The Physics of Super Mario Bros.

[racketboy]

My wife was just playing through Super Mario Bros. the other day and I was showing her the 99 life trick on level 3 where you have to jump on the turtle shell just right.

It took both of a ton of tries (thank goodness for save states) to get it right, but all of the subtleties in the jumping and how the shell reacted made me realize how groundbreaking the physics in SMB was.

If you think about it a bit more, there are a number of other pieces in the game that demonstrate physics, like the momentum factor for jumping and such.

I'd love to have an article on this, but maybe one of you more technical types could do a better job than me.

Any thoughts?

[fastbilly1]

I think this would make an awesome article. But dont look at me, Physics was one of the classes I almost failed. I ascribe to Half Life physics - you can go 300 miles an hour into a wall and live, fall 10 feet and die...

[racketboy]

I think this would make an awesome article. But dont look at me, Physics was one of the classes I almost failed. I ascribe to Half Life physics - you can go 300 miles an hour into a wall and live, fall 10 feet and die...

Well, I'm not looking for a physics expert -- just somebody that knows more than me
Science was my least favorite subject (although algebra is up there too)

[RadarScope1]

I think there was something written about this in issue 6 or 7 of the Gamers Quarter. I try to track that down and you can look at it. Probably some what that it can be improved upon, though. TGQ is a little self-indulgent (I say that having submitted an article there that's supposed to be published at some point).

I'd be willing to help out or look into taking on such a topic though. I wouldn't call it necessarily realistic, but it was groundbreaking for the time.

[Ivo]

Any thoughts?

Yes. Turning back in mid air (regardless of being more difficult if you have momentum going) is impossible in real life, but possible in Mario.

I'm not sure what exactly you want in your article? Most games (even old ones) have some basic physics "engines", even though they may be REALLY flawed in lots of things. After all, in nearly all platformers, when you jump you come back down...

[racketboy]

Any thoughts?

Yes. Turning back in mid air (regardless of being more difficult if you have momentum going) is impossible in real life, but possible in Mario.

I'm not sure what exactly you want in your article? Most games (even old ones) have some basic physics "engines", even though they may be REALLY flawed in lots of things. After all, in nearly all platformers, when you jump you come back down...

Yeah, I realize it's not all realistic, but given it's vintage, it's all pretty impressive.
I'm not looking for a science lesson, just a look back on the attention to detail shown and how groundbreaking it was.

[Mozgus]

I was mentioning this to a friend a few months ago. I never gave it any thought until that time, but SMB1 was so far ahead of it's time. Many games for years to come still didn't have such detailed physics. Most of them felt clunky or floaty.

[Daniel Primed]

I like the idea here but I'm not sure if it would translate well into an article. Last year I passed the highest level of physics at my high school and also have some programming experience. So I could provide some assistence.

What you would need in order to write this article is the game's code (I have no clue about how you would get this) and then someone to look at it, break it down and write about it. You'd need someone who knows assembler as thats what it was built on. If you can get the code then I can look at it and see what I can do. But like I said I don't know anything about aqquiring the code.

[racketboy]

I like the idea here but I'm not sure if it would translate well into an article. Last year I passed the highest level of physics at my high school and also have some programming experience. So I could provide some assistence.

What you would need in order to write this article is the game's code (I have no clue about how you would get this) and then someone to look at it, break it down and write about it. You'd need someone who knows assembler as thats what it was built on. If you can get the code then I can look at it and see what I can do. But like I said I don't know anything about aqquiring the code.

You'd only need that if you wanted to get super technical -- like a thesis paper for a masters program
The way I would envision the article would be broken down by the different parts of the game that show examples of physics like Turtle shells, the platforms that drop when you land on them and raise up the other side, momentum with jumping, etc. Then under each item, you would have a paragraph or two, a screenshot, or maybe a youtube clip showing off some examples (if they add value)

I would like it to have a good balance of entertainment, nostalgia, history, a touch of science, and the "huh, I never thought about that" factor.

[lordofduct]

When approaching 2D game physics this was the game I looked at to see exactly how they did it. I never bothered looking for the documents on their real physics engine... but have looked through the game a lot.

I could try and dig around for some documents on it as well.



but eh, lets first see how my other article pans out first.