How Super Mario Bros. 3 Works

By Stephen Totilo Published January 5, 2011 |

Millions of people have played Super Mario Bros. We’ve run, jumped and some even used the game’s special shoe. How’d we learn how to play it? How does this game teach so much with so few instructions?

Game designer Radek Koncewicz recently broke down the way the game’s first world teaches players 30 fun things. He puts in words what players of the Nintendo Entertainment System know in the fingers, in their minds and in their hearts: Super Mario Bros. 3 is one well-designed game.

Here’s one of the lessons Koncewicz describes, the way Super Mario Bros. 3 taught us how to make Mario fly.

Read the rest of Koncewicz’s post for the other 29 insights he gleaned from the game’s first world. If you played the game, you’re in for a fun nostalgia trip. If you make games, you might enjoy the reminder that the classics didn’t need to be filled with flow-killing tutorials.

Super Mario Bros 3 Level Design Lessons [Significant Bits]