NORM:
In the early 90s, Nintendo faced mounting pressure
from parent advocates to provide more educational games. With their backs against the wall, Nintendo came up with Mario Paint, an art, music, and animation program
for the Super Nintendo. They hoped it would make children,
as well as parents, happy. For many kids, it was their
first experience with digital art. BENJAMIN RIVERS:
I mean, it really was that open world
and kinda gateway to creativity. And because it was marketed to people who were playing Super Nintendo games, you know, it wasn't necessarily marketed to artists. It didn't assume you had any art background or any sort of creative background. In fact, the tools in the game, whether they reserve animation, the art of the coloring, or even the sound design stuff, was all... assuming that this was sort of new to you. And that meant that you could be
free to just try out anything. There was no sort of wrong way to do something. NORM:
Mario Paint wasn't fancy. It lacked many features that a computer art program would provide. But, as it is often said, limitation breeds creativity. JAZZY BOHO:
You didn't have an infinite number of colors. You didn't have an infinite number of frames you can animate in. You didn't have an infinite size on your canvas. Everything was very restricted to what
could fit digitally on that cartridge. For better or worse, it just-- It necessitated innovation on your part. NORM:
Mario Paint took off, and became one of Nintendo's most beloved titles. It inspired a generation of artists, animators, game developers, and musicians. This is the story of Mario Paint. This episode of the Gaming Historian
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and its growing library of games was a mainstay in pop culture. THOMAS ROBERTS:
Growing up, I was definitely a Nintendo kid. If you were a kid back then, you could tell that Nintendo's reaching out to you, specifically to play their games, to love their brand and their characters. I had Mario blankets, Mario pillows. I had Mario cereal in the morning. We talked about Mario on the bus, and at school, on the playground,
we acted out as Mario. So growing up around the time Nintendo
was starting to gain popularity, it was super difficult to ignore it. It was everywhere. NORM:
But as the company's popularity grew, so did concerns from parents. VOICE:
"Nintendo video systems have become as
essential in the American home as microwave ovens and cordless phones, and just about as plentiful. The games are colorful, imaginative, and wondrously entertaining for children and adults. But as annual sales shoot toward $2 billion, some parents are preparing to disarm Contra, Commando, Ninja Kid and the rest of the Nintendo arsenal." Neal Rubin, the Dispatch. NORM:
What effects did video games have on children? A small but vocal minority of parents complained that video games made children less sociable and more irritable. They said children suffered from
the "Nintemper" tantrums. YOUNG JAMES ROLFE:
[screams] I lose every game! NORM:
Therapists held group sessions for families that felt their children played too many video games. The Council for Children's Television provided guidelines for parents. That included limiting play time, unplugging the system after each use, and refusing to buy violent games. Psychologists mostly disagreed, saying that video games were
not inherently dangerous. But there was one thing parent
advocates and psychologists did agree on. That video games had the potential to be great educational tools. But there was little incentive for console developers to make educational games. Historically, educational game sales paled in comparison to traditional video games. In 1989, video game software sales reached $3.5 billion. Educational games only accounted for $350 million, or 10%. And the majority of educational titles were on computers. Nintendo had little success in
creating educational games. Back in 1986, during the early days of the NES, they released Donkey Kong, Jr. Math. It sold poorly. "Anytime you label a game educational, it's the kiss of death," said one Nintendo marketing executive. So instead, Nintendo hoped third-party licensees would step up and provide educational titles. Few did. Developer High Tech Expressions released
a series of Sesame Street games that taught letters and numbers. THQ created Videomation, a basic drawing and animation program. Software Toolworks created the
Miracle Piano Teaching System, a full keyboard and game that taught kids how to play the piano. Nintendo knew it wasn't enough, and feared a growing backlash. But they also saw the challenge as an opportunity. While educational software sales weren't huge, they were rising. And computer-based edutainment games like Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego were popular among parents and school systems. There were also long-term benefits. In 1990, births in the United States topped four million, the largest number since the 1960s. In a few years, parents would look for educational
games for their children. And with the high cost of personal computers, educational games on the cheaper Nintendo systems would be more enticing to consumers. Nintendo also had a massive userbase. There were 40 million NES and Famicom consoles worldwide, 20 million in the United alone, and it was growing. If Nintendo tapped into the edutainment market, they could win over concerned parents
and sell even more video games. On May 15th, 1990, Nintendo announced a $3 million donation to MIT's media laboratory. The lab studied ways to create educational games that didn't make kids feel like
they were being forced to learn. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi stated: If nothing else, it was a great PR move. But the very next year, there were more problems. COLLEEN WILLIAMS:
But have things gone a bit too far? This evening, Kent Shocknek wraps up
a special report on Video Mania. NORM:
On August 23rd, 1991, Nintendo released their new 16-bit console: The Super Nintendo,
in North America. The console gave players better graphics, better sound, and bigger games. Gamers were excited, but parents were not. The Super Nintendo was not
backwards compatible with NES games. CONSUMER A:
He has a Game Boy, and now he has the Nintendo, and now he'd have to have another unit, just for that one game? Doesn't seem right. NORM:
It also cost $200, double the price of the NES. CONSUMER B:
I'm gonna say no, and i'm gonna explain to him how
people market things to make you spend more money. NORM:
Parents once again felt like Nintendo didn't have
their children's best interests in mind. It was time for Nintendo
to make something different. Something parents and children
could be happy about. Their solution was Mario Paint, a digital art, animation, and music program. BENJAMIN:
Mario Paint is a creative tool for people who have probably never used a creative tool before. JAZZY:
On the surface, Mario Paint seems like it's just a game. And... You're right. To think that it's also something that was brilliantly designed to encourage the player to discover, not just the limits of the game,
but their own limits and their imagination. NORM:
Mario Paint was directed and
designed by Hirofumi Matsuoka. He joined Nintendo in 1985 as a graphic designer, but with software sales soaring, he was quickly reassigned to game development. He worked on games such as
Metroid and Super Mario Land before being named director and designer of Mario Paint. "I got to do what I've always loved: design work," he said. But to create works of art, a controller wouldn't cut it. Previous art programs on consoles used standard controllers, and making anything detailed
was a struggle for users. Nintendo wanted Mario Paint to be different, and to be a viable alternative to art programs on personal computers. So they created a mouse, designed by Game & Watch and Game Boy co-creator Satoru Okada. BENJAMIN:
I didn't get my first actual home PC until
several years after Mario Paint came out. So it was the first mouse-based interface that I got to, like, know thoroughly. And I think, you know, it was weird to plug it in. And I think what I found
so interesting is that it became very natural,
you know, quite quickly, because I just got so used to using it. And it was weird to see someone using a mouse on the Super Nintendo, you know, hunched over a table on their couch. But suddenly, I was in love with the whole idea of just this sort of digital art interface, and, I don't know, maybe if I had been using some, like, really complicated PC program at the time, it wouldn't have been that way, but because Mario Paint was so accessible, I just fell right into it. NORM:
Adding Mario, Nintendo's
flagship character, into the game was strategic. It would, of course, drive sales. But it would also show that Nintendo was serious about expanding into edutainment games. In a press release, Nintendo stated: THOMAS:
I think it was a great decision to have Mario as the main image for Nintendo, because Mario games really pulled in everybody. And I think we all wish to be just like Super Mario. We all want to have these super abilities
to save the day, to do some good, and I think that's what Mario means to me. NORM:
In June of 1992, less than a year after
the Super Nintendo's launch, Nintendo unveiled Mario Paint at the
Summer Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. Professional artists at the Nintendo booth drew caricatures of attendees. PERRIN KAPLAN:
A couple games that we're, you know, really super excited about-- One's called Mario Paint, and it basically is the first time a mouse
has ever been used for the video game. And kids or adults can animate and take pictures. You can then put music to it.
You can save your work. Pretty in-depth, and... pretty neat products. NORM:
Nintendo also announced price
cuts to the Super Nintendo. Consumers could now buy a console for just 99.99. Mario Paint cost 59.99. For $160, parents could give their child a digital art program. Compared to the $1,000 price tag of a computer, it was enticing. [Japanese] NORM:
Mario Paint was released in Japan on July 14th, 1992. It took off quickly. In its first two weeks on the market, it became the country's best-selling game, beating out titles like Street Fighter II
and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The next month, Mario Paint
shipped to retailers in North America. In December, the game reached Europe. A $6.5 million dollar advertising
campaign spread the word. Along with TV commercials, ads for Mario Paint appeared in magazines like TV Guide, Parents, and Good Housekeeping. Nintendo wanted to reach as many parents as possible. The ads read:
"Send your kids to art, music
and film school for only 59.95". BENJAMIN:
What I don't remember is if I'd asked for it, or if my dad had figured out that it was a good idea. But he knew that I was going to be
playing video games a lot, because that's what I was doing. And in his mind, this was at least something where I could be creative and productive, as opposed to just playing a game. So, opening up that gigantic box and then just realizing: "Oh man. I've got I get to work on something," was super exciting. NORM:
When players turned on Mario Paint, they discovered it was no ordinary game. JAZZY:
When you put in the Mario Paint cartridge, you would think that, normally, like any other game, it would just start up and you'd start playing. But with Mario Paint, it doesn't do that. It actually puts you in a position where you need to discover how to enact the game. So you put the game in, it starts up. Mario starts running across the screen,
and you have a little cursor point. And Mario will actually run away from you. [chuckles] You have to click on Mario to even start the game. So that's a whole aspect of just discovering
that's built into enacting the game. THOMAS:
Each one of the letters is interactive. The R chases Mario off the screen. P paints this picture on the screen. The O turns to a bomb that explodes,
and it plays a hidden tune in the game. [Totaka's song playing] THOMAS:
Another one scrolls the credits of the game. I think it's just all creative fun. NORM:
The title screen was only the beginning
of the strange world of Mario Paint. An animation of two people
working out greeted the player, before a blank canvas with various tools appeared before them. It may have seemed overwhelming to some, But Mario Paint encouraged players to experience the game at their own pace. JAZZY:
Mario Paint has a universal language in that regard. That language being discovery. It literally is something where you need to discover how to play the game in a very playful way. This isn't like other games where it's poorly made, and so you need to figure out
how to work these bad tools that-- that the game designers put in. Mario Paint's not that way. Mario Paint is a very well-designed experience, as far as programming goes. It's not that the tools don't work. It's that they don't explain to you how they work. And so you need to discover that for yourself. NORM:
When it came to making works of art, Mario Paint contained all the essentials for the budding artist. Multiple-sized brushes, a spray paint tool, a shape maker to create squares and circles, a fill tool to quickly color in blank spaces, text which included letters numbers, and even Japanese characters
like katakana and kanji. Erasers, along with nine different animations
to erase the canvas. Players could even copy and paste. A friendly undo dog got rid of mistakes. THOMAS:
So Nintendo also offered a coloring book section where you can color in pre-recorded art. And they had different options for you to use. They had Super Mario World art
with Mario riding Yoshi. They had happy birthday cards you can make. I think, if not everyone was a good artist, they probably had some creativeness
with coloring or filling in colors with their own ideas. Maybe to inspire their creativity. To make their own art eventually. NORM:
There were also pre-loaded stamps. Shapes, objects, animals, and even characters from Super Mario World. And if that wasn't enough, players could make their own stamps and save up to 15 at a time. JAZZY:
The stamp creator in Mario Paint was something that was pretty exciting, because I think, for a lot of people, they maybe had never known before
how these sprite pieces of art were made into some of their favorite games. Additionally, you could use it for a ton of other things. You didn't have to just make sprite art. You could create patterns.
You can create looping images. Or you could just do one-off
images on their own. Another option you could do with it was to... simply just put one pixel in the center. And now you actually have
a very fine detailed brush that is the size of one pixel. This could be very good for details. NORM:
Mario Paint didn't limit players to still images. There was also an animation tool. BENJAMIN:
Up until that point, I had no ability to make any
kind of animation unless I was,... well, creating like a flip book, which I also had tried before. And so, for me, the idea to take all these sort of silly concepts in my head and actually get a digital
animation to it was mind-blowing, as rudimentary as it was. JAZZY:
So for the animation aspect of Mario Paint, you had three different options. You had a canvas that was fairly large
that you had four frames of, or you had a medium-sized canvas that had six frames. And then you had a very tiny
canvas that had nine frames. It was up to you to figure out what the trade-offs would be in having a large scale animation with a shorter number of frames that it could play, or a smaller animation that could have more frames, and thus, more details to
how something was animated. NORM:
In addition to drawing and animation, Mario Paint also had something
unique to an art program: A music editor, where players could make their own songs. THOMAS:
I remember jumping right into the music player, because that is what I was really interested in trying. The music editor featured a whole bunch of different sound effects. They would pair up a sound with a familiar Nintendo character or icon or power-up or something. The guitar is one of my favorites. It's an airplane. The hearts created a bass sound, and if I think of a heartbeat, I think it's something very low. So the heart was designed to
sound like a very low instrument. The stars were like a twinkle sound. And they had this weird baby face
that would make this weird sound like a laugh or a chuckle. And everything was tuned
exactly where it needed to be. Even the dogs and the cats would
bark and meow right on pitch. Mario Paint came with three pre-loaded songs. I had not been able to read music very well, but I knew the sounds I wanted to make.
I knew where I wanted sounds to go. I just didn't know how to do it yet. So by listening to the demos, I was able to get a head start on that process. For me, to be able to hear
music without playing it was a skill I thank Mario Paint for. As you're drawing on Mario Paint in the music editor, you could see the sequence of notes going higher, or see them going down. But you could also hear them as you're putting them on the set. And that benefit translates
very quickly back to us as musicians. NORM:
Drawing, animation, and music could be combined to make
movies, music videos, and more. The possibilities seemed endless. But there were drawbacks. The cartridge could only save one creation at a time. But Nintendo had a solution. JAZZY:
So you could only save one thing
at a time on the Mario Paint cartridge. Just had a limited memory,
and that was the reality. So one of the things that Nintendo encouraged was for users to hook up their Nintendo to their VCR and save their creations that way. And even share them amongst people. I think they even recommended to send somebody a vhs tape in the mail. Some kind of birthday greeting or something. I don't know how many people actually did that, but that was the predominant way
to save these things back in the 90s. THOMAS:
I was assigned to do a project on Patrick Henry. And I was really into Mario Paint at the time. And all I did in the animator was a fist pounding a desk. I read the line:
"Give me liberty or give me death!" over a microphone plugged into the VCR. And I synchronized it with Mario Paint. And that was the scene. That scene took me a couple days to make. So it really made you feel like you were a producer. And I love that. NORM:
Mario Paint wasn't just a productivity application. Nintendo also included a mini game called Gnat Attack, where players had to swat flies. It was a nice break from working, symbolized by a coffee cup icon
in the bottom right corner. THOMAS:
It was the first time I was ever
introduced using a mouse. and... I gotta thank Nintendo for Gnat Attack. Gnat Attack was, I think, a training tool for kids to use a mouse for their very first time. NORM:
Despite all of its features, Mario Paint had limits. There were only 15 colors
for drawing and stamp creation. Most notably, a lack of pink. The music editor only allowed three notes per beat, and a limited amount of
measures for music composition. And the more frames players needed for animation, the smaller the canvas got. But children worked around it and unleashed their creativity. BENJAMIN:
So I did two major things with it. First was, I was a huge Mortal Kombat fan. Mortal Kombat was just coming up. And I wanted to recreate all the insanity
that I was seeing in MK at the time. So I would learn how moves were animated by
watching them or recording the game on VHS, and then replicating that frame by frame in Mario Paint. And honestly, it was just evening
after evening of practice doing that. JAZZY:
When I first played Mario Paint, my first instinct was probably to be rebellious, and, you know, draw naughty things. But, you know, pretty soon realize that
it could be used as a thing that could
make my friends and my family laugh. So my earliest memories of Mario Paint have to do with trying to make an animation or some little scene or even just a painting or a song that I could show to somebody and share,
and then they would laugh about it. So it was mostly a source of comedy and humor and and levity in my family and my friends. NORM:
Mario Paint was a surprise hit. By the holiday season, Nintendo of America sold 500,000 copies. By March of 1993, one million copies. The game won a Parent's Choice Award in 1992, given to products that introduced skills, reinforced them, and glamorized courage and common sense. Mario Paint was even used in some art classrooms. VOICE:
"When I was a kid and paper was a recent invention, I used crayons and pencils to
draw things I cleverly called pictures. But now, with rapid advances in technology, all a child needs to draw is a television set, a Nintendo Super NES unit,
and a new game called Mario Paint. Mario Paint, as the name suggests, isn't really a game. It's more like a key to unlock a kid's imagination." William Burl, the Gazette. NORM:
With the success of Mario Paint, Nintendo wanted to expand further
into the edutainment market. They licensed Mario to developer Software Toolworks, who released a series of
Mario-themed educational games for the Super Nintendo and personal computers. One man tried to capitalize on
Mario Paint by suing Nintendo. Edward Gussin claimed the game infringed on his patent for a Video Art electronic system that was previously sold as the
LJN Video Art console. A US District court judge dismissed the case. Mario Paint's popularity also allowed
Nintendo and other developers to experiment with games that could
utilize the Super Nintendo Mouse. Ports of computer games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and SimAnt were obvious choices, but there were several off-beat titles, as well. One notable game was Mario & Wario, a Japan-only release made by
the creators of Pokémon. It was a side-scrolling puzzle game where players guide Mario and friends
to the end of each level using the mouse. But there is no doubt that the most popular
Super Nintendo mouse game was Mario Paint. Sega, Nintendo's top competitor, took notice of the game's success. "We are certainly capable of delivering
entertainment with a strong educational content," said one Sega of America executive. In 1993, Sega released the Pico, an educational video game console for young children. It sold well in Japan, but failed to catch on in North America and Europe. The following year, they released Wacky Worlds Creativity Studio, a creative application for the Genesis
console featuring their mascot: Sonic the Hedgehog. It also came bundled with a mouse. But the game never matched Mario Paint's success. Mario Paint would eventually become the 18th best-selling Super Nintendo game of all-time, selling more than two million copies. But the game's story would not end in the 16-bit era. In 1996, Nintendo released their next generation console: The Nintendo 64. But while competitors Sony and Sega
moved forward with CD-based games, Nintendo stuck with cartridges. Critics were puzzled, but Nintendo promised a solution. They would release an add-on: The Nintendo 64 Disk Drive. Nintendo said the add-on would
allow more advanced games, Internet access, and downloadable content. In a 1997 interview with ign.com, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto teased
several upcoming 64DD titles, including Mario Paint 64. Players imagined the possibilities. An art application on the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive could compete with personal computers. They could create art and share it online. That was intriguing. But the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive's
release was a mess. It was originally scheduled to come out worldwide in 1997, but delay after delay pushed the
system's release to December of 1999. And it was only available in Japan. JAZZY:
I mean you had to buy the N64DD console itself out of the back of a magazine. You couldn't just go into a store
and buy this like any other console. You had to find it in a magazine, and then take the initiative to send away for it and pay in and pay in installments and
have games shipped to you. So the barrier of entry for this thing
was just way too high in the first place. There was a lot working against
this console having success, let alone any of the games that were on it, or were planned for it. NORM:
One of the first games available on the
64DD was Mario Artist: Paint Studio, previously known as Mario Paint 64. It came bundled with a Nintendo 64 mouse, and was one of several games in the Mario Artist series. JAZZY:
Whereas Mario Paint was a standalone game, Mario Artist was going to be
a series of eight games. [snickers] They were gonna put out eight Mario Artist games, and they only ever got to release four of them. You had the Paint Studio, Polygon Maker, Talent Studio, and the communications kit. Now, these four were supposed to be used together. They could also be used on their own. But the real exciting part was that you would
use them together to create something. You would, say, create a polygon in the Polygon Maker. You'd save this to the N64DD, eject your disk, and then you would put in the Talent Studio disk. The Talent Studio, I believe, was intended to
animate or do something with these polygons that you've already painted,
and figure out some way to make some
kind of video out of 'em. It was a little bit more than
just animation at that point. Then, once you've done all this, you could eventually share it. You would then take that and apply
that to the Communication Kit. NORM:
In October of 2000, less than a year after the 64DD launched, Nintendo officially discontinued the product. It's estimated that Nintendo only
sold around 15,000 units. JAZZY:
It's my theory that Nintendo seemed to be trying to create this Mario Artist series to maybe compete with the Adobe Creative Suite, or other things similar. This idea of a home computer that could
kinda do whatever you wanted-- That was very appealing to people. Clearly, the market was saturated
at that point with home computers. There was a lot happening at least in the United States, regarding that. And so, on Nintendo's side, I just think they were trying to compete with something that, maybe, was doomed to fail from the start. I'm not sure. NORM:
Nintendo never made another Mario Paint. But they continued to reference
the game in future releases. In 2009, Nintendo released WarioWare D.I.Y. for the Nintendo DS. It contained a music and drawing program
very similar to Mario Paint. Several of the developers stated Mario Paint
was a huge influence on them growing up. Director Taku Sugioka said: When programmer Takumi Hatakeyama was asked if Mario Paint
made him who he was today, he replied: In 2015, Nintendo released Super Mario Maker for the Wii U, where players could make
their own Mario levels. According to director Takashi Tezuka, the game originally began as a Mario Paint sequel. But they decided to combine the
fun of creation in Mario Paint with a developer tool to make Mario levels. It's no wonder that Mario Maker
is filled with Mario Paint references, and even contains the Gnat Attack mini game. Even outside of Nintendo, Mario Paint's influence is evident. The first episode of the popular
web series Homestar Runner was animated completely in Mario Paint. JAZZY:
I see Mario Paint references just out in the world, outside of Nintendo's brand, and outside of their own games. Toby Fox of Undertale Is a big fan of Mario Paint. He has a tremendous love for the game. I think the the dog sound from Undertale-- Most people are now familiar with that from Undertale and don't realize that it's actually from Mario Paint. About a year ago, I watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot that Netflix put out, and I was laughing to find that there was Mario Paint references even in that, for whatever reason. JAZZY:
It's cool to see that people are just using Mario Paint still in innovative ways that incorporate it into other forms of media. NORM:
There are artists making paintings using the program, streamers recreating scenes from their favorite games. There's even a PC program called
Mario Paint Composer, which allows users to create Mario Paint-style music without the limitations of the Super Nintendo. For some, Mario Paint made a heavy impact
on their life and career. THOMAS:
Mario paint definitely helped me shape my musical sense growing up, because Mario Paint,
I think for the first time as a kid, allowed me the freedom to
be creative in my own way. I think that freedom allowed me
a little bit more expression, and not feel like I was making mistakes,
or not to feel bad that I might be making a mistake. And I could always change that. I could hear that and say: "That's not exactly what I wanted. Let's try it this way." So I think that was a good
learning experience as a musician. After high school, I went to SUNY Fredonia. It's a New York school of music in Western New York. And I studied music education and piano. I graduated in 2006. And at the time, I was going through
a lot of my belongings at home, and I dug out my Super Nintendo. And in the Super Nintendo was Mario Paint. I thought, "Oh, my goodness. I forgot about this game completely." So I went on YouTube,
which was still starting out, and I did some searches on Mario Paint. And one of them brought up the music editor right away. This might be something I could get into. So I decided to get out the Mario Paint Player's Guide and recreate some of the music from the back and upload it to YouTube. I did that twice, and then after a while, I got a little bored, because all I was doing was
regurgitating other people's work. I wanted to be a little bit more original, so I recreated Tetris, and I uploaded that. Problem was, Mario Paint has a limitation of how long
your music can be before you have to loop it. So it looped right in the middle of the song. So I would fire up the music editor, I would put all the notes in. That was a long process alone, because I was creating the music from scratch. And once I was happy with everything, I would record it on the computer
through a capture card. And then I would erase it. It felt terrible to erase it all, because that was the only take I had. Then I would create the second set, and then save that, record it over, and then I would just take the
two clips and put 'em together. I had done a project that was a fan request at the time. From Mega Man 2, Wily's Castle theme. And it took me about eight hours. I did it all in one take. And I recorded every second,
and put 'em all together. It was difficult to do, because the music itself is very fast. Mario Paint was not able to really keep up, so I had to make a lot of creative decisions
on how to mask those issues. I was getting a lot of different responses and comments saying "Congratulations on Nintendo Power". And then I remember thinking-- I don't remember ever seeing
my name in Nintendo Power. So I found out that my name
appeared in the August issue, 218, page 93, at the back in the community area. It was a great feeling to be in the magazine, having been an avid reader since I was super young. I was still subscribed to Nintendo Power. I loved being a part of Nintendo officially. Like, you know, this is an official acknowledgement. And I know from then on,
I would be known as this Mario Paint person on YouTube. And it holds true today. JAZZY:
So as I get older, I eventually go off and start my career. You know, working in the industry and
doing film and storytelling and so on. And of course, I have stories
that I wanna be telling, but I also don't have the resources of, say, a big budget, or even a
large crew, a lot of actors. So I began to consider Mario Paint as a viable option. Tony, you gotta start living. TONY:
I live a cautious life. JAZZY:
So, with Mario Paint, I can tell stories that have a scope far beyond
what i'm able to accomplish normally. For instance, one of the first short films I made
in Mario Paint in my adult years was called In For A Treat. It was about Bigfoot being imprisoned in a secret government base in the United States, and managing to escape during a bake sale
by giving everybody food poisoning. Just try to imagine what that would
be like to do in live action. I started submitting my Mario Paint work
to local film competitions and showcases. And I was very excited by the kind of response
it was getting. A lot of people who saw these things were unfamiliar with Mario Paint. But they were really into the whole aesthetic of it. There's something about it that seemed to... resonate with them. It became clear that there's so much
more that can be done with this medium. I'm still exploring what that means. There's a such a great synthetic
quality to Mario Paint, in that it is digital and that it is pixel. It always invokes the feeling
of video games on some level, even if people are unfamiliar with Mario Paint. And so, that's something that's really fun to play with, in regards to short films. BENJAMIN:
So I applied to be an animator, and then got this extremely vicious rejection letter. [chortles] Told me I was a terrible artist
and even probably a worse animator, and I shouldn't even try. And despite all my years of Mario Paint, of course, I was very disappointed. So at that point I said, "Well, I wanna do something and I want to do something now, and it has to be creative." And I end up looking up courses for design, art, and settle on graphic design. So I worked in design for over a decade, and then, what happened was, I was working on Game Jams and stuff here in
Toronto in around, like, the mid-2000s, which is when the indie scene
here kinda blew up. Around 2011, I submitted this game concept
I had to the IGF called Home. So it's a game where you write
the story of your character. So as you explore the world, you're examining things, getting these
sort of silent movie-style text boxes. But every now and then, you'll examine something, and the game will ask you: "Well, you know, did I pick that up?"
Or like "I didn't take that knife.
Did I? Like I would never do that." And your only choices are ever yes or no. But as you're making these choices, the game then starts building
other aspects of the narrative for you. So it's something like you're building
a bridge as you're walking across. Home used these things I call planning sheets. Which isn't my idea.
I completely stole them from 80s Nintendo. If you've ever seen those images of how they made original Mario and Zelda games, they had these sort of grid style planning sheets. So their artists and designers
could design levels on paper and keep track as people were sort of translating
that into their software at the time. I realized that was a great idea, because I had no idea what I was doing. But I knew I had to plan things out
so I could make this game. So I draw things in pencil, and lay things out and find stuff. And that all came from using Mario Paint, and doing those storyboards, and realizing I had to, like, make some note of something so that I could keep on track. When the trailer went out, which was like this amazingly rudimentary trailer, it was getting picked up by websites, and I suddenly realized: "Oh, my goodness, people are interested in this." And then we launched Home, and it was a huge hit,
and we were totally shocked. After Home succeeded, I thought,
well, maybe there's something here. You know, maybe there's a way for us
to turn this into, like, a real gig. So at the end of that year,
I decided to quit doing freelancing and take a stab at making games full-time. And thankfully, I've been doing it ever since. So it was really kind of all because of Mario Paint that I suddenly realized, like, digital art
and making stuff on a computer that's creative was, you know, possible. NORM:
Does limitation breed creativity? In the case of Mario Paint, absolutely! JAZZY:
As far as I know, it's the only game that Nintendo has put out that allows you as the player to tell your stories. And we are the stories that we tell. Perhaps that's why people have such profoundly personal experiences with the game and why they range in such different ways. Everybody has a different experience with Mario Paint, because they use it in unique ways. 'Cause their use is a reflection
of how they are unique. I still play Mario Paint
because that feeling is still there. Storytelling is the oldest medium. And I just love that about Mario Paint. I think it's always going to be one of
my favorite games for that reason. FEMALE NARRATOR:
Funding for Gaming Historian is provided
in part by supporters on Patreon. Thank you! [Totaka's song playing]
Finally, a good effing video on this subreddit
People keep saying that certain YouTubers or streamers are "criminally under-rated"... no, THIS is a web series that ACTUALLY is HIGHLY under-rated. I will always up-vote Norman's stuff. High quality, well researched, always excellent.
I think it's a crime that the Wii U never got a Mario Paint release. It would have been perfect for the system.
Love this guy's videos. Now I know where all that stuff in Super Mario Maker came from.
This is the kind of high quality documentary that I could recommend to my parents. Fantastic stuff.
I have always wondered why there wasn't another Mario Paint game. It would work on the DS, 3DS, WiiU or Switch.
I love Gaming Historian! Probably my favorite YouTuber. I was very happy to see this in my queue earlier. Great video, and great guest interviews as well. Really enjoyed the personal stories surrounding this game. I definitely watched a ton of those Mario Paint music videos back in the day.
Norm is right up there with Jeremy Parrish as the best Nintendo historians on YouTube right now