Super Mario Bros. 3 Level Design Lessons

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Significant Bits about how the early level design in Super Mario Bros. 3 gradually introduced players to the game without needing something as blatant and obtrusive as a tutorial: "Super Mario Bros. 3 contains many obvious design lessons that are also present in other games, e.g., the gradual layering of complexity that allows players to master a specific mechanic. What surprised me during my playthrough, though, was how some of these lessons were completely optional. The game doesn't have any forced hand-holding, and it isn't afraid of the player simply exploring it at his own pace (even if it means circumventing chunks of the experience)."

Comments

Tutorials :)

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/5/

Re:Generally speaking, all Mario Jump & Runs..

[Anonymous Coward]

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Incredible Attention to Detail

[Vyse of Arcadia]

This interview is the best example of Nintendo's attention to detail that I can find. In it, Miyamoto describes the insane amount of detail that went into the first ten seconds of Super Mario Bros. The mushroom, goomba, blocks, and pipe were all played just so in order for the player to realize what was good, what was bad, and so on. All without a tutorial and losing at most one life.

I think modern game designers could learn a lot by going back and studying how they used to convey ideas to the player without the memory space for tutorials.