The Wonder of shoe
It is 1991. I am sitting on the floor in my bedroom. I’ve just booted up Super Mario Bros 3 on my little 14-inch CRT TV. I have watched the Fred Savage movie The Wizard and never wanted to play a game more. As the levels pass by, I’m thrilled, excited and blown away. After the weirdness of Super Mario Bros 2, which always felt alien, 3 feels like a return to form. Then I come to my favourite level, 5-3. Those of an older persuasion may remember this one: the Goomba’s Shoe level. I remember jumping into the clockwork green shoe and proceeding to bounce through the whole map with a grin across my face. After the level is finished, I get excited, hoping to see the shoe on another level. It never comes. It blows my mind that Nintendo has created a whole mechanic for a level that took two minutes to beat. Something that changed the movement, mechanics,
