Shigeru Miyamoto explains how Nintendo crafted the perfect level in the form of Super Mario Bros. World 1-1.

Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Super Mario Bros., has shared insights into the creation of the game's legendary first level, World 1-1. The level was designed to teach players the basic mechanics of the game in an intuitive way, introducing enemies, power-ups, and movement through its layout. Miyamoto and his team used the limited capabilities of the NES hardware creatively, reusing graphical tiles and compressing code to fit the game's expansive content into just 40 kilobytes. The music, composed by Koji Kondo, was also closely integrated with the level design to enhance the player's experience. These design choices have contributed to World 1-1's lasting influence on video game development.

Miyamoto explains how Mario World 1-1 was created

World 1-1, we've all run, jumped and brick-bashed our way through that familiar first stage. It seems so simple and second nature to us now, but in this modern age of iterative entertainment, it's almost impossible to convey the magnitude of the leaps Super Mario Bros represented compared to everything else that came before it. World 1-1 introduced game design principles and a geometry of motion so perfectly calculated that it endures as one of the great works of the art form to this very day. But how was this miracle performed? Well, let us tell you, with the help of its creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. Before Mario arrived in 1985, the closest thing to the iconic opening level that we had was the stiff, but serviceable screen-flipping pitfall. And there was also the gorgeous, but terrible side-scrolling Pac-Land. Both were early essays on game design. Pitfall presented a two-layered jungle with plenty of enemies and obstacles to jump over, but its flip-screen progression, huge non-linear map, strict time limits and unintuitive treasure placement made it feel more like a puzzle to solve than a world to explore. Pac-Land scrolled fairly clearly in one direction, but the layout of the levels was haphazard and frustrating, and the controls felt maddening. In comparison, Mario was like exploring a realised, unified and diverse world. Each new step revealed new threats and sights, but in order to achieve this legendary standard, it first needed solid foundations. And that's where World 1-1 really comes into its own, teaching you the basics in the most elegant manner possible. Super Mario Bros isn't nearly as big as it feels. In fact, World 1-1 measures only about 15 screens, including the underground room. It feels much bigger because over two or three screens, the tone of the terrain changes. From the intro section to leaping over pipes, to platforming, to pits. And yet within that tiny space, you have every power-up that's in the game. A hidden multi-coin block, a pair of traversal pipes, an invisible one-up, two enemy varieties and a secret fireworks display. But perhaps the biggest secret of 1-1 is that it's actually a school, and the course is Mario 101. In a 2015 interview with Eurogamer, Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka talked about this extraordinary degree of thought that went into the design, beginning with World 1-1's iconic opening, a tiny Mario facing an empty plane. They then face the issue of how to teach the player several skills at once. How to avoid enemies, how to destroy enemies, how question blocks work, and how to tell an enemy Goomba from a helpful Mushroom. Surprisingly, all three are accomplished within just the first few steps of this opening level. Running forward into the first Goomba kills you, a lesson a player only needs to learn once before discovering that they're much safer in the air. Then moving forward, the player discovers some low bricks and question blocks. Hitting the second block releases a Mushroom that slides away, then bounces off a pipe to come hurtling back to the character. The low ceiling makes it very hard to avoid, so the Mushroom will naturally hit Mario, but instead of damaging him, it transforms him into Super Mario. In a matter of seconds, you've learned how both rewards and danger work throughout the rest of the game. Even small details mattered. The opening screen's first enemy was supposed to be a Koopa Troopa, but teaching the player the jump and then the kick movement necessary to overcome it worked less well at the beginning of the game than they'd hoped, so they invented the simple to stop Goomba to help players understand the basics first. Another valuable lesson, holding B to run before a long jump, is taught safely by two Miyamoto explains that the tutorial nature of early stages usually comes only after the team has crafted more sophisticated levels, so the creators know what skills the players The intricately crafted layout creates a satisfying illusion of choice, and a constant curve of advancement, and Miyamoto sums this up perfectly. The level layout is tuned to match Mario's famous momentum, allowing a skilled player to perform precise jumps, slides and combinations. An experienced Mario jockey can run forward at the beginning of 1-1, squash a Goomba while hitting the first Mushroom block, sprint forward, hit a coin block, reverse direction, jump up, catch the Mushroom before it hits the ground, and then hit the other coin. The team wisely mapped run and fireball to the same button, creating a slight degree of real-world physical dexterity challenge to trading momentum for projectiles. Likewise, the need to hold B and run and press A to jump made long jumps just slightly and satisfyingly more difficult. Then there's the music. Unlike most software development teams, the Mario's team composer Koji Kondo was embedded with the developers. The famous Mario theme was composed and edited over and over as the level layout changed to match the pace of the design. And all of this magic was achieved using only the most limited tools back in 1985. To really understand why Super Mario Bros works so well, you first need to understand how the NES renders graphics. The animated characters that move around the screen like Mario are sprites, detailed and mobile clusters of pixels. The NES can only handle a few sprites on screen at a time, so most of the rest of the world, including the ground, platforms, hills, backgrounds, is made up of tiles and 8x8 blocks. Most of the objects you see in Super Mario Bros are composed of these chunks. The question blocks, walls and bricks are all made up of four combined 8x8 tiles, creating distinct 16x16 squares. It's similar to the process used to build levels in Mario Maker, only more granular. And these little tiles were the tools that Shigeru Miyamoto and the team worked with to build this masterpiece. The Mario team had to push the hardware to the absolute limits of its capabilities. The entirety of Super Mario Bros source code is 40 kilobytes. Crammed into that space are 32 distinct worlds, 8 boss battles, a myriad of secrets and a memorable cast of characters. The design team had to make every bit count, and that led to all kinds of clever tricks to save space. Whether notice that the clouds and the bushes are just the same palette swap tiles, or that blocks in 1-2 are just recoloured blocks from 1-1, both tricks, and many others, were used to compress space and make room for more features. Add together the level design, gorgeous visuals, perfect controls and iconic music, and you have a game that transcends the tropes of older action games. Super Mario Bros took levels and made them worlds, forests, castles, under oceans, worlds upon worlds. And none would exist without the very first. Hell, it's arguable that video games as they exist right now wouldn't be a thing if it wasn't for World 1-1. From the most meagre of pixelated tools, Miyamoto and the team at Nintendo crafted a miracle, and one that's still as fun to play today as it was 40 years ago. And if you liked that video, why not check out Miyamoto explaining the most un-Nintendo like thing that Nintendo has ever created. And for everything else Mario, be sure to stick with IGA.

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