In early builds of Nintendo's classic platformer Super Mario Bros, the iconic plumber wielded a gun, creator Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed.
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"The bullets wound up becoming fireballs later - we originally thought about having a shoot 'em up stage where Mario jumps on a cloud and shoots at enemies, but we dropped it because we wanted to focus on jumping action. The sky-based bonus stages are the remnants of that idea, you could say.
"In the end, we realised that being able to shoot all the fireballs you want while running gave Mario too much of an advantage, so instead we had it so you shoot only one fireball when you start running."
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"Since the game's set in a magical kingdom," he added, "I made the required power-up item a mushroom because you see people in folk tales wandering into forests and eating mushrooms all the time. That, in turn, led to us calling the in-game world the 'Mushroom Kingdom,' and the rest of the basic plot setup sprung from there."
So there you have it: one of the cornerstones of the modern videogame industry was laid on a foundation of guns and hallucinogens. [/p]
Insert Italian mafia joke here.
Contributed by Rydian
