Blog - Swimming != Jumping
Sunday, February 10, 2008Core game design, where an entire game is built around one main mechanic, is often used by Shigeru Miyamoto, apparently.
As a notable example, Super Mario Bros. uses "Jumping" as its core. It's an entire game built around jumping: jumping onto things, jumping off things, jumping over things, jumping up and hitting things from below, etc.
Or is it?
If the core of the early Mario games is jumping, then what is the deal with the water levels?
Sure, it adds some variety to the levels, and mixes things up a bit.
And the swimming mechanic is kind of like the jumping mechanic, I guess, just with different physics.
But, it seems too different to me. And I don't think it's just me...
The water levels are hated by many a gamer.
Don't believe me? Look at all the groups users have created on the facebook for the shared hatred of water levels.
The anti-water level sentiment is shared even in a song called "Water Level" by a quirky, video game-inspired band called Super 8-Bit Bros.
Of course, the song doesn't target specifically Mario games, nor do most of the facebook groups on the subject.
For example, several facebook groups exist to vent rage at the water temple from Ocarina of Time.
But to me, the bigger offender is the Mario games because they're supposed to be entirely about jumping. Swimming != jumping.
Although as one exception, I do like it when there's a level that has water, and involves Mario jumping out of water onto land, etc. That is legitimate play with the jumping mechanic, contrasting how Mario jumps from land with how he jumps from water. It's still mildly frustrating, but in a logical way and therefore comes across at least to me as an interesting and fair challenge.
But those levels set entirely under water? What's the deal with that? Seems to me to be a clear violation of the core, and the fact that there is apparently a mass dislike for such levels seems to indicate that the games suffered for it.
Of course, perhaps he was consciously violating the core, in essence thinking: "What if we do a level where the player CAN'T jump?"
Well, to that I say the answer is "It's pretty annoying." The whole rest of the game trains the player on the use of that one mechanic. Water levels take away all the patterns that the player has been learning, for only one level, just to throw them back into the fray of mastering jumping patterns again in the next. How does that make sense?
Labels: core
posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 10:50 PM
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