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Super Mario Bros Development Files

June 16, 2019April 2, 2021 Ethan Johnson Leave a comment

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Game Development Documents

Concept Art

Mario poses, Undated (Unknown author). A series of drawings depicting an early design of Mario along grid paper.

Mario Riding a Cloud #1, undated (Unknown author). An early concept depicting Mario riding in a cloud. This was originally a core gameplay mechanic for Super Mario Bros. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Mario Riding a Cloud #2, undated (Unknown author). A depiction of Mario shooting at flying Noko-Nokos with a fireball. Mario was the have originally been able to navigate stages similar to a shoot-em-up. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Mario Riding a Cloud #3, undated (Unknown author). A layout of enemy patterns as a frustrated Mario avoids his foes. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Mario Sprite Layout, undated (unknown author). Hand drawn depistions of sprites and colors for several Super Mario Bros. characters including Princess Toadstool, a warp pipe, Toad, and platforms.

Mario Riding a Cloud Full Sheet, undated (Unknown author). The full page showcases the three different concepts of Mario riding a cloud with further elaborations on enemy patterns in in both air and ground stages. Loop patterns and straight ones are elaborated on along with a drawing of a ground bound Noko Noko. (Source: Asahi Shimbun)

Design Documents

Super Mario Bros. Title Screen, 1985 (Unknown author). The planning sheet for the original Super Mario Bros. title screen. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Underwater stage level design, 1985 (Unknown author). A design sheet for the placement of objects an enemies in an underwater level. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Mario Movement, 1985 (Unknown author). Hand drawn sketches determining the arc of moving objects in the environment. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

6-1 and 6-2 Level Sheet, 1985 (Unknown author). Level layouts for World 6-1 and 6-2. This sheet shows information such as enemy types, the specific locations of the warp pipes, and predicted enemy behaviors. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

6-1 and 6-2 Correction Sheet, 1985 (Unknown author). A translucent layered sheet on top of the general design for Worlds 6-1 and 6-2. Nintendo’s designers would use these sheets to make corrections on already completed sheets. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Bonus Rooms C-E and Underground Stage Layout, 1985 (Unknown author). The design of bonus rooms C, D, and E with some corrections as well as a seemingly unused portion of an underground stage. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Super Mario Bros Stage Design, 1985 (Unknown author). A zoomed in portion of a level design sheet, focusing on a Kuriboh and a Mushroom block. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

World 1-2 Level Layout, 1985 (Unknown author). This sheet shows half of the design for World 1-2 in two portions. The top left corner of this sheet also showcases a portion of a document detailing Mario’s movement. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Welcome to Warp Zoon, 1985 (Unknown author). A specified portion of the World 1-2 planning sheet demonstrating the original design of the first secret warp zone, which initially had three different elevated pipes. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Castle Fireworks, 1985 (Unknown author). This planning sheet depicts the logic of the fireworks which can be achieved by attaining a certain score at the end of each above ground stage. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Super Mario BG, 1985-02-28 (Unknown author). A visual planning sheet specifically allocated for pallet and background design. This sheet allowed the designers to specifically work out what colors could be used in particular areas of the screen. Early colors concepts for the spring as well as a more three dimensional ground layering are present. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Super Mario Pallets, 1985-03-08 (Unknown author). The planning sheet for dictating color information in the levels of Super Mario Bros. The Color Generator Data Table gives specific values for the colors which programmers could input into their Famicom development environments. (Source: Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview)

Technical Documents

Color Data Sheet, 1985 (Unknown author). A technical document specifying color data in both moving objects and background through several levels of Super Mario Bros. Designers at the time had to work with a very limited color space with shared colors for the player character reserved for every level. (Source: Asahi Shimbun)

Untitled “World Structure Layout”, c. 1984 (Shiegru Miyamoto). This sheet lays out the world structure for Super Mario Bros. This sheet was presented to Toshihiko Nakago as a proposal for scope and structure on the project, though Miyamoto hid worlds 6-8 by folding the paper in half. As compensation for the programming task, Miyamoto conceptualized the reuse of some levels, like the underwater stages, which is illustrated on this sheet. (Source: Iwata Asks)

Sources

Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Special Interview. September 13, 2015.

Asashi Shimbun. 大事にしたのは「感覚」スーパーマリオ、開発者に聞く. September 12, 2015.

Iwata Asks, Bonus 1: Ancient Documents from 1985. December 3, 2009.

Posted Under

Art Assets Concept Art Design Docs Game Assets Technical Docs

Tagged

Art Assets Design Docs Dev Docs Famicom NES Nintendo planning sheet programming Prototype Shigeru Miyamoto smb1 Super Mario Bros Takashi Tezuka Technical Docs

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About Ethan Johnson

Ethan Johnson researches all ends of gaming out of Chicago, IL. He is the creator of The History of How We Play, the blog and video series.

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Game Development Documents

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