'Super Mario Bros. Wonder' nearly featured a giant live-action Mario that says "Boing!" to himself.
There were more than 2,000 ideas that the developers came up with for the new 2D adventure and they tested out some pretty "extreme" stuff.
Game designer Koichi Hayashida revealed in an Ask the Developer interview on Nintendo's official website: “With these things in mind, we decided to have an idea-sharing session.
“Everyone from programmers to designers and sound designers joined in and wrote down gameplay ideas on sticky notes, which could be unrelated to their field of expertise, and we made prototypes on the spot. There were just so many ideas. Before this interview, I counted the number of sticky notes we had, and there were over 2,000!”
Another idea was the bending Warp Pipes.
Director Shiro Mouri noted: “This is a rather drastic approach, but first, you've got to take everything to the extreme. If you think you've gone too far, you can make adjustments later.”
Sound director, Koji Kondo, added: “I shared the idea of an eight-heads-tall, life-sized, live-action Mario humming along with the background music as he goes along. [...] When he jumps, he says to himself, ‘Boing!’ ...The idea was never used, though. I felt I had to take the lead in going to the extreme.”
'Super Mario Bros. Wonder' arrives on Nintendo Switch on October 20.