Hello you lovely mario person, my name is ceave and welcome back!
Super Mario 3D world is a really interesting game in the super mario series as it mixes
a lot of the traditions of previous 2D games with those of 3D mario games, creating a mario
game that is neither really part of the 3D mario series nor of the 2D series.
And while the game isn't the spiritual successor of super mario 64 or sunshine which a lot
of us really wanted it's still an amazing game and a ton of fun to play.
One of the things I always found interesting about this game is it's insane replay value.
I found myself replaying stages over and over again trying to find the last green star,
trying to find a way to reach the top of the flagpole and searching for this well hidden
stamp which I have never used to post anything.
It's really fun to explore, discover and find all the secrets in this game.
But why is this so!
Why is it so much fun to discover and search for secrets in every stage?
How are these secrets designed.
Is there a hidden formula behind their design, and why do players start to search for them
in the first place?
Well you're ready?
Let's find out!
(INTRO)
The first thing we need to ask ourselves if we want to understand how super mario 3D world
uses its secrets is probably what reward awaits a player if he searches for them.
Super Mario 3D world has tons of different rew arding mechanisms.
Sometimes a player finds a hidden stamp, sometimes a player finds a bunch of coins, sometimes
a player finds a hidden mini-game, sometimes a player finds a crazy reward room, sometimes
a power up, sometimes a shortcut that allows to skip a tougher area, and of course sometimes
a green star.
The green stars are the main element that drive the exploration in super mario 3d world
for a very simple reason, the stars are needed to progress through the game and to unlock
all the levels.
If collectibles are required to unlock game progress they aren't optional content for
completionists but they become part of the game's main progress.
A player is free to collect the stars in any order and at any time but if he wants to unlock
the final stage of the game he needs to have found all green-stars.
And all stamps and golden-flagpoles as well.
Hiding game content behind collecting collectibles is probably the strongest incentive a game
designer can give the player to search and find every collectible in the game.
Most of us probably collected all notes back in banjo kazooie because they unlocked the
note doors, but most of us probably skipped finding all sixty ghosts in twilight princess,
because collecting the ghosts doesn't unlock a new secret ghost themed dungeon, but a rather
boring reward.
So the game basically forces mario to hunt the green stars if he wants to complete the
game, and this is really important.
Because this changes the way the stages are played.
The goal while playing a stage is no longer to reach the end, but to reach the end with
all green stars and the hidden stamp.
Because of this players that want to complete the game are forced to explore the stages,
and not only to beat them.
So the developers can be sure that mario starts to explore the levels in this game, and this
completely changes the way the levels can be designed.
If you know a player starts to explore your stage it makes sense to hide stuff everywhere.
And there is stuff hidden everywhere in this game.
Most trees contain some sort of reward, there are sometimes small flower circles on the
ground which reward players that perform a ground-pound there.
There are invisible coin-trails and question blocks everywhere.
Super Mario 3D world is all about exploration, probably more than any other mario game in
decades and that's really interesting because at first glance it's a super linear mario
game.
But if you take a closer look you'll see that the stages are filled with little hidden
details.
Every area that is somehow accessible for mario contains something meaningful.
The collectibles are actively used to give every accessible area meaning.
The cat suit, which appears for the first time in this mario game, mirror's this in
an extreme way, as the catsuit is an item that allows you to literally climb every wall
of the game.
It almost feels as if the designers cared more, that it's possible for mario to jump,
climb and run on every imaginable area than for the main-challenges the stages provide.
There's one stage which brings this to the boil, stage 5-3 . This stage is a small rectangular
space which mario can explore.
The flagpole is directly in front of him once the stage starts and reaching this flagpole
takes about ten seconds start to finish.
That's the stage.
But obviously that's not the whole stage but just the path to the flagpole.
If a player wants to complete this stage with a 100% this level is a completely different
experience.
Let's take a look at it.
The main gimmick in this level are the double cherries which clone mario.
These yellow platforms can only be triggered if there are as many marios on top of it as
the number shows.
We have one platform which activates for 2 marios, one that needs three and one that
needs four.
There are exactly three double cherries hidden in this stage, so there's a maximum of four
marios.
If one of the marios takes a hit the clone vanishes.
This button on the ground can only be activated if you enter the stage as toad, and grants
the stamp of this stage if ground-pounded.
That's really interesting on it's own because you have no way of knowing if a stage
requires a specific character to collect something, before you start it.
So the game forces you to replay some stages by default, because you entered as the wrong
character.
This platform leads mario to a green star and the path to the top of the flagpole.
The second green star is meant to be reached by four marios at once but this can be easily
cheated if you entered the stage in the catsuit.
Okay so far we have the two stars and the stamp, but the last green star is the most
interesting one in this level.
If we go back to the beginning of the stage we get a pretty good overview of the level.
And there is no visible star here which mario might have missed.
But take a closer look at this area, do you notice something?
There's a super small thing which is suspicious, this broken tile on the ground.
In any normal game I would totally ignore it if a tile on the ground was broken, but
in super mario 3D world it made me suspicious and I decided to ground-pound there.
And as it turns out that's exactly what I was supposed to do.
And that's a little bit crazy because if you look at this from a distance it seems
as if this star is hidden in an ridiculously unfair spot.
You have to ground pound here, in a place before the start of the level and the only
hint you get is a small texture change which is super easy to miss.
But it felt super natural and in no way unfair to me to find this star and that's interesting.
We'll talk about this again in a moment but first let's take a closer look at how
the secrets are hidden in this game in general.
So exploration, discovery and collecting stuff is one of the main focuses in this game, but
is there some kind of formula on how the game hides it's rewards?
The answer to this question is surprisingly: no, not really.
The green stars and stamps are mainly used for two things inside the stages.
To provide additional challenges in challenges and to drive exploration.
But interestingly the way the stuff is actually hidden seem to follow no apparent formula.
I actually started to analyse how this game hides its secrets expecting to find some sort
of a recurring pattern.
And while there are some things a lot of secrets have in common, overall the variety of how
stuff is hidden is as high as the variety in different gameplay elements in this game.
Sometimes the game shows mario that there is something hidden sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes there is a small puzzle to solve, sometimes a weird area to explore and sometimes
mario needs to use a power up in a clever way.
The secrets are hidden in completely different spots in the stages, ranging from before the
start of the stage to after the end of the level.
Sometimes all collectibles are hidden before the first checkpoint and sometimes all are
after the checkpoint.
Sometimes all collectibles in a stage come as hidden secrets sometimes all come as additional
challenges.
Looking back at it, it actually totally makes sense that the way secrets are hidden follows
no pattern.
The game is all about surprising players, by presenting them something new in every
stage, and the way the designers hide stuff in their courses is used to support this idea.
The game in general shifts the more you progress from exploration driven platformer to challenging
linear platformer and is really rich in variety.
And the way the collectibles are used mirrors this.
But there are a couple of things a lot of them have in common, so let's quickly talk
through these things.
One thing all secrets in this game share is that they want to be found.
Nothing in this game is hidden in an unfair way, the game often tells mario if he just
missed a secret by showing it to him, and the game often gives mario a hint where to
find something.
Here for example the stage shows you a hidden area while mario drives through a pipe.
Once his pipe-ride ends mario is in front of the flagpole.
By mario-game logic this means that the stage is over, mario did it, he reached the flagpole
hooray.
But our plumber still misses the last green-star of the stage and he just saw an area he hasn't
explored yet.
So the game basically gave mario the hint that there is something hidden in this last
area.
And if mario jumps off this cliff he suddenly finds the secret area he saw before.
This kind of secret hidden behind the end of the stage would usually be really hard
to find but the game gave mario a clear hint before this area, because the game wants the
players to find it's secrets.
Another really cool little thing here is that there is a hidden second way to reach the
top of the flagpole by jumping on top of these walls which look like decoration at first.
The game really tries to make it easy for mario to find it's secrets.
The green star collection graphic for example does not only show you how many stars you
already found, but functions as a secret compass as well.
If you found the second star for example you know that you missed the first one at some
part before in the stage.
Telling you which area of the stage you have to scan for hidden secrets.
Another example for the game trying to make its secret findable is this little area.
This pipe leads to a small mini-game with a green star as reward.
The pipe is really easy to see, but I missed it a couple of times during my latest playthrough
because there is a ton going on in this area.
Dodging these fire-waves while trying to collect the power-up is no trivial task and it occupies
most of your brain.
So I missed this pipe twice, while playing through this area and looking for secrets.
The point I'm trying to make is that it would easily have been possible to hide this
pipe in one of the corners in this area, making it harder to find and actually hidden.
But they decided to place it in the middle of this surface because they probably realized
that seeing this not so well hidden pipe is already a challenge because so much stuff
is going on.
Let's talk about another little thing this game does which is really interesting.
There are often secrets hidden inside of secrets, and that's something really cool!
A level where the game almost goes crazy with this concept is this one, let's quickly
take a look at a secret hidden here.
This Level is mainly an underwater-stage and we will take a look at the area after the
first checkpoint.
Here mario is able to find a fire flower if he destroys these crates.
The fireflower comes in super handy as the main obstacle in this level is to avoid dangerous
horror-fishes which try to eat him, but can be easily killed with fire.
In this area the ceiling isn't a straight line, but there is a small notch in it, a
clear hint for mario to swim towards this area.
Up here is not only the stamp of this stage, but a cannon box as well.
The cannon box is a really weird item, which basically replaces marios head with a cannon
that shoots constantly cannons.
Once mario collects the stamp something interesting happens.
This invisible question block becomes visible for a moment and mario can jump towards it
to find a mushroom hidden in the hidden room.
If mario now proceeds he sees this crack in the wall.
This crack has two functions.
It tells mario that there was a cannon-box hidden earlier in the stage in case he missed
it, giving him a hint of where to find the stamp as well.
And if mario shoots a cannonball towards it, he finds a hidden secret area and a green
star.
Afterwards things become really interesting, here is another small notch in the ceiling,
but this time it's harder to spot it.
Luckily the game basically trained mario to carefully look at the ceiling with the secret
before, so it's not too hard to spot this.
The hidden pipe leads mario into this area and the last green star is hidden here.
But that's not the only thing hidden here.
If mario wears the cannon-box he is likely to shoot a cannon-ball at a wall here, and
this leads to invisible things to appear slightly.
And there are two small enemies hidden in corners which grant a bunch of coins if mario
kills them.
This pipe leads to the end of the stage, and to the way to reach the top of the flagpole.
But before finishing the stage, observing players might want to perform a ground-pound
in the middle of this flower circle, in order to be rewarded with some coins.
But that's still not the last thing hidden inside this hidden area.
Because if players are careful they are able to notice that there is another flower circle
to their left, which they can reach, and performing a ground pound here grants them a mushroom,
and the last hidden reward inside this hidden area.
There's another really cool thing which super mario 3d world does sometimes with it's
collectibles which I have never noticed in any other game.
Sometimes the game rewards you for failure.
Take a look at this short section in world 2-4.
We are pretty early in the game and this bottomless pit is one of the first instant-death penalties
we encounter.
It's not a real challenge to make it over this part and most players will just jump
over this area and never notice that something is hidden here.
But if a player fails this jump he doesn't die, but is actually rewarded by finding a
green star.
That's really cool because the lesser skilled the person piloting mario is the more likely
mario is to find this star, and they get the satisfaction of finding something cool, and
a shortcut which allows them to skip this challenge.
But better players have a really small riddle to solve in order to find this star.
They need to question a platformer convention, that you don't jump into a bottomless-pit.
But this is not the only silent arrangement this game breaks.
The star we took a look at before was hidden behind the end of the stage, this star is
hidden before the stage starts, here the hole where the enemies disappear is not only used
to somehow make sense of enemies cycling around the ground, but also an area to explore for
mario, and this huge wall does not only separate two parts of the stage, but can actually be
explored, there is even a stamp hidden after mario defeated the final boss of the game.
I mentioned before that the game uses every little area to hide something and I meant
it.
Literally every accessible area in this game is used for something, mario probably finds
himself often just exploring silly things, trying to find out if there is something hidden
as well, and the answer to this question is almost always yes.
The game makes it so normal that there is stuff hidden everywhere that players come
to expect that every minor detail is in fact a hint at something.
It makes you almost paranoidly expecting to find secrets everywhere.
Once you reach the stage 5-3 in this game you are so trained that every minor detail
actually matters that it doesn't feel weird to ground pound on top of a broken ground-tile,
it doesn't even feel weird to jump into a bottomless pit anymore.
The game is so incredibly consistent in hiding something in every accessible spot and in
my opinion that's one of the main reasons why the stages in 3D world feel so alive and
fun to explore and why the game has such a big replay value.
I hope you enjoyed this little video, if you enjoyed it don't forget to leave me a thumbs
up and maybe you feel especially exploratory today and want to hit the subscribe button
as well.
I hope you have a wonderful day and to see you soon, goodbye.
For more infomation >> Lake, birds, and airplane, Lake Rotorua - Duration: 6:04. 
For more infomation >> Zlatan Ibrahimovic-Manchester United Goals and skills - Duration: 5:08. 
For more infomation >> How Ambition & Desire Magnetize Success & Abundance Jim Rohn (law of attraction) - Duration: 51:59. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét