What’s it like to play Super Mario Run

Nintendo’s new Mario platformer coming to iOS this Holiday (and next year to Android ) puts the company’s world-famous mascot on mobile devices in a smart way. I played three quick stages and couldn’t help but admire how Nintendo uses simple controls, short stages full of coins and scoring opportunities, and skillful jumps as strong hooks to keep us playing and increase our scores. It’s easy to play with one-hand, too. In fact, I did just that right at the start of our demo.

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A company rep for Nintendo challenged me to play Super Mario Run while holding a Mario plush someone conveniently placed in the room. It’s a ridiculous setup, for sure (just take a look at the photo below) but it’s still resembles an everyday scenario for anyone who owns a mobile phone. We constantly split our attention between doing two (or even three) things at once.

Luckily, the rules driving Super Mario Run are simple, and it’s built to be played in portrait view on your smartphone. Mario automatically runs across the screen from left to right, but he’s also smart enough to hurdle over small ledges and shorter enemies. Tapping on screen makes him jump, and longer presses make Mario jump even higher. Tapping the screen while he’s in mid-air allows Mario to delay his fall and get a little more hang time, similar to the same idea Nintendo introduced in the New Super Mario games on both Wii and Wii U. Mario's debut smartphone game also uses the same colorful art style as Nintendo's hit series.

Miyamoto looks on from the distance as I took the Nintendo challenge and played Super Mario Run with a plush in the other hand.

Sure, it’s easy to pick up and play, but Super Mario Run uses clever level designs that place coins and collectibles in your path. And some are conveniently tucked in places where you’ll have to do some puzzle solving in order to figure out how to get to them. The focus on scoring works into one of Nintendo’s overall goal with Super Mario Run: In World Tour mode (the name of the main campaign) you must collect as many coins as you can and get to the end of the stage before time runs out.

The levels still manage to present challenging setups even though Mario is always traveling to the right. In an Underground stage I played, a long rectangular block hung in the air with a purple coin just to the left side of it. Moving ahead of it on the ground, I could use a wall to the right and zigzag up to the top of a block using Mario’s wall jump, but the purple coin was still just out of reach. Each time Mario hit the ground, he would stop going to the left and immediately turn around and continue his mission to keep going to the right side of the screen.

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In order to snag to the purple coin, I had to delay Mario’s fall by tapping the screen when he was in mid-air. It gave me just enough airtime so he could fall over to the other side, slide down, and then wall jump up to snatch the collectible.

During my demo I boldly marched by plenty of missed coins, but each time I scanned the visible area looking for clues on how I could get over to those spots. This is just one aspect of Super Mario Run, but what about the more difficult stages later in the campaign? Nintendo’s new Mario platformer still has some challenges in store according to the company’s most famous game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto.

Nintendo Premieres Super Mario Run During Apple Event 18 IMAGES

Of course, Miyamoto didn’t want to say too much about the later levels of Nintendo’s new Mario game, but here’s what he told us. “A big point with this game is, ‘How can we make this a game that people who aren’t good at games can play the game and enjoy it?’” he said. “But also at the same time, we’ve been making Mario games for a long time, and we know how to make them challenging. So if you’re a Mario fan, I don’t think you have to worry about that part of it.” I saw a few other tricks that could play into the difficulty: Special blocks on the ground influence the direction of Mario's jump (in one case I somersaulted backwards onto a platform to collect a Super Mushroom). Another block that had a pause icon on it gave me a second to stop and let stage hazards (like fireballs) pass by before I pressed on.

I should mention that Nintendo didn't want to talk about the customizable Mushroom Kingdom it mentioned on-stage at the event, so there's still more to discuss before it launches on iOS in December.

I played two stages of Super Mario Run’s World Tour mode, and I set the high score in a game of Toad Rally, the name of Nintendo’s competitive mode where try to top the high score set by your friends and random strangers on the Internet. And, yes, I did all of this with a Mario plush in my other hand. But did it feel like a Super Mario-style game? Absolutely. The hook for this one is a little different: in terms of similarities to Nintendo’s previous New Super Mario games, this was closer to New Super Mario Bros. 2’s score-driven gameplay but without the over-the-top emphasis on coins. And, even as I wrapped up the demo, I already thought up several things that I could do differently to improve my score. It's a smart setup for quick play on the go and I suspect this kind of thinking will be the thing that ultimately hooks the Mario faithful in the end.

Jose Otero is an Editor at IGN and host of Nintendo Voice Chat . You can follow him on Twitter