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Although it’s still possible run underneath them, the player can’t be sure he’ll make it until he’s all the way through. In order to sustain tension, the above Thwomps are positioned at different heights, each one closer to the ground than the last.
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Of course once the first hazard is avoided, it’s easy to figure out that the others won’t pose any threat. It’s a common technique to place falling obstacles side by side on the ceiling so that the player can “narrowly” dodge them while running underneath. SMB 3 is filled with great levels, so I decided to pick out a bunch of clever, fun or simply unique moments from the game that originated with its architecture. I skipped over a lot of possible examples trying to keep the list down to 30, but I think I came up with a good collection that complements the original post. In this example, the first appearance of a Chain Chomp is marked by two columns that indicate its range and allow the player to safely observe its behaviour. The elegant introduction of new mechanics is still present throughout SMB 3. A lot of them naturally dealt with introductory tutorials, but I wanted to take a slightly different approach with this article.
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In my previous post, I took a look at the various level designs lessons gleaned from Super Mario Bros.
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