Nintendo released Super Mario Galaxy 2 months ago, and I still want to play it really, really bad. I’ve watched trailers and read reviews. Short of actually playing it, I've done everything I can to get a sense of how incredible I know this game must be. The problem is that I don’t own a Wii, and buying one right now is out of the question.
One of items I sacrificed when I entered the game design program at The Savannah College of Art and Design's Atlanta campus this past year was financial security. In fact, I traded a well-paying job and a comfortable lifestyle for an uncertain future and a constant scramble to fulfill my financial and academic obligations. It’s exhausting work, and I do have moments where I question my choices. I miss my friends and my old life. I used to go to parties. I used to stay up late doing things besides working and worrying.
And you know what? It’s all that ****ing little plumber’s fault. He’s the reason I played my first video game and the reason I decided I’d try and make them myself. For better and for worse, for richer and for (much) poorer, our destinies have been intertwined for most of my life.
However, if I look closely at how our relationship has matured throughout the years, it turns out that I actually owe him. So rather than complain about the guy, I have to thank him. My mustachioed muse deserves a heartfelt tribute for his 25th birthday (another landmark we hit together this year.)
I can’t remember the first video game I ever played — it’s probably not important. But the first game I remember playing was the original Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Its charm and ubiquity are undeniable for anyone in my generation who owned an NES. More than any other game of that era, it taught me what games should feel like. It’s my ground zero and my square one. How Mario runs, the way he jumps, the music, the character design, the responsiveness of the buttons, and the controller all seemed endlessly refined.
Even though countless designers have improved upon nearly every aspect of the original Mario over the last two and half decades, the original doesn’t feel dated. That ineffable “Nintendo touch” that so many gamers describe is still in there. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this initial experience, whenever it might’ve taken place, formed the basis for what I would come to expect any time I picked up a controller.
This isn't me, but it might as well have been.
I enjoyed games casually as a child in the early to mid '90s, but it wasn’t until 1996 — when I asked for the then-new Nintendo 64 for Christmas — that my casual hobby transformed into a full blown obsession. Super Mario 64 was the culprit, and I read the previews and saw the screenshots in EGM that summer. I was quite certain that, upon its release, it would completely change the way I felt about my life and the entire universe.
As it turns out, I was more right than wrong. Super Mario 64 offered a much more ambitious experience than the original. It felt grandiose, epic, and limitless. As a wide-eyed preteen who was prone to fits of daydreaming, I found it easy to look past things like polygon pop-in and a wonky camera to see a video game universe that hinted at something more.
Mario 64 arguably took bolder design leaps in three dimensions than the original took with two. Think about it: Mario 64 did for swimming, sliding, climbing, flying, and flipping what the first NES incarnation did for jumping. It took what initially seemed to onlookers as another oft-familiar set of game mechanics and refined them into a universal language. When Mario gained the ability to move a hundred different ways in as many directions, his “vocabulary” expanded almost exponentially.
I had never had my world view affected by a piece of entertainment so dramatically before. I closed my eyes at night and imagined new worlds. I scrawled grandiose ideas out on paper. After I beat Super Mario 64, I still didn’t know what a “game designer” did, but I knew I was going to be one. I stopped being a gamer and became a game designer in the making.
Oh man. I wish it was this cool.
My appetite for games was insatiable after that Christmas, and I played dozens upon dozens more titles as the years went on. I found that the more I learned about games, the more I realized I didn’t want to be stuck just playing them. That, I told myself, would be like sitting on the sidelines. I felt that I had more to contribute to the world of interactive media than a butt-shaped grove on my couch, so I entered The Art Institute of Washington for a degree in game design in 2007.
During this time, I began to get a sense of what it would really mean to do what I had always dreamed of for a living. Those early adventures with the Mario games taught me that I wanted to help craft experiences that exuded the same idyllic charm. I had little interest in helping build M-rated killfests where space marines tore aliens to shreds; I wanted to make adult gamers feel like kids again. The Mario games became my go-to templates for successful school projects.
Last year, I reached a turning point in my education, and the opportunity for a far more rewarding experience in the game design program at SCAD’s Atlanta campus presented itself. I had a choice, but it wasn’t easy: I could continue at the Art Institute (which I felt was a safe, but ultimately less ambitious option) or leave my friends, family, and the only home I’ve ever known to go to Atlanta and study at SCAD. It was one of the hardest choices I’ve ever had to make.
In the end, I did what I thought Mario would do.
I jumped.
My college education taught me to examine the games I admire with a different set of eyes. As an adult, I can now see problems in the games I swore were flawless masterpieces as a child. Still, it’s encouraging that my appreciation for the Mario titles of yesteryear is actually refined instead of diminished by this more critical outlook. The unwavering fandom of my youth is now a healthy admiration and respect for the achievements of the past. The lessons I took away were invaluable.
That’s why a special birthday "thank you" from me to Mario is so important. There aren’t many people who can point to specific moments in their lives and say “that’s when everything changed for me,” but I can point to several. The fact that Mario is responsible for many of them is remarkable. And that’s why I’ll continue to look to the Mario games for future inspiration just as I have all my life.
If all of that doesn’t earn me a free Wii, I don’t know what does.