Super Mario - Jeff Ryan [19]
The two-player simultaneity was “inspired” by a 1982 Williams game called Joust, which in turn seemed to be inspired by Donkey Kong’s platform-jumping control scheme, combined with the sheer lunacy of crazy animals running around. In Joust, players mounted either an ostrich or a stork, which could fly by repeatedly hitting the “flap” button. They bounded around a board suspiciously similar in layout to Mario Bros.: a series of tiered platforms arranged like a splitlevel stairway minus the stairs. Due to a programming glitch that defined the ethos “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature,” when the ostrich or stork crossed the far left side of the board, they popped through to the right side, like a secret passageway in Clue.
Joust was a glorified game of chicken. Players charged at flying monsters, and whoever had his lance higher when they collided won. The loser was, in a plot twist worthy of Gabriel García Márquez, transformed into an egg, and would hatch back into play if the winning jouster didn’t come and stomp it within a few seconds. One final, crucial aspect of Joust? Players could—and did—attack each other, as well as the on-screen baddies.
Mario Bros. did not copy Joust’s singular attack style. Its rule was the same as in the previous game: if Mario (or Luigi) touched an opponent, he died instantly. It varied the types of attacks: jumping, flipping, kicking, or head butting the once-a-level POW block landmine, which wipes everyone out. The platforms were placed a bit closer, since Mario had to access them in a single jump. One final, crucial aspect of Mario Bros.? Mario and Luigi couldn’t kill each other.
Cooperation in games wasn’t a much-traveled avenue. Certainly, from Pong onward, people understood the joys of two-player rivalries. It was loved on the business side as well, since it gobbled up two quarters instead of one. Shooter games were more difficult to make two player. Put a second controllable sprite on an existing board, and whatever challenge there was gets ruined by double the laser fire. Beef up the number of enemies, and you ended up designing two games. And trying to throw more villains in the mix on the fly was pushing things in 1983. The solution, it seemed, was to turn whatever game you had into a duel, with the winner the one simply left alive. Joust, Space Duel, Space Wars, Tank, and numerous others found ways of turning any number of game genres into death matches.
But not Mario Bros. There was no easy way to hurt Luigi. The best players could do was to kick an enemy at him. The only honest way to beat Luigi was to outscore him, trying to trample the monsters and claim the coin reward before he could. This invested Mario in a taut, competitive friendship with his brother, one eye on the beasts and the other on the current high score. It was cooperative competition, rather than simply throat-slitting. And with no in-game story other than sewer stomping, the “story” became you versus your friend.
Mario Bros. made for the fourth Donkey Kong game in three years, not counting an Epyx game based on the DK game play called, in a probable homage, Jumpman. Plus, Nintendo finally acquired the Popeye rights Miyamoto had wondered about, and made a game for the spinach-eating sailor that clearly reflected its Donkey Kong – ish roots. But Nintendo was merely keeping pace. Pac-Man alone generated 1981’s Ms. Pac-Man, 1982’s Super Pac-Man, and 1983’s Pac & Pal and Pac-Man & Chomp-Chomp. Gradius, Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Galaxian all churned out yearly arcade sequels.
These games didn’t provide the only automated entertainment in the early eighties. The same quick-and-dirty aesthetic accounted for: disposable Freddy, Jason, and Michael