Extended Practice Game Play Mechanics and Collectibles Research: Super Mario

I then wanted to start looking at the next series which was Super Mario, and specifically 64, Sunshine and Galaxy as these are the ones that provided the best experience for game play mechanics and have the best collectibles.

Super Mario 64
The first game in the series that I wanted to look at was Super Mario 64 as it is the first in the series that produced a thoroughly beautiful game throughout. The mechanics of this early 3D game where fairly simple and Mario had certain moves in which he could use to traverse throughout the environments he was placed in. He has the basic moves in which he can walk, run and has three different jumps depending on what way the analog stick is moved, or how fast he is travelling, but this helps him to navigate the environment further.

More complex moves that Mario carries out include climbing up poles, or sliding down then, to get higher or lower in the environment and has the ability to move around all aspects of the environment with ease. the overall game play experience feels very smooth in most cases, but does have the occasional camera malfunction, but this is mainly due to the fact that the game is fairly old. The movement around the environment is great and you do feel in complete control of the character in all cases and due to the fact that Mario has so many different types of jumping abilities you feel that you can always find multiple ways of getting around the environment quickly.

The collectibles that feature in the game are fairly similar to the way in which Crash Bandicoot works as there is the coin collecting system, this works in the same way as the apple collecting does in Crash but where it differs slightly is the fact that Mario is able to gain a star once he has collected 100 coins in each level instead of getting an extra life. But this is where the 1up comes into play and this is probably one of the most well known extra life tokens in gaming history. Coins can also be used to regain health after being hit.

The whole game is entirely based around Mario collecting all of the 120 stars that have been scattered around the worlds, and of course defeating Bowser and getting Princess Peach back. The stars are gained from completing missions on the different levels and are rewarded by a small cut scene which is always nice to see in this game as there is a great little animation to go with it.

Super Mario Sunshine
The next game that I wanted to look at was Super Mario Sunshine as this is a cracking game that followed on from Super Mario 64 in the franchise many years later and used the same fantastic game mechanics alongside some newer ones that were added in for this game along. The main new ones that were added in consist of using FLUDD your new water pump device that helps you maneuver around the levels with more ease than in the last game without it. It helps you to reach higher platforms and can help you to move across platforms that are further away.

The addition of FLUDD doesn't just stop at the movement around the island and the different levels, but if also helps in getting rid of enemies in a new way, along with the traditional jumping on there heads. It can be used to push enemies out of the way or fill them up with water until they burst, and if it feels like it is running out of water, stand in a body of liquid and you can refill it from anywhere. This is also where the second mechanic of this comes into play and what most of the level designs are based off and the general idea for the whole game, and that is that it is used to clean up the island. In this weird mix of gloopy paintlike substance on the floor you can't help but want to clean every bit of it up, even if you only need to clean a certain amount, or just move over some to get the enemy that is causing it, but it becomes a very interesting game mechanic that in turn is the inspiration for most of the levels themselves.

Lastly I wanted to look at the collectibles in the game as there is a small difference to the series. The game kept the same star, or shine as it is called in this game, and used this as your main goal throughout to be able to bring sunshine back into Isle Defino, and it also uses the same coin system where if you collect 100 on one level you get the shine as well. It then included red coins, which where a feature of 64, where you had to collect 8 on each level on a specific stage and you got a star, but where this game differs is that it brought in one new coin, and they were blue. These blue coins are scattered throughout the different levels and once you have 10 you can trade them away for a shine. There are a whopping 240 to collect in total, but this again for me just adds to the replay value of the game.

Super Mario Galaxy

The last game that I wanted to look at is Super Mario Galaxy as this is the last in this 'Super' series. Again the game mechanics behind this game use the same basic ones that the previous Mario games do in the fact that they have the obvious movement controls, the underwater swimming and then the pole climbing to reach higher platforms when combined with the different jumps that you can do. But where this game differs is that as it is set in space on this planet type levels most of the time, you end up with this mechanic which enables the planet to have gravity in the center and you can walk around the surface without falling off and floating away. 

This makes for some pretty interesting game play, but not every level is the same and some do follow the traditional style, but it does work well. At times the camera doesn't always follow in the way you would want it too, making time where you don't know whether your going up down, and sometimes your going towards the camera and you have to mix up your left and right, again making the game difficult to operate. But there is another mechanic to the game that does work a lot better and that give Mario the ability to transform into different versions of himself to aid him in getting further in the levels. These are all unique to the different levels and include; fire, ice, bee, boo, spring, flying and rainbow Mario. All of which can be unlocked respectively throughout the course of the game, offering different interactions with the levels and making unique experiences throughout.

Lastly I wanted to look at the collectibles, and once again Mario does use the same kind of collectible system as previously, but again with the slight name changes. He once again collects stars from defeating the different stages, but once the boss for each stage is deafeated Mario gets a Grand Star and this is used to power the observatory further and access different parts to it, to get to more levels. The other feature that stayed the same was coins, but they are very sparse throughout and they are only used to regain health, the addition of purple coins is now used and once you get 100 of them you get a star. The only major difference that this game brought was the addition of star bites that where collected by waving the Wii remote around haphazardly at the screen and these where used to feed the greedy characters later on that ask for a certain amount before opening up a new planet for Mario to explore.

Altogether when looking at these Mario games it's clear that a lot of thought has gone into the creation of the mechanics and the collectibles. The mechanics are fantastic, but a tad too complicated for what we are aiming for in the end, as we only have 4 months for the entire project and only about 1 for the scripting, for which both of us are still learning it seems like too much of a project to take on to be able to incorporate so many different qualities to the character. Similarly the collectibles that features are just too many and broad. If we were to design a collectibles system it would be one or two things, not several that link together in order to do one thing and something else that does something completely different, I  think it becomes a little bit too much to handle and we would benefit from keeping it simple.