“Super Mario Bros.” is a video game designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and published by Nintendo in Japan and North America in 1985. The game is considered one of the most important video games ever and one of the best-selling, with over 40 million copies sold.
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The game was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and published by Nintendo in Japan and North America in 1985. It’s seen as a landmark in the history of video games and minted the Mario character as a pop culture icon.
“Super Mario Bros.” kicked off decades of cultural ascendancy not only for Nintendo, but for Japan, which grew into one of the world’s major cultural exporters through anime, fashion, and music.
Nintendo pursued the “Popeye” franchise in the early 1980s, hoping that developing an arcade game for the popular character would result in a hit. The bid failed, but Nintendo still used “Popeye” as the model for 1981’s “Donkey Kong.”
“Donkey Kong” was a big success, spawning a sequel and a Mario spinoff: 1983’s “Mario Bros.,” starring Mario and his brother Luigi. Realizing his hero didn’t resemble a classic carpenter, Miyamoto turned Mario into a plumber and set the brothers loose in a sewer system that resembled the platform-climbing gameplay of “Donkey Kong.” Watch the gameplay below.
Miyamoto and codesigner Takashi Tezuka sketched the world of the game—called Mushroom Kingdom—by hand before handing it off to developers. In the interview below, they show off some of those original illustrations.
Rather than constantly climbing up the screen from platform to platform like “Donkey Kong,” “Super Mario Bros.” moves from left to right. In anticipation of gamers’ confusion with the new style, Miyamoto designed the first level as a walk-through, allowing players to learn the rules without reading a manual.
The game’s soundtrack and effects were limited by the Nintendo Entertainment System’s 8-bit hardware, which had significantly fewer sounds than a typical synthesizer. That didn’t stop Kondo from writing some of the most recognizable video game music in history.
Koji Kondo’s “Ground Theme” is perhaps the most recognizable piece of music in all video games. As the Mario franchise expanded, the song remained, albeit with different arrangements and in different styles. You can browse every version of the song below. It’s a fascinating decades-long evolution of a classic composition.
Almost every mushroom in "Super Mario Bros." is based on the Amanita muscaria, sometimes referred to as the fly agaric, because it is known to attract flies. It's also the basis for the original mushroom emoji and the mushrooms from the popular game "Minecraft."
Since 1999, this large, online, nonprofit archive has saved the stories of cancelled and unreleased video games. See prototypes, developer history, and assets for various computers and consoles of all ages, including gems like Cartoon Network's "Toon Jam!"
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