Teaching Mechanics Trough Level Design

Level 1-1 is the first level that every user encounters. According to the developer, Shigeru Miyamoto this level was designed to be a tutorial. It has no words; however, the way things are and the way objects move allow players to get a glimpse of what they should do and look out for. The first thing you see is a flashing block. Since the only thing Mario could do was move and jump the player will try to hit it until he/she realises that it will only give you an item if it is hit directly from below. This box will give you a coin. Now the player realises that a question block gives a reward. At the same time the player also sees a Goomba which is an enemy.

FIGURE 1: START OF 1-1 (HTTPS://WWW.NERDKUNGFU.COM/ SUPER-MARIO-BROS-POSTER-LEVEL-1-1/)

If the player gets hit by the Goomba, he/she dies and now the player knows he has encountered an enemy. The next item in the question block is a mushroom it has the shape of a Goomba and therefore might scare the player into trying to run away from it however in Mario the camera does not scroll left so the player is trapped under a ceiling which cannot be broken when Mario is tiny. The wall is low enough that trying to jump on a mushroom often results in a fail. If the player hits the mushroom, he realises that he grows bigger and can destroy certain bricks.
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In order to teach the player how to avoid pitfalls (even though there are pitfalls before) they first put a staircase with a gap in it but in the first flight the floor will keep you from falling. You then encounter a second flight of steps but this time the player notices there is no floor to keep him from falling so he must jump. Before the first pitfall there is an invisible block; this could have probably helped players with bad timing if they hit the jump button too early or potentially rewarded players who jumped a lot. Now the player realised that there could be secret hidden blocks in the air and also that a mushroom with green spots gave an extra life.

FIGURE 2: QUESTION BLOCK WITH FIRE PLANT HTTPS://WWW.THINKGEEK.COM/PRODUCT/JINO/

​In my first time playing this game I remember that upon seeing this  configuration (In figure 2) I was curious of what the top block had. Since it looked like it was hard to get to I thought it might have a better reward and it did as it gave me a fire flower (if Mario is in his small state this will just give him a mushroom) which allows Mario to throw fire balls.