how to win at super mario brothers games
when you begin the first level, you will notice that your super mario brother is very small.
this is not good.
although you can still win the game as a small mario brother, your risk of failing is twice as high.
bigness is advised.
fortunately, you will find a growth opportunity on the very first screen. if you move your eyes in an easterly direction, away from your super mario brother to the east-most side the screen, you will see a row of terracotta bricks floating in the air.
you may be asking, floating bricks, what is going on? welcome, brother, to the magical world of the mario brothers. now follow my directions.
look to the south, south beyond the telly screen, south across your living room, south until your eyes have come to rest upon the controller in your hands.
on the western side of your controller, you will notice a large cross. this cross is in fact a small electronic structure made up of four different arrow keys: north, east, south, and west. hold down the eastern arrow key and move your gaze northwards until it is resting back upon the television.
you will notice that your mario brother has taken the first few steps of his long walk home, and thus begins your pilgrimage.
you will notice something very peculiar... that as you move your mario brother, his legs move up and down yet he stays where he is, right in the center of the screen, and that as you press your eastern arrow, it is not your mario brother that is being controlled but in fact the world around him.
you may think this is very strange, but actually, it is very realistic. try this: stand up and have a walk around your room. you will notice that you too also stay consistently in the centre, and that it is the world around you that moves and changes. you may think your muscles are controlling your legs, but this is just an illusion. what your leg muscles are really controlling are the carpets and walls and bookshelves, and to a lesser extent, the trees and clouds and aeroplanes, which grow bigger as you move them towards you and smaller when you move them move away. the sun and moon are the only things not controlled by your muscles. they are non-dynamic objects and forever fixed in place.
continue to hold the eastern arrow key until your mario brother appears to be under the final brick. then release the button and the world will stop. now for the jumping...
on the eastern side of your game controller will be either two or four buttons. the southern-mist button will make your mario brother appear to jump. hold this button down.
NOW PAUSE THE GAME.
you will notice that your mario brother has just hit his head on the floating brick, and that something very interesting has happened...
above the bricks, you will notice that a large mushroom has appeared. now you may be thinking, what is the palatability of this mushroom? is this mushroom a yummy dinner or a yucky dinner? is this mushroom normal, poison, or magic? the answer is, yummy and magic.
your first challenge is now to use what i have taught you about movement to "catch" the mushroom before it runs away. warning: this mushroom is very fast. position your thumb above the eastern arrow key and be ready to move.
UNPAUSE THE GAME.
if you have missed the yummy mushroom, unplug your game console, drink a glass of water, and then plug it in again. you will need to start from scratch.
if you have caught the yummy mushroom, then well done. you will be rewarded with an extraordinary spectacle. immediately, you will see your mario brother "eat" the mushroom, no saving it for later, your mario brother will consume the whole mushroom raw, and then what will happen is your mario brother will grow. he will change his size until he is twice as big.
congratulations.
you are ready for your nextmost challenge.
continue to move east and you will see an open plain with another mushroom. DANGER. this mushroom is to be avoided AT ALL COSTS.
if you move your leg muscles until the screen has moved as close to your eyes as possible, you will be able to see that this mushroom has tiny little eyes. now pay attention to the mushrooms eyebrows. which way do they slant? consult the chart below.
a guide to eyebrow related facial expressions
/..\ = nice
.V. = nasty
as you can see, this mushroom is not a nice mushroom, it is a nasty mushroom, in fact, this mushroom will kill you, it will murder you without blinking, in fact, this mushroom is not even a mushroom. it is a mushroom man.
this mushroom man is unbeatable. do not even try. you have either two options.
- take a risk by jumping over him (difficult)
- run right through him. ONLY do this if you were able to eat the previous yummy mushroom. if you are big, you will become small, but if you are small and run through the mushroom man, you will die. small is better than dead!
so, hopefully you have survived the encounter and are either still big, or have been made small once again. now for the next challenge: the hole.
a hole in a mario brothers game is similar to a hole in real life. if you are atop a hole, you are no longer in control of the world beneath your shoes - the hole is in control of you and will move you speedily to the bottom of itself.
DO NOT TRY TO WALK ACROSS THE HOLE. trust me, there is another method, but first, we shall do a quick recap.
so far in this tutorial i have taught you two important things:
- pressing the eastern arrow key will move the world west beneath your mario brother.
- pressing one of the buttons on the eastern side of your controller will make your mario brother jump up (↑) and then fall down (↓).
now it is time to put everything we have learnt together...
with your western thumb held down upon the eastern arrow key, move the world west beneath your mario brother until he is just about to walk across the hole AND THEN without releasing the eastern arrow key, thrust your eastern thumb upon the jumping button and hold it there until your mario brother has landed on the ground.
if you have done this correctly, holding both buttons down at the same time and at the right time, your mario brother will be safely across the hole.
congratulations! you have won the super mario brothers game! and although you may say that this was only the first quarter of the first level, this is enough for me to feel that i have achieved something. satisfied, i can unplug the machine and then the tv and switch off the mains and go and do something else outside.
because the real way to win any game is to
- set an achievable goal
- play in strict moderation
if you say "i want to beat the whole entire game" or "i want to get the worlds highest score" you will be playing for several, even dozens, of hours. video games may be enjoyable for a short amount of time, but they are a waste of this time as well as electricity.
the real way to win at super mario brothers games is not to ever play them.