and level variety. Thanks for reading!

    ReplyDelete
  35. To be original, I'll answer, super mario land 3. Wario land.
    Why? nostalgia. It was less "smooth" than other mario games (wario is slower) but it included many "fun" features, including:
    -many ways to deal with enemies (slow and rewarding, quick and cheap, etc)
    -multiple endings. When you finished the game, you had a mediocre ending and then, you had to redo the levels to refine your final score.
    -playing a "brutal" (anti)hero. Mario is good and all, but sometimes playing a baddy is fun too.
    -of course, a world map with some hidden paths was also nice to have.

    As said by someone else, I also like Mario games in general for their tight and smooth control and level-dwelling. But I won't relinquish a fast-paced, reflex-based sonic-like platform game. Both styles are good choices, as long as you pick a genre and stick to it.

    ReplyDelete

  36. I'm sorry in childish English language is Japanese
    I played the trial version of your game.
    I had a good time.

    I was also surprised cute picture
    It is a picture, such as Japan
    Mr. Kyrieru such person would do anywhere in the country?
    Please answer if it is good.




    ReplyDelete
  37. ^ http://awesomescreenshot.com/0fbst8sd4

    ReplyDelete
  38. I'll go with Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
    It brings a lot of new things but somehow still plays familiar like any other Mario games before

    ReplyDelete
  39. Super Mario World has the tightest mechanics but it's too easy and the over-emphasis on secret exits gets sort of tedious. Super Mario Bros 3 has much more interesting level design in general. Lots of weird little outlier setpieces that only show up once or twice, like the boot or the white platforms. Secrets that are actually secret and not just a dull checklist. The more esoteric power-up suits and items feel valuable because they're in limited supply and easily lost, and therefore make better rewards for finding hidden areas.

    If I had to pick the one most important thing about Mario in general it's the fact that it's fun just to move around. Unlike, say, Megaman who moves with robotic precision, Mario always has some inertia and weight to him, so there's a little bit of recklessness in all his moves, but never so much that you feel like you're not in control. The result is that the levels end up being designed to encourage quickness and daring rather than perfectly memorised accuracy.

    One minor thing that never sat right with me in both SMB3 and SMW was the way picking up shells was mapped to the same button as running, so if you were carrying something you were forced to move at top speed all the time. Granted, I usually like to run through as fast as possible anyway but the way it was implemented just feels awkward and kludgy to me. Being able to pick up and throw stuff is a fun mechanic though so it's still worth finding a way to work it in somehow.

    ReplyDelete
  40. I liked how there was a lot of secret content in SMW, but it was all discoverable with a small bit of searching. Nothing so obscure you'd miss it unless someone told you about it. The Yoshi system was also pretty neat. SMB3's powerup variety was also very cool. I think the biggest thing in Mario games, though, is that the physics are just very fluid. The challenge doesn't come from fighting the controls even a bit, it all comes from the enemies and obstacles in your path.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Super Mario World. 3 was damn innovative for its time, but it felt too punishing and obstructive to me. Those hellish airship levels, pipe mazes, and the sense of dwindling supplies like a survival horror... it just wasn't all that fun finally getting a hammer bros. or tanuki suit just to lose it. SMW was challenging but also more balanced and fair about it, never making you feel trapped. I loved its sense of freedom, and while its stages had less thematic gimmicks, they were more creatively executed play-wise.

    I haven't played much of Yoshi's Island, though, so for all I know I'd like it better. I do remember it having some fun ideas.

    ReplyDelete
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