Mario and Luigi: Dream Team Bros. – Table Design Meets Overworld Design

April 28th, 2018

Mario and Luigi: Dream Team Bros.‘s hub-based overworld design and Bowser’s Inside Story‘s organic overworld design function much like the circular dining tables of Chinese culture and the rectangular dining tables of Western culture.

Round tables symbolise collectivist ideology where all participants are equal. Each member sits equal distance apart and is therefore able to see everyone else at the table and easily participate in group discussion. With Dream Team Bros.‘s hub-based map design, each area is equal distance apart and requires roughly the same amount of play time to complete. Players can easily navigate between areas through the centre point (engage in the main conversation) or move between adjacent areas (converse with the person next to them). Since everything is orientated around a centre, the design minimises the amount of backtracking (private conversation).

Rectangular tables contain a head and a foot for those individuals of distinction. Similarly, Bowser’s Inside Story‘s worlds of varying shapes and sizes fit within the confines of a rectangular box. The access to different areas of the map is therefore uneven much in the same way that someone on one side of a rectangular table might struggle to speak to someone on the other side. The design favours those who sit in the middle of the table and are able to navigate between conversations on either sides. Meanwhile the corners remain isolated. Usually, if someone wishes to talk to a person outside of clear speaking distance, they’ll move or switch chairs at some point later in the meal. Similarly, as the player progresses through BIS, they’ll discover the underground train network known as Project K which allow them to fast travel across the map.

What I like about games like BIS is how this unevenness in the overworld design characterises the play experience. Dimble Woods and Blubble Lake are frequent junctions, sharing the centre area of the map. You pass through these areas multiple times and they have multiple entry and exit points. Toad Town joins Blubble Lake and Peach’s Castle, while Plack Beach archs around between Dimble Woods and Cavi Cape. Both areas act as a sub-juncture. Bumpsy Plains is a small join between areas. The remaining locales dwell on the outskirts and naturally take longer to reach. To further complicate the relationship between these areas, the Project K railroad links the fringes in a circle. The uneven jigsaw of worlds gives each area a personality pertinent its relative positioning and functional role within the geography. The dynamics of space and mobility play out much like the social dynamics governing where we choose to sit and who we choose to sit next to at a rectangular table.

In terms of its impact on the experience, the design of a table doesn’t differ much from the design of an overworld in a video game. These analogies work because the dynamics of space and mobility are universal.

Mario and Luigi: Dream Team Bros. – Defining Gameplay Progression Across the Series

April 25th, 2018

The best way I could summarise Mario and Luigi: Dream Team Bros‘s gameplay progression would be to say that it’s a hybrid of Partners in Time and Bowser’s Inside Story. In PiT, the player enters each major area through warps points littered throughout Princess Peach’s Castle. With each locale being standalone, once the Bros. complete one area, they can move onto the next. In BIS, the player criss crosses a large interconnected map Metroidvania style and unlocks new environments as they gradually acquire new abilities. DTB features both the segregated areas of PiT and folded design of BIS.

Once the player has completed Dream Team Bros.‘s opening tutorial, they work their way around the game’s hub, tackling one locale at a time (as with PiT). Each area contains an overworld section set in an isometric perspective and a dream world section set in the sidescrolling perspective. (Resident commenter and friend of the blog Cheatmaster30 describes the dream world as being Mario and Luigi’s equivalent to a Zelda dungeon). Later, after Princess Peach is captured, the Bros must complete a scavenger hunt to collect the various zee parts of the Ultibed. The game progression then shifts from a linear to a freer format where the player can revisit the previous five locations in any order they choose (folding over prior areas like BIS). Finally, after a short interlude where the Bros meet up with Bedsmith, the player must tackle Somnom Woods and Dreamy Neo Bowser’s Castle in the lead up to the finale.

AlphaDream also integrated various side events into Dream Team Bros.‘s story to allow the player to shape their progression through the game. These optional extras come in the form of Pillos, anthropomorphic head rests which act as portals into Luigi’s dreams. Each excursion into the dream world offers additional challenges and rewards which can assist the player in the main game.

Dream Team Bros. and Bowser’s Inside Story differ in how they organise the flow of gameplay, how this organisation can be read through the game world, and how the player can choose to deviate from the main story. These two approaches to game progression give each game a distinct feel.

After some lead-in, Dream Team Bros. falls into a comfortable rhythm of overworld-to-dreamworld, locale-to-locale gameplay where the player has the option of taking minor deviations if they wish. This model is highly explicit. With each area requiring a roughly similar time investment, the player can read their game progress by simply looking at the world map and noting the number of worlds they have completed. Along the same lines, Pillos clearly signpost additional content, dream world challenges which are themselves wholly separated from the overworld. Each major area on the world map stands by itself as well, with minimal bleeding into adjacent zones. The clear cut and explicit nature of the game world establishes clear expectations for how the adventure will play out, although some players may find this approach to be somewhat artificial.

In BIS, the progression of gameplay isn’t quite as explicit. AlphaDream organised the game’s story around the Bros. and Bowser much in the same way as DTB is organised around the overworld and dream world, but the size of each chapter of gameplay (usually the length of time the player spends as either avatar) varies significantly more than it does in DTB. And because the developers designed the interconnected worlds of the Mushroom Kingdom as a jigsaw and not as a hub lined with separate locales, the player doesn’t simply finish one level and move on. Rather, they visit the same junctures multiple times throughout the course of the story as needed. Many of the optional activities therefore emerge organically as the player passes through familiar areas with new abilities. These various elements give the experience a degree of inconsistency which can make the adventure seem to unfurl organically (even though it’s still tuned by the game developers).

Between Partners in Time, Bowser’s Inside Story, and Dream Team Bros., each title organises the Mario and Luigi adventure in a unique way (much like the Wario Land games). Partners in Time‘s adventure is heavily compartmentalised; Bowser’s Inside Story flows more organically; and Dream Team Bros. finds a comfortable midpoint between the two. When we pair these observations with the those from the prior article, we can see that with each iteration, the Mario and Luigi games evolve on multiple fronts.

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Tags: dream team bros, mario and luigi

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story – Traditional RPG Systems meets Functional Design

December 17th, 2016

Bowser’s Inside Story‘s battle system adheres to Nintendo’s clean and functional approach to game design (see earlier articles on narrative and level design). Attacks operate in real time and test a variety of different skills, while the turn-based structure organises the moments of action into clean, discrete chunks. This strong core is surrounded by levelling, equipment, and badge systems which both enhance and weaken the game’s key asset. In this post we explore what happens when functional design meets traditional RPG systems.

Stats and Levelling

BIS retains the levelling system of the earlier games. As the player defeats enemies they gain experience points through which they level up and increase their attack, defence, and other stats. Levelling up is necessary to counter the increasingly stronger enemies the player encounters on their journey. This connection between levelling and enemy strength sustains most RPG battle progression. And yet I don’t believe that it serves the genre—nor BIS—very well.

BIS’s battles hinge on the player’s ability to successfully attack and dodge enemies. We know this because if a player cannot achieve these actions, then they will lose. Assuming the player is levelling up their eyes, mind, and fingers (which they are by virtue of them defeating a stream of unique enemies), then what purpose does having statistically stronger enemies serve other than to artificially inflate the difficulty? More to the point, how does levelling enhance the attacking and dodging functions which are central to BIS’s battle system? The numbers on screen change, but the animations, hit boxes, tells, and mix-ups powering the core functions remain the same.

(I’m a bit worried that my proposition here is somewhat simplistic, but so far I haven’t been able to come up with a counter argument, so we’re going to roll with it for now).

I would be lying, however, if I were to claim that the numbers game doesn’t serve some useful (albeit limited) purposes. Levelling clearly communicates to the player their progress in the form of a digit, even though they have no barometer at which to measure, compare, and ultimately make sense of the number. The player can also use levelling as a means to increase or decrease the challenge as needed by either avoiding or grinding enemies. Unfortunately the leeway afforded by levelling systems can be exploited so as to decrease the challenge to the extent that the game is unable to “squeeze” the player and express meaning through its gameplay challenges.

By removing the levelling system and visible statistics (aside from HP and SP), more emphasis would naturally fall on variation within the battle system (variation between individual challenges = difficulty curve). Between the large range of enemies, different combinations of enemy types, the enemy mix-ups, differences between the Bros and Bowser attacks and dodges, and external elements such as Bitties, there’s more than enough variation to sustain the gameplay. The player would still have access to a variety of existing means of scaling the difficulty, such as buying healing items or finding more beans. Speaking of which, a lack of levelling would increase the significance of beans and encourage the player to partake in this worthwhile side activity.

Equipment

The clothing (equipment) system is similar to levelling, but not quite. Multiple times throughout the adventure the player can spend coins on new clothing items which increase either the Bros.’s or Bowser’s stats. This routine adds another layer of artificial progression and does not support the core of the battle system. Purchasing goods itself also isn’t terribly interesting. Yet like levelling, equipment provides some wiggle room for less proficient players. Assuming enemy stats did not rise as the player reaches new areas (as mentioned earlier), I think it would be best if the clothes stores in the Mushroom Kingdom all closed shop.

Closing down the clothing shops wouldn’t actually have a significant effect as a great deal of clothing items aren’t available in shops. Rather, they’re strewn across the overworld in various nooks and crannies. In this sense, clothes are similar to beans, a reward for being observant and participating in extra tasks on the overworld. So while buying gear only serves to combat the artificial growth of enemies, finding gear makes the overworld portion of the game more engaging.

I would be remiss in not mentioning that a significant number of clothing items do more than simply prop up the stats of the avatars. Some items regenerate health, increase the chance of critical hits, potentially make the enemy dizzy after you jump on it, etc. Again, I can’t really fault this aspect of the equipment system either because such gear adds player-determined variation to the battles and encourages the player to experiment with different strategies and gameplay styles. Below, I have included some of my favourite examples:

Coin Socks

If the wearer takes no damage during a battle, 1.5x coins awarded

Gall Socks

Foes are 50% more attracted to attack the wearer

Challenge Medal

All enemies have HP, DEF, & SPEED increased by 50% and POW increased by 150%, but coins gained from battle increase by 50%

Heroic Patch

Special attack POW +30%, but SP cost doubles

POW Mush Jam

When wearer eats any type of mushroom (healing item), POW +20%

I just couldn’t go past the Softener Gloves:

Due to a coding error, occasionally raises enemy DEF by 25% rather than lowering it.

The examples above are unfortunately the exception and not the rule. The majority of non-stat-increasing clothing items are buffs and therefore aren’t terribly different to stat boosts at all. Where levelling was completely artificial, the equipment system is perhaps half synthetic (the routine of buying better gear and clothing as buffs) and half functional (clothing as collectables, clothing as adding variation and options to battles).

Badges

Badges are the third and final piece in the pie of systems which surround the core battle system. Mario and Luigi each have their own badge halves which connect together. As each character lands “Good”, “Great”, and “Excellent” (well timed) hits, their badge meter increases. Once both meters are maxed, the player can tap the touch screen to activate an effect. Mario’s badge determines the effect and Luigi’s badge determines the degree of effect. Unlike levelling and equipment, badges support the core functions of the game by rewarding the player for attacking and countering enemies. They also allow the player to customise battles so as to support their own playstyle. For example, I set the badges up so that after landing enough well timed attacks, I could heal half of the Bros’s SP. This meant that I had more opportunities to use the special attacks, something which I felt I needed more practice with.

The levelling system and some parts of the equipment system don’t support the core of what makes BIS’s battle systems so unique and engaging, and so they’re more like clutter than the potent force they are in more traditional RPGs. On the other hand, badges and some parts of the equipment system support the core functions of attacking and dodging and also enhance other areas of the game, such as the player’s engagement with the overworld. So depending on the implementation, traditional RPG systems can both complement and clutter a functionally designed core.

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Tags: bowser's inside story, mario and luigi

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