![]() Scenario Four – You’ll jump on the enemy either by accident or on purpose and work out how to kill enemies, although it’s more likely you’ll just jump over the enemy at the moment (remember you know nothing of games). Scenario Three – You’ll run into the enemy and die leading to you learning about death and enemies, like in the first scenario the game will force you to learn how to jump as well if you wanna get past this threat. Scenario Two – We’ll have already worked out how to jump whilst on the first screen so we’ll jump over the enemy and that’s that done. OK so we’ll lose a life but we still have two left so no matter, we’ll then use this new space to try and jump as we know this screen is safe, we’ll mash the other buttons in an attempt to find a way to fight back or get around the enemy, we’ll quickly work out how to jump and know now that we can jump over the enemy to safety. This teaches us two important things about the game, number one, yep they are bad guys and two we can’t go back screens. Scenario One – We’ll try and run back to our safe screen that we were previously in, but then we’ll be blocked by the wall and die. OK so us being completely new to games will do one of four things and all four will teach us about the game. Subtle things like these make us recognise this thing as an enemy. But how do we know that? Well the fact that it’s approaching us gives it a threatening vibe and its eyebrows are angry. OK so the next thing you’ll notice is a glowing question mark box, that’s your next goal it’s flashing it’s yellow and it’s got a question mark on it so we associate it with mystery with excitement so we approach it, but then something approaches you, this is an enemy. But how do you know how to walk there isn’t someone shouting it out like there is in other games? Well common sense, the NES controller has eight buttons and one of them literally points to the right so you will work that out, the right arrow takes you right and the left arrow takes you left and because there isn’t any danger you can work this out in your own time, the only danger is the timer but if you don’t work it out in 400 seconds there is no real point in you continuing playing games, to be honest. OK let’s say that doesn’t work (which it will), then the fact that Mario is on the left of the screen and there is a lot of empty space on the right will get the player moving Mario to the right as it’s the only place to go, theirs nothing to the left and if you try and go there you will be stopped. We might not consciously decide this but it’s all about those sub-conscious thoughts that happen behind the scenes that make Mario World 1-1 so amazing. ![]() Now as a designer you want the player to move Mario right, how do you do that? Well you start in front of the hill, OK where is your goal well there is only one other object on screen other than the cloud (which we know we can’t reach because we assume gravity still applies in this world just like in the real world as we’re just simple non-gamers at this point) and that object is the bush so we move towards it. The cloud, bush and hill keep this screen from being boring but don’t make it too complicated. World 1 – 1 what would you do? Well, the first screen is simple it has nothing but a man who you will automatically recognise as the character you will be controlling (you won’t be controlling a cloud, hill or bush will you). OK so let’s pretend you have never played a video game in your life and you have just been thrown into Super Mario Bros. ![]() What The First Screen Of Super Mario Bros. I am also going to analyse the inner workings of Level 1 – 2, Level 1 – 3 and Level 1 -4 at a later date as I believe you don’t truly know how to play Mario till you’ve beaten the first world. Now I know this level has already be analysed to death, but analysing World 1 – 1 is sort of a right of passage when it comes to being somebody that talks about video game design on the internet, and I think I have some new points to add on the topic so hopefully writing this won’t be pointless and you might learn some new information. for the NES was many people’s first game, therefore the first level of it had to do two things, teach them how to play it and be fun.
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