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World 1-1
On the 13th September 1985 Nintendo released Super Mario Bros. on the Famicom (the Japanese NES). That makes today it's 30th anniversary and to celebrate Nintendo released Super Mario Maker on the WiiU. Whilst we're all enjoying this incredible game and making near impossible stages let's not forget where Super Mario Bros. began, World 1-1!
This is most probably the most iconic stage in video game history, it guides you through the mechanics of the game (and the series that will follow for decades) using no text boxes or instructions. Players are free to learn the mechanics of the game at their own pace, run into that first ever Goomba then the player learns to jump over it. It's something that is mostly unseen in games today where first you have to do a long, drawn out tutorial to learn things that you'll be able to figure out if you were just given a chance. Imagine being told to go down the pipes, when you discovered the secret gold room in World 1-1 it would have felt less special. Shovel Knight is undoubtedly one of the most famous games to reflect this style of teaching the mechanics of the game with its tutorial level. This level is one of the most, if not the most, important in the whole of video game history! But why?
The stage slowly teaches you the enemies, how the block works, what the mushrooms do, and most importantly how to beat each stage. This has been reflected by developers since, not only on the Famicom and NES but throughout each console generation, bit wars and even in today's console wars! Even in today's Mario games this formula in World 1-1 is reflected, slowly showing you the enemies and how the blocks work. Even in the new Super mario Maker this formula is repeated, although there is text-based tutorials but in Super Mario Maker you do have to construct your own levels so its a bit more complicated. So, why is this certain stage so important?
Games of the time were simple, E.T.: collect the phone pieces, Pacman: Eat all of the pellets and avoid the ghosts. However, Super Mario Bros. was different, this game was long and complicated compared to most of the games of the time. Nintendo's previous games were simple arcade titles like Donkey Kong, Mario Bros. and their own versions of Pong! Super Mario Bros. wasn't as simple as these, there were lots of different enemies which all required Mario to do different things. Jump on a Goomba, fine but jump on a Koopa Troopa and you still had their shells to contend with. Nintendo constructed Super Mario Bros. to slowly teach the player the rules of this game and World 1-1 was the first to effectively teach players how to play the game and the first Nintendo made! It may be simple, it may be over used in games like Happy Wheels or other level-making games like LittleBigPlanet or, of course, Super Mario Maker but it is one of the most iconic and important levels in video game history! Most tutorial stages are forgettable, or at least we want to forget it once we get into the rest of the game, but this stage will always be the definitive, and most fun tutorial stage that defined not only the genreation of players who first played Super Mario Bros. but also the generations of players to this day!
