My parents recently purchased a Wii video game console for my younger sister, one of the games she plays is Super Mario Brothers. I really enjoy playing the game with her. Its just got such a classic video game feel, I felt inspired to write a blog on a short history behind Mario Brothers. It was published and developed by Nintendo in 1983, developed by a man named Shigeru Miyamoto with Gunpei Yokoi. Miyamoto is a video game designer, who began his career by working with Nintendo. In 1981, Mario first appeared on Miyamotos first game title, Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong was actually created using the same hardware as Radar Scope an early arcade game title which had a "shooting theme". Miyamoto decided he wanted to chage the theme and designed Mario to doge barrels instead. 
What I found cleverly amusing was how Mario aquired the name "Mario". He was originally known as "Jumpman", "However, when Nintendo's US office were trying to think of a better name in time for the American release of the game, they were interrupted by their landlord Mario Segale, after whom they christened the character" according to http://www.guardian.co.uk article on Super Mario Bros: 25 Mario facts, for the 25 anniversary. When Mario got the spotight, the story changed from Donkey Kong, he was now an Italian American plumber whose objective of the game, along with his brother/sidekick Luigi, was to defeat strange creatures underneath the sewers in New York City. Mario Brothers was a very successful arcade game title, but by 1985, Famicon was Nintendos new platform.
Now, Mario Brothers moved away from sewers to the Mushroom Kingdom; "Careful attention went into creating the Mushroom Kingdom's challenges. Miyamoto wanted the player's experience to be consistently good and constantly evolving... always interesting, never overwhelming. Enemies balanced threat with whimsy. "Mushroom traitor" Goombas and pokey turtle Koopa Troopas got their comeuppance when Mario (Luigi for Player two) stomped on them or punted empty Koopa shells in their direction. Power-ups turned him into giant-sized Super Mario, fireball-throwing Fire Mario, or made him temporarily invincible" (http://games.ign.com). This is when we began to see the Super Mario adventures we all know and love today that are available on platforms likeWii. I thought it was very interesting and fun to understand how this game was made and will continue writing on viedo game history. 
Until Next Time!
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