What’s in a Box?

As Yoshiaki Koizumi noted during our Nintendo Switch event in Tokyo in January, Super Mario Odyssey returns to the sandbox-style play of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, but what does that really mean for Mario gameplay, and where does the term come from?

As one of the longest-running series in video-game history, I think it’s safe to say that most people think they have a generally good idea of what a Mario game is. But as the Super Mario games have evolved over time, they have come to encompass several different styles of play and different approaches to gameplay design:

The New Super Mario Bros. series represents the modern evolution of the original 2D side-scrolling platforming games.



The Super Mario series (minus the “Bros.” and represented by Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine) established the tradition of free-roaming Mario gameplay in a 3D space. With objective-based levels to explore, these are the games that have often been described as sandbox games.



As an offshoot of the Super Mario series, the Super Mario Galaxy games applied a more linear, course-based structure to the free-roaming gameplay of the Super Mario series, and of course introduced spherical worlds and gravitational effects.



The Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World games structured levels as corridors of 3D play, creating a new hybrid of free-roaming play and the linear obstacle courses of traditional side-scrolling Super Mario games.



The “sandbox” term has been used to describe many different games for many years, and Super Mario 64 certainly wasn’t the first, but the definition of “sandbox gameplay” has evolved quite a bit over time, to the point where it can now mean very different things to different people, and also very different things in different games.

The use of the term “sandbox” in relation to the Super Mario games actually originates from a Japanese word: Hakoniwa (pronounced Hah-koh Nee-Wah) Hakoniwa is a Japanese term that literally means “box garden” or a garden-in-box. In Japan, Hakoniwa is a style of gardening that became popular in the late Edo and early Meiji periods of Japanese history, and it shares some similarities with Bonsai gardening.

These examples of exquisite bonsai specimens at the Pacific Bonsai Museum illustrate a blend of bonsai and Hakoniwa gardening that brings entire landscapes to life in an intricate, miniaturized form. Intricate placement of rocks and sand give the impression of a complete landscape with lush forest floors, dry riverbeds, hidden crevices to explore. (Photos by Bill Trinen)

This approach to gardening focuses on creating miniaturized landscapes in small containers, often using tiny figures, buildings, bridges, and paths to create the illusion of intricately crafted landscapes and scenes. For those who peek in on these gardens, it is often surprising to see the intricacies, the depth of layers, and the realism on display within these tiny scenes.

These photos provided by Janit Calvo, an enthusiast of the type of miniature gardening in the west inspired by the early Hakoniwa tradition, show more examples of miniature gardens. For more information on miniature gardening in the west, check out TwoGreenThumbs.com(Photos by Janit Calvo)

Super Mario 64 took some of its game-design inspiration from the Hakoniwa gardening style, and that inspiration is carried on in Super Mario Odyssey. In Super Mario 64, it meant creating these fully realized worlds in which it felt like you were peering in on Mario as you controlled him, much the way you peer into the miniaturized worlds represented in Hakoniwa. Shigeru Miyamoto recounted on a past Treehouse Live how this inspiration was then expanded when he let his pet hamster loose in his room around the time of Super Mario 64. This inspired him to want to make controlling Mario feel like you were controlling a hamster running around in and exploring the landscape.

The Odyssey development team has taken further inspiration from the Hakoniwa tradition and applied intricacy of design and many layers of texture and depth to the game’s diverse landscapes, but they’ve done so in large, sprawling kingdoms that are packed with areas to explore and surprises to uncover, rather than in miniaturized spaces. It is an approach that is different from the goal of creating a vast world in an open-air style that was taken during the development of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Instead, Super Mario Odyssey expands on the Garden-in-a-box approach to design and uses it to build upon the objective-based approach to level design from Super Mario 64 by filling each space with multiple objectives hidden both along the main path and off the beaten path.

The Wooded Kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey looks a lot like a garden in a box.

This approach helps the kingdoms Mario visits on his journey come to life. It gives almost every surface in Super Mario Odyssey a unique feel, it encourages random interaction and exploration, and it rewards the player’s experimentation with surprise and delight, which is one of the original themes of what has come to be called sandbox gameplay in the West. In Super Mario Odyssey, this approach will leave with you surprises down every path, under every tree, and across every bridge, if you just take the time to peek into this intricate garden-in-a-box.

—Bill T.

