Super Mario Bros design documents

oRBIT2002 · Post by **oRBIT2002** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 9:00 am

Not sure if this is the correct forum, but anyway.. The "Super Mario 25th anniversary" for Wii has recently been released if you haven't noticed.
There's an included booklet which contains photos of the development-sketches (for example level-data) of "Super Mario Bros" for NES, which are really inspiring and cool to look at.
Just wanted to let you know..

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 9:12 am

Nice. I love these pictures that show game development at nintendo. It's all more spaced out then I thought, but stuff does come together.

oRBIT2002 · Post by **oRBIT2002** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 10:50 am

What the heck, it's soon christmas, here's one high resolution scan from the booklet. This kind of stuff makes my heart beats faster.

Can anyone read the japanese stuff?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2590713/SMB1.jpg

tokumaru · Post by **tokumaru** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:49 am

oRBIT2002 wrote:Can anyone read the japanese stuff?

I can't read much (too many Kanji I can't be bothered to look up), but I find it pretty interesting that UP was supposed to jump...

Hum... There is some katakana under the "ATTCK" (lol typo) text that is easy to read: kick, rifle and beam. So, was Mario supposed to carry firearms or something?

oRBIT2002 · Post by **oRBIT2002** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:59 am

Yeah I think I've read somewhere that Mario had a gun in an early prototype or something.

MetalSlime · Post by **MetalSlime** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:22 pm

oRBIT2002 wrote: Can anyone read the japanese stuff?

Yes.

Controls: Up=jump, jump height determined by how long you press the button. Can move left or right mid-jump.

left, right = move left or right. Holding B makes you run faster. If Mario has acquired the "rocket", mid-air horizontal movement will be accelerated with a press of the B button.

Down=crouch

A=Attack. If Mario is carrying a weapon/tool, A will make him attack with/use it. (possible weapons = kick (when crouching?), rifle and beam gun)

I can't make out the bottom page with the jump diagrams. There is a fragment that says that say "in the case of <something I can't make out>, horizontal movement is random". Maybe talking about enemy movement?

If you can link me to some other pages I will be happy to translate.

oRBIT2002 · Post by **oRBIT2002** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:49 pm

Here's another page:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2590713/SMB1-1.jpg

EDIT: I wonder what a SMB prototype with weapons included would be worth on e-bay.

tokumaru · Post by **tokumaru** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:59 pm

oRBIT2002 wrote:I wonder what a SMB prototype with weapons included would be worth on e-bay.

I imagine that a change this big was made during the design phase, so there probably isn't a prototype like that... You could of course make a hack like that and I'm sure you'd fool a lot of people!

Post by **tepples** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 1:08 pm

oRBIT2002 wrote:I wonder what a SMB prototype with weapons included would be worth on e-bay.

Someone on Bregalad's site in one recent debate would probably think it's Yet Another Fake Proto. I've seen a ROM hack with fireballs modified to be "grenades": they explode instead of bouncing.

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 2:47 pm

Wow, thanks for the translation! Wow, cool docs!

I like how everything is in hex, too....and the background pages have the memory locations on them too, too cool. I need some of those!!! -goes to make some haha-

Wow. Very cool. Thanks for the link!

tokumaru · Post by **tokumaru** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:07 pm

3gengames wrote:I need some of those!!!

Like this one that tepples made because of this thread?

Post by **tepples** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:09 pm

MetalSlime wrote:Controls: Up=jump, jump height determined by how long you press the button. Can move left or right mid-jump.
[...]
A=Attack. If Mario is carrying a weapon/tool, A will make him attack with/use it. (possible weapons = kick (when crouching?), rifle and beam gun)

The descriptions of Up and A match how Mario behaves in Super Smash Bros. series released a decade and a half later. Except because N64 through Wii have analog Control Sticks, SSB uses stick-tap to run, freeing B for a fireball.

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:12 pm

From the keyboard of Breglad:

Bregalad wrote:YOU ROCK TEPPLES

This is very useful, especially for a reference for remembering where the attributes are at and the screen resolution. Two things I am bad at remembering.

psycopathicteen · Post by **psycopathicteen** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 2:32 pm

Now I understand how game developers know everything about the game they're making before they program it.

I always thought they just guessed at what they need and programmed under the limitations of their own predictions.

tokumaru · Post by **tokumaru** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 2:45 pm

psycopathicteen wrote:I always thought they just guessed at what they need and programmed under the limitations of their own predictions.

That not advised even when you're working alone, but when you are part of a team this kind of documentation is an absolute requirement!

Professional game makers can't just get together at a bar one night, toss a few ideas about a plumber that eats mushrooms and go home to work on whatever part of the game they think is relevant. They must sketch the whole idea, and create the basic rules before they can develop it any further.