“Chung-chung-chung”. Along with mentioning the new Super Mario Bros. game coming to Nintendo 3DS and Koji Kondo holding out for Shigeru Miyamoto’s approval after 25 years, the latest “Super Mario 25th Anniversary” Iwata Asks session has this fun moment:
Kondo: Mario sort of flashes as he gets bigger, so I made that sound effect to match. And to save memory, I needed to get a lot of use out of the same sounds. So, for example, I used the same sound for when he gets smaller and when he goes into pipes.
Miyamoto: When he goes into pipes, it goes chung-chung-chung. I bet you hadn’t noticed they were the same.
Iwata: Oh, I guess they are.
Kondo: And the bwip! sounds when he steps on turtles and swims are the same.
Iwata: They seemed different in my head, but I guess they’re the same!
Kondo: That was all to save memory.
It’s not as mind-blowing as Super Mario Bros.’ identical clouds/bushes – most of you probably already recognized the sounds were re-used – but I like hearing about all the tricks game developers depended on to get the most from memory/hardware limitations.
Buy: New Super Mario Bros (Wii & DS)
See also: More Super Mario Bros. posts
