When you’re developing a video game, you have to be ready for inspiration to strike at any time.
For this edition of Bite-Sized Game History, let’s look back at how some of the most iconic moments from Journey, Mortal Kombat, and Super Mario 64 went from the drawing board to the screen…
You can find a lot of dedicated video game historians on Twitter, and in 280 characters or less, they always manage to unearth some amazing artifacts. Bite-Sized Game History aims to collect some of the best stuff I find on the social media platform.
Journey celebrated the tenth anniversary of its release last month, and Art Director Matt Nava was kind enough to share a glimpse at some of the first steps taken by developer thatgamecompany. Famously hailed as a piece of “interactive art,” Nava shared more than a dozen pieces of concept art from Journey‘s development, as well as some thoughts on the decision making process behind each image:
10 years ago today @thatgamecompany released #Journey. I was the art director. It set the course of my career and my art. I'm forever thankful to the community of players and their incredible love for the game. This is a thread comparing early dev images and how things shipped. pic.twitter.com/alcHmHWUmM
— Matt Nava (@matt_nava) March 13, 2022
Ten years is impressive, but Mortal Kombat is fast approaching the 30th anniversary of its release, and co-creator Ed Boon has been sharing some behind-the-scenes stories from the game’s development since last year. That includes the story from this thread, and an accompanying vintage video, about the creation of Scorpion’s Spear move.
Watching the footage, it’s amazing how quickly the team at Midway iterated on the idea and put the pieces together with performer Daniel Pesina. And if you listen close, you can even hear the very first “GET OVER HERE!” from Boon:
Mortal Kombat will be 30 years old in 2022. But 2021 marks 30 years since we actually BEGAN working on the game. To celebrate, it seemed like a fun idea to share some behind-the-scenes stuff. This clip shows how we created Scorpion’s iconic (GET OVER HERE!) spear move. (1 of 9) pic.twitter.com/3f1tdvjG9R
— Ed Boon (@noobde) October 12, 2021
Super Mario celebrates a landmark anniversary every year, but even if he wasn’t, this piece of trivia was just too interesting to pass up.
Aside from when he’s participating in one of his many extracurricular activities, Mario has worn blue overalls, a red shirt, and a (very fashionable) red hat for more than 30 years. But Supper Mario Broth recently investigated the hex color codes behind the plumber’s sartorial selections and they’ve proven that Mario’s wardrobe is a bit wider than you might have thought.
When creating Super Mario 64, Nintendo employed a palette composed of bright, vibrant colors to really make the polygons pop in Mario’s first 3D adventure. The particular shade of red used for Mario’s hat and shirt has varied over the years, but that’s why the only time the character wore “Pure Red” was in 1996:
The reddest that Mario's shirt and hat have ever been was in Super Mario 64, where they were the hex color FF0000, the purest red representable on a screen. All Mario sprites and models before and after this used various less pure shades of red. pic.twitter.com/BfPkZLrkCM
— Supper Mario Broth (@MarioBrothBlog) March 8, 2022
Big thanks to Matt Nava, Ed Boon, and Supper Mario Broth for posting these quick glimpses at gaming’s past on Twitter. If you like, you can follow me on the social media platform at @VideoGameCanon for more trips like this down memory lane.