Prerelease:Super Mario Bros.

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Super Mario Bros..

To do: A Japanese strategy guide for Super Mario All-Stars has interviews, apparently including information on the infinite 1-Up trick. More design doc footage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGS_M2S6kJQ&t=198s 2000 Miyamoto interview with more info on development Miyamoto Explains How Mario World 1-1 Was Created - IGN

Sub-Pages

Sprites

Title screens

Levels

Development Timeline

• 1984
  • Fall - Development started at the same time as The Legend of Zelda, after Devil World and Excitebike were finished.
  • December - Miyamoto requests programmers at SRD to form an experiment with a controllable rectangle.
• 1985
  • Unknown Date - Specifications for Mario riding around in a cloud and rocket are drawn up.
  • February 5th - An early control scheme is designed.
  • February 20th - Specification describing the mechanics of how becoming big would work is written.
  • February 28th - Planning sheet is drawn up containing Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. assets such as a red girder and a vine.
  • March 8th - Another planning sheet is created, possibly made for level planning.
  • June 27th - A draft of an early green title screen is drawn up.
  • July 19th - World 1-1 is finished around this time.
  • July - Although the initial release date was intended to be during summer break, development time was furthered by 3-4 weeks to finish the game.
  • August 12th - Game was likely finished around this time according to the Super Mario All-Stars partial source code leak.
  • September 13th - Game released for the Famicom.
  • October 18th - Game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the USA.
• 1986
  • February 21st - Game released for the Famicom Disk System.
• 1987
  • May 15th - Game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in Europe.

Early Development

Initial Concepts

Here is the first specifications document, as seen from the Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition history booklet. (Scan taken from Iwata Asks.)

Originally, Super Mario Bros. started development as a prototype created by Miyamoto's desire to have a game where you can control large characters, with a rectangle that measured 16 pixels wide and 32 pixels tall, which was a placeholder until the actual player character was designed. At this early stage of development, the game consisted only of a dark single non-scrolling screen with a blank rectangle that could not jump. Later on, the screen became side-scrolling and eventually gained its bright blue background. At this point the game had still been using the blank rectangle template as the character.

However, when Takashi Tezuka noticed how well Mario Bros. was performing in arcades, Tezuka pitched to project head Shigeru Miyamoto the idea of using Mario as the main character. Miyamoto agreed and Mario became the leading character. When Koji Kondo began composing the soundtrack, he first wrote the Underwater theme as it was the easiest to imagine. He was amazed by the early prototype's colors. The prototype consisted of Mario moving about with in front of a blue background and greenery. This rich scenery led to him creating an early theme which he describes as being lazier, laid-back, slow, and carefree. After later playing the game again, he realized this did not match Mario's movement and jumping. Designing a new theme with this in mind eventually led to the iconic theme we all know and love today.

Title

At one point, the title Mario's Adventure seems to have been considered for the game in place of Super Mario Bros., at least for the U.S. version. The evidence supporting this is an early sales brochure for the arcade VS. System version, which uses the title VS. Mario's Adventure instead of VS. Super Mario Bros. This version of the brochure features original artwork on the front side, with a description of the game and screenshots on the back. The screenshots appear to be from the original console version rather than VS. Super Mario Bros. as evident by the font not having a drop shadow and the alternate World 4-2 warp zone, which contain the two pipes leading to Worlds 7 and 8 (VS. removed them and only has the World 6 pipe). A later version of the sales brochure uses the finalized title of the game, with the packaging artwork used for the Famicom version on the front in place of the original art (which seems to suggest that the earlier flyer was made before the game was even released in Japan) and the tagline edited to reflect the title change. The backside of the revised brochure is pretty much identical, except every instance of Mario's Adventure has been replaced with Super Mario Bros.

This theory is further supported by the fact that the title Mario's Adventure is registered in the U.S. Copyrights Office with the same register number used for Super Mario Bros. (PA0000273028).

Control Scheme

The game originally focused far more on shooting enemies than platforming tasks. The original control scheme was very different from the one we're familiar with; Up on the D-Pad was used to jump, while A either used an item (a rifle or a "beam gun") if Mario was carrying one or caused him to kick if he wasn't. Here, a draft was drawn up to show this concept. Notice the square controller buttons as well!

(Source: Iwata Asks: Super Mario 25th Anniversary, Vol. 5, Page 1)

Music

Koji Kondo originally composed the ending theme with an AABA structure, but since the song would take up too much memory, the "B" portion was cut. This version of the ending theme would later find use in VS. Super Mario Bros., and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels features a slightly arranged version of the full song that also adds yet another section featuring a key change.