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Nintendo Businesses Classic Games (Games) NES (Games)

The Making of Super Mario Bros. 3 72

Posted by Zonk from the it'sa-me! dept.
Via Press the Buttons, a Nintendo Power feature on Super Mario Bros. 3, and the making of the game. From the post: "It's an interesting little article that has largely been forgotten over the years, as I've never seen any of the little tidbits and factoids in the piece resurface in other places (such as the existence of a centaur power-up instead of the raccoon leaf)."
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The Making of Super Mario Bros. 3 More

The Making of Super Mario Bros. 3

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  • Mario as a centaur? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by game kid ( 805301 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @06:59PM (#12504331) Homepage
    I couldn't imagine him galloping on Goombas either. I'd reject it too.

    I speak for every Slashdotter when I say the Tanookie Suit kicks ass, and huge portions thereof.

  • impossible! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MasterDirk ( 659057 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @07:22PM (#12504494)

    Is it just me, or has the guy in the middle picture down on the third page got some impossibly long arms? Are Japanese programmers extremely well-armed?

    Linkage:

    http://nintendope.iodized.net/smb3/smb3article3.ph p [iodized.net]
    • Interestingly enough, programmers, on average, tend to have longer arms than the general population due to the occurrence of Aspergers syndrome.
    • Is it just me, or has the guy in the middle picture down on the third page got some impossibly long arms?

      You know what they say. Long arms... long sleeves...

  • 404 (Score:5, Funny)

    by cyberkreiger ( 463962 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @07:30PM (#12504548) Homepage
    Their 404 page [iodized.net] is more interesting. :)

  • Random Question for Game Designers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Prien715 ( 251944 ) <agnosticpope@nOSPaM.gmail.com> on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @07:56PM (#12504736) Journal
    So I'm a programmer on PC. As such, I don't like changing dozens of lines of code before testing.

    So my here's my silly/ignorant question: how do traditional console programmers test/debug code? Did the SMB3 crew do it the same way it's done today, and if not, how did they do it differently?

    I see lots of pens and paper and a couple computers in the photos and a bit about how the graphics are explained but a lot of "how it's done" isn't really explained.

    • Re:Random Question for Game Designers (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In general, console programming on all the cart machines was done on a workstation with custom software(I remember reading somewhere that Nintendo used Apple IIs into the early SNES era). They all used assembly, of course. The compiled program was then transferred by data link hardware into some form of memory identical to ROM for test purposes. Debug monitors were also put together by the more sophisticated outfits.

      Part of the problem for homebrew developers is that nearly all of this stuff was proprietar
    • In the "Article" (just a magazine scan), Miyamoto is asked what is needed to become a game programmer.

      He says that a good knowledge is necessary, so I guess they programmed in assembler.

      Soooo, I guess they didn't have such a great IDE as we can get now. And they probably had to rewrite A LOT.

      Today, there is a nintendo.com page that answers the same question. But today it says a game programmer should have a firm graps of C++. C++ is a great improvement over assembler, but it is still a hassle.

      I guess we
  • ... the middle one in the lower righthand corner at http://nintendope.iodized.net/smb3/smb3article3.ph p [iodized.net]

    Putting aside my guess that the picture is posed and they didn't actually use those boxes to code, that's some beautifully vintage-looking pc hardware they captured.

    • Nah. That is probably what they used. Remember that SMB3 was released in 1988 or so in Japan and that they had been working on it for two years. You wouldn't need a very powerful development platform to code for a 1.7mhz machine with like 16k onboard.

      They look like some old IBM PCs or something. Hell, since they were Japanese they were probably using MSXs at the time.

  • Amazing Staff (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheoB ( 859132 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @08:21PM (#12504898)
    From the Article: "The team that produced Super Mario 3 consisted of over TEN PEOPLE..." My God. I mean, can you imagine ordering take out for TEN PEOPLE? Must have been a management nightmare.

  • from the article (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Flunitrazepam ( 664690 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @08:27PM (#12504946) Journal
    "The team that produced Super Mario 3 consisted of over 10 people and they worked over a 2 year span".

    Maybe if design teams these days consisted of "over 10 people", there would be better games!
    • Games nowadays are not lacking in the design department. They are missing innovation. All it takes is 1 person to innovate. But since we live in a world of lawyers are copyrights, ideas always get lost somewhere.

  • SMB 3 (Score:2, Funny)

    by lbmouse ( 473316 )
    I'm holding my breath waiting for it to pass the number of "Rocky" sequels.

    • Re:SMB 3 (Score:3, Informative)

      by Masami Eiri ( 617825 )
      I believe it has.
      Mario Bros
      Super Mario Bros
      SMB2
      SMB3
      Super Mario World
      Mario 64
      Mario Sunshine

      That's 7. I think there was a total of 5 Rocky movies.

      And I KNOW I forgot alot, and didn't count the partial sequels like the Yoshi line, or the Wario line.
      • I know that you forgot a few, but what about Super Mario All-stars?
        • super mario all-stars consisted of remakes (enhancements) of super mario 1-3 and the "lost levels" placed in an SNES cartridge. was the "lost levels" version ever released as a stand-alone game?
          • was the "lost levels" version ever released as a stand-alone game?

            It was standalone in Japan, as Mario 2. Mario 2 was originally developed to be another game and they just stuck the Nintendo characters in there. They used that game because Lost Levels was too hard for Americans.

            • AFAIR, also because it was "more of the same", and that you could get Mario-type games for every other competitor's machines at the time (Great Giana Sisters, anyone?). It was just "more of the same, only harder" (as mentioned in parent), and it was deemed not viable for entry-level consumers in the US.
      • I don't count Mario Bros as part of the series, more of a prequel-spinoff, if such a thing exists. It's like Donkey Kong to Donkey Kong Country: they have just about nothing in common except the main character.

        But, Super Mario World 2 might be considered in there. But then again, it's mostly a Yoshi game, with Baby mario on his back.

        • Actually, now that you mention it, Donkey Kong is worth mentioning as well; it's protagonist was basically Mario before he had a name, and its gameplay was a direct ancestor of Super Mario Brothers.

          Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, while being the progenitor of later Yoshi-only games (...only Yoshi's Story comes to mind, but I may be forgetting something), is still part of the main Mario series in title. It's gameplay is to SMB2us what SMB3 is to SMB; it's like a sequel to the red-headed step-child of
      • Super Mario Land on the original GB comes to mind.

  • Screw this... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jason Scott ( 18815 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:01PM (#12505201) Homepage
    .... I would pay good money to see an article about the making of Donkey Kong 3. I would love to know, conclusively, what set of decisions and approaches could take the Donkey Kong property and totally drive it into the ground like an oil drilling expedition.
  • When asked for his advice to aspiring game designers, Mr. Miyamoto had these words of wisdom: "It's one thing to design games based on established characters, but the key to success in designing games is to try and create your own interesting and original game play ideas."


    Yeah... you don't see too much originality in games anymore. It's all about recycling genres and franchises.

    • I'll second that, as much as I like playing Mario and Zelda games, I'd like to see companies take more chances. Occasionally something good does fall through the cracks like a Lumines or Katamari Damacy. Pikmin (also by Miyamoto) is probably the most original Nintendo game I've seen in awhile.

  • New game in the works... (Score:4, Funny)

    by rlbond86 ( 874974 ) on Wednesday May 11, 2005 @09:15PM (#12505288)
    I'm still waiting for this "Super Mario Brothers 4" they talked about.
  • I still have this issue lying around somewhere. I recall digging this article up a while back, but there's not a whole lot aside from the usual gaming mag "behind the scenes" information (read: get you hooked, not really giving away a whole lot on the creative process)

  • audience (Score:2, Interesting)

    by orcateers ( 883419 )
    Its interesting that the article is written for such a young audience compared to Video Game articles today.

    • Re:audience (Score:3, Interesting)

      by StocDred ( 691816 )
      You haven't ever seen Nintendo Power before, have you?

      It is interesting to note that their journalistic style has remaining almost totally stagnant from that SMB3 article to today. Every article is still along the lines of "OMG this is teh AMAZING GAME" and ends with something like "We are really looking forward to playing this game! Wow!"

      Although lately they have been trying to hip it up by using the word "ass" here and there. That always catches me off guard, coming a page after the fan art of some s

  • Wacky seeing how young this guy was.
  • I just wish they'd put a man-year towards making a new quest to go along with the GBA re-release of the original game. I've played some quite fun and creative SMB3 mods... why can't Nintendo spare a bit of time to make their own?
  • anyone notice the "mother" reference about Miyamoto working with Shigesato Itoi on a game set in modern times that will be coming to the NES in the future. Nintendo Power is untrustable!
  • Al of us SMB3 fans (read: all of us that give a damn about this article) probably already have this issue of NP sitting on our shelf or somewhere easily accessible so that we can take it out once a year and reminisce about the greatest game ever made. So how is this news?
  • I think Super Marion Brothers 3 and the movie Tango and Cash came out around the same time. I remember seeing the movie with my parents and some friends and then going home to take turns between 4 or 5 people playing SMB3. For some reason, after watching that movie, we started calling the Mario brothers "Tango Mario" and "Luigi Cash" and it kind of stuck with us. We were kind of strange I guess.

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