this post originally appeared December 16th, 2016 on my Medium page found here
Yesterday, something remarkable happened. In 2016, I found myself sitting in a movie theater waiting for a new Star Wars movie and playing Super Mario on my iPhone. Of course, in true 2016 form, everything was a little askew. The Star Wars wasn’t episodically numbered (and likely one of the few remaining highly anticipated Star Wars debuts in my lifetime), and the Super Mario was an endless runner (spinoff?). In the spirit of 2016 (i.e. trying to enjoy it somehow), I was devoting myself to both. And, honestly, I’ve been waiting 10 years for a Mario game I can truly carry in my pocket (not in a bag or backpack). In my opinion, the game delivers what it promises: an experience with the addictive, frustrating “just one more try” charm and personality that Mario is known for, and that’s good for both players and Nintendo (and Apple).
I’ve been a gamer and Nintendo loyalist my whole life, but my first console was not a NES or Super Nintendo, it was a Gameboy. For me, my Super Mario Land, Link’s Awakening, and Donkey Kong Land were my introductions to iconic series. Games like Super Mario Land succeeded because they captured the essential Mario-ness in “less” rather than more. The story of Mario — the story of Nintendo — is doing more with less, through complementing solid mechanics with personality and understated-yet-captivating narrative. These qualities are especially appreciable in their portable offerings, as the limitations are more apparent to both player and designer. Nintendo has been the only company in the history of video games to do portable, or “mobile,” right because they have learned these lessons well. In many ways, the Gameboy is the grand progenitor at the start of the iPhone’s lineage, and we still value in smartphones what was valued about the Gameboy: portability, responsiveness, interactivity, and battery life. My smartphone supplanted my Gameboy’s (DS, really) place in my pocket the day I got it, and I’ve been missing having the Nintendo experience always at hand ever since.
Super Mario Run may be late to the mobile game party (in more ways than one), but it’s still a welcome sight. While mobile gaming isn’t necessarily the rotten dumpster fire many would have you believe it is, Nintendo’s presence is a welcome influence. As I look back on my favorite games of the past 6 years of mobile gaming (it’s been six years! That’s a console generation!), I find games that built on old experiences while carving new niches: Radiant, Battle Cats, and most recently Downwell found their way into my regular rotation for their exponential learning curve (easy to start, challenging to master) and personality. Mobile-first or mobile-adapted hits like Oceanhorn, Bastion, Herstory, Heathstone, and Never Alone are raising the stakes of mobile mechanics and storytelling while starting to blur the lines between home and portable console. Still, there are those who won’t take mobile gaming seriously without physical buttons or photo-realistic graphics. And while I’ll gladly defend free-to-play mobile games for the ways they’ve brought gaming to a whole group of new people, I’ll just as quickly agree that they’ve cheapened gaming by bait-and-switching the price of admission and incentivizing slot-machine style game design that Vegas (and Ghosts ‘n Goblins) would envy.
Enter Super Mario Run. This mascot-driven platformer enters a market of free-to-play with a fixed-price experience (the game is free to start and $10 grants access to the rest of the game content) that, at face value, mimics the mechanics other mobile games have adopted to approximate original Mario mechanics on a touch screen (we’re full circle, in some ways). Mario runs automatically toward the right in Super Mario Run with screen presses triggering jumps and other special moves — what long time mobile gamers will recognize as an “endless runner.” From that perspective, a mechanics-focused macro view, the game can look like a “me too” moment for Nintendo. After a log absence, they arrive late to the party with a safe bet. What makes Super Mario Run so much fun, however, is what’s always set Mario apart: scalability, accessibility, and personality. The game is easy to pick up (you run, you jump, you avoid enemies, you grab coins, you grab the flagpole), but provides staggered challenges for different appetites. There are 6 worlds of 4 levels each (plus whatever else may be hidden behind them or released in updates), but each level offers 3 challenges of collecting 5 coins in increasing difficulty, turning 24 levels into 96 levels and allowing players, in true Mario form, to scale their own difficulty up as they play. There’s also competitive racing modes and a pseudo-Clash of Clans kingdom building mode. Instead of micro transactions fueling these aspects, coins and tickets are awarded from playing and beating challenges in the main game mode.
But more important, Super Mario Run has the heart of Mario and Nintendo at its core. As recently as last year before the release of Mario Maker, Shigeru Miyamoto discussed with Eurogamer the importance of personality to Mario in particular, explaining how the physics of the original Super Mario Bros game (which are tweaked in every iteration) were designed to give the player the impression of weight and danger — to give the impression that Mario, despite being a cartoon, is a real guy and the player’s directions and decisions have consequences for him. It’s that personality that has sustained Mario to the heights of recognizability rivaling Mickey Mouse, and Super Mario Run has it in spades. Sure, running straight through the levels may be easy for a veteran player, but the challenges, whatever you decide they are, inspire iterative problem solving like all Mario games do: “… shoot, gotta jump one second earlier;” “…damn how does that guy always hit me?” “…if I can just figure out how to get that last coin!” Despite it’s linear focus, the game still offers the branching path exploration and problem solving Mario is known for. Part of the appeal this time is putting together everything you learn about a level into a perfect run (lest we forget going backwards is not a part of the original Super Mario Bros, either). Plus, later levels play with the “always right” mechanic with wrapping levels and spatial reasoning tuned for constant running.
Most importantly, this game is Nintendo putting the mobile game market on notice. Just Nintendo being there signals to the digital slot machine games that they’re not going to have the market to themselves anymore, and if Super Mario Run is successful it will prove that success on mobile app stores can come from a single-purchase game based on solid content. With the Switch doing the heavy lifting for Nintendo as their all-in-one high-power console in the new year, Nintendo is free to make the phone their secondary platform where they can do what they’ve always done: experiment with fun experiences despite what the game industry traditionally considers constrains. Touch screen gaming likely needs the influence of the innovative minds that brought us the control stick, haptic feedback, wireless controllers, motion controls, the concept of 3D gaming, and touch screen gaming itself. Most important, if Nintendo proves there is a market for games at the $10 price point, that raises of the bar of what we can expect in quality overall, establishes a new market between free-to-play and premium remakes, and provides a model for other developers to do the same. What might seem inauspicious and “it’s about damn time” in Super Mario Run’s release is what makes it worth watching. If Super Mario Run is successful, we may have a revolution in mobile gaming on our hands.