From the very beginning, pipes have been a major part of the Super Mario franchise. Not only do Mario and Luigi use them for travel purposes, but they also can spawn dangerous enemies for the plumbers to deal with. While pipes are now a staple of the series, there was a point where creator Shigeru Miyamoto was still figuring out the core mechanics of the franchise. Shmuplations recently translated an interview Miyamoto participated in back in 2000. In the interview, Miyamoto reveals that while he was working on the Mario Bros. arcade game, he had to figure out a way for enemies to move from the bottom screen back to the top.
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“Due to the way the screens worked, enemies that went to the bottom had to re-appear at the top of the screen. So that got us thinking, ‘OK, we need a path or some way for them to get back up there.’ Then one day I happened to be walking through the streets of Kyoto, and I saw a plastic pipe sticking out of a wall.”
That fateful encounter totally changed the course of the Mario franchise. The underground location established Mario as a plumber, which isn’t something we saw in his appearance in 1981’s Donkey Kong. In that same interview, Miyamoto said that the decision to set the game in a “New York-ish kind of place” was made because the developers had come up with enemies like turtles, crabs, and flies. Those enemies would make sense to encounter in tunnels. “Some huge underground tunnels that must exist somewhere… like under New York, I thought,” said Miyamoto.
As Mario grew into a franchise, pipes would get reimagined in various ways. By the time Super Mario Bros. came out (two years after that arcade game), not only could enemies come out of pipes, but Mario and Luigi could also use them for traveling to different locations and even different worlds. Even as Mario has evolved in various ways over the decades, pipes have remained an integral part of the gameplay, and the iconography of the series. You even have to enter one as you walk into Super Nintendo World parks!
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These days, the original Mario Bros. arcade game is kind of archaic. It hasn’t aged nearly as gracefully as Super Mario Bros., or many other games in the franchise. However, the game still has some charms, and it’s safe to say that the franchise wouldn’t exist as it does if not for that game. For those that have never gotten a chance to try it, it’s worth trying out on Nintendo Switch, either through the Arcade Archives series, or through the NES port playable through Nintendo Switch Online. It might not be the best Mario game, but it’s worth it to see how the series evolved into what it is today!
Are you surprised how Miyamoto first came up with the idea to feature pipes in Mario games? Have you ever played the original Mario Bros. arcade game? Share your thoughts with me directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp, on Bluesky at @Marcdachamp, or on Instagram at @Dachampgaming!
[H/T: Nintendo Everything]
