It seems so...tangential to what Mario games are and so much like every other side scrolling running game out there.

I also find hitting the exact buttons incredibly frustrating. They claim one handed play but on a 9.7" iPad when you have to hit a button in a specific place on the screen it's not one handed play. At least not for my hands and I thought they were decent size.

We'll have to agree to disagree, but this is essence of Nintendo's acclaimed level design. Yes, the basic run through is easy, which makes it accessible to anyone. But I'll be damned if getting all the black coins isn't excruciatingly tough. The beauty is that the same game can be played on many levels.

Sad to see so many people critize the $10 price tag. Obviously that was expected, but as an iOS dev myself, it always saddens me too see the rejection of people to basically pay for anything on the AppStore.

> "it always saddens me too see the rejection of people to basically pay for anything on the AppStore."

Because the point is that the value one gets out of it, is too little for the amount of time it is fun. That is, of course, assuming there's no replay value.

There is replay value however I, for one, prefer a difficult game, and prefer one difficulty only. I know, game designers want to make everyone feel 'awesome' these days. All kind of ladders, including for single player! I don't like that. Give an immersive first time experience where the player has to overcome difficult hurdles. Getting stuck? Tough cookie, practice and get better, and you'll feel awesome once you progress further. Compare WoW TBC with how WoW has every difficulty for raiding these days. By the time you get to the highest difficulty it isn't epic anymore.

On a different note, 10 USD is a lot of money for poor people. Then again, those people are unlikely to have an expensive iOS device.

If Mario auto jumps over an enemy, you've missed a crucial chunk of coins on your quest to a top score. High scores is what this game is all about. When you really learn a level and squeeze out every coin possible, Nintendo's charm shines through.

I was only referring to buttons.

It's all about using existing UX mechanics versus Nintendo bringing over awkward console mechanics to a touch screen device.

I kept thinking of the original Super Mario Bros. as a contrast. You press start, and it drops you right into the game. When you complete a level, you start the next one. Simple. Sad that Nintendo couldn't replicate that here.

I guess the developers reasoning is they can get as many suckers as possible to pay for the full game after initial launch, then after a couple of months they squeeze more money out of it by changing to a pay-to-win format which hugely increases their user base.

It's a disgraceful approach and I certainly won't deal ever again with any devs who do this. Unfortunately, such devs don't really get much shaming so they probably get away with it.

One example: I purchased Rovio's Bad Piggies outright for a couple bucks way back when when there was the ad-supported version and the fully unlocked ad-free purchased alternative. Sure, my current version has all the features I originally paid for, but the experience has gone to shit.

The purchased version was a complete and ad-free game at the time. Now my version of it is filled with ads for their other games and "consumable" IAP options at damn near every pause screen, every menu and the loading screens because they made the game "free", which essentially downgraded my experience back to the free-to-play version they started with. I didn't lose any game mechanics, but I lost the ad-free experience I paid for.

I also thought it wouldn't be allowed, but apparently it is. If they just released a separate free version there'd be no problem.

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I can't tell how many CD's I bought in the early aught's right when a band I loved came out with a new album - only to see it in Target a few months later with several "previously unreleased" tracks on it as a bonus.

It drove me crazy since it happened so frequently.

Instead imagine that half the disc you originally bought turned out to be self-destructing ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3064327.stm ) but you can buy a re-release without the issue for a discount if you trade in the old disc.

The latest iteration, Rayman Adventures, is free-to-play and so suffers from the usual mobile free-to-play tropes. It also suffered performance issues on my (good) phone.

Rayman Fiesta Run (Amazon App Store) has some UI issues (like buttons reacting at press rather than at release potentially purchasing pay2win stuff unintendedly), but at least it doesn't have the forced ads.

When I purchased the game at launch date, it didn't have the pay2win stuff, and it was really enjoyable, but eventually the updates degraded the game experience.

If I ever purchase a mobile game again I'll certainly backup and cherry pick the update which gets the best balance between less bugs and less mis-improvements.

If that's intentional it's quite an insidious dark pattern.

Now I stick to puzzle games that provide a large amount of enjoyment relative to the cost. The Room series is phenomenal.

They open up pandora's box and allow game devs to focus on superficialities to increase revenue (such as a bonus level, ways to skip level, etc..). Were the playing field completely even -- no in-app purchases -- gameplay would necessarily have to win out and people might spend more time reading mobile game reviews.

When you can be angry bird and get on the top grossing list for a long, long time because you got in-app purchases, I believe it skews the data and as a result, many are poorly informed as to which game truly is the best.

But you've defeated your own point by using the word "allow", which while it it accurate, illustrates why it's not inherent. It's not inherent because they aren't forced to. Is it likely? Sure. Are the incentives all screwed up? Sure. But it's possible to use in-app purchases in responsible ways (such as purchasing future "episodes" of more story driven content, extra level packs, etc as long as the core game provided "enough"[1] content).

1: Which is entirely subjective, and I submit that some people that would have been completely happy with content delivered as is without the ability to download more for cost interpret the situation differently when they see extra content available.

Speaking of profit, what I find almost as fascinating as the game itself is the process and culture shift that occurred at Nintendo in order to make it a reality. For example, Satoru Iwata had previously said:

"What I believe is that Nintendo is a very unique company, because it does its business by designing and introducing people to hardware and software - by integrating them, we can be unique. And because we have hardware and software developers in the same building, they stimulate each other." [1]

Also...

"If I was to take responsibility for the company for just the next one or two years, and if I was not concerned about the long-term future of Nintendo at all, it might make sense for us to provide our important franchises for other platforms, and then we might be able to gain some short-term profit. However, I'm really responsible for the long-term future of Nintendo as well, so I would never think about providing our precious resources for other platforms at all." [2]

Iwata died in 2015, and was succeeded by Tatsumi Kimishima, who has stated:

"We want to grow smart device gaming as one of the pillars of Nintendo's revenue stream." [3]

[1] http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/08/09/nintemdo

[2] http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/08/10/nintendo-pres-on-mar...

[3] http://zeldauniverse.net/2016/05/09/kimishima-says-nintendo-...

I think the whole point is to get a coin highscore and/or collect the purple coins in every level.

The levels also have different obstacle and coin layouts depending on the special coins you are going for.

EDIT - I didn't realize that the first 3 levels were only what's available. I didn't make it past the 3rd level.

-- this game has dozens of context switches in the first 10 minutes, not even counting the uninteractable tutorial (Even other endless runner games let you run and figure out how to jump by tapping without 4 text boxes).

I will agree that the levels are better designed than the average mobile game.

Maybe my tastes are just changing? I feel that Nintendo has historically innovated in gameplay with their Mario games but I just wasn't sucked in this time.

EDIT

context switches in the beginning about "connecting a Nintendo account" and later, for push notifications - "Push Notifications are important" > User presses OK > Allow Super Mario Run to send you Push Notifications?

What is a Nintendo account & why would I care? What on earth would a push notification for a Mario game tell me? It doesn't feel polished to me.

You say you spent $10 on a game that you beat in an hour. I get that there's replayability but there's only so much in a game like that.

If I really wanted to play Mario I could go home and play it on dozens of different devices on a nice TV while resting comfortably instead of on a limited form factor in public where there's dozens of other things to do.

Much respect to Nintendo for making a good game, but it seems like a game that just exists because it can. No depth. What value do we get as consumers if we encourage the game industry to move further in this direction?

As for clearing it in an hour, clearing each of the levels once isn't a challenge, nor is it the point of the game. If you want to complete the whole thing you must play each of the levels 4 times, and that's assuming you play perfectly each time (and you won't). And that's just for Tour mode. For Toad Rally mode you're competing against other people (not live, but against their time trial ghosts) and doing tricks to try and impress toads, where winning gives you a bunch of coins and a bunch of toads. And then you use those toads in the kingdom builder mode to unlock new items to put in your kingdom and to upgrade your castle, etc.

So yeah, you can play through all of the levels once pretty quickly if you want. But that's not really experiencing the game.

Short play sessions have nothing to do with depth or lack of it.

You are right that there are many ways to play Mario on many different devices, and I'm not arguing that focused gameplay in front of a big tv isn't the best way to play for extended hours, but for ten minutes waiting in a queue or on the subway (when there is an internet connection available - don't get me started on that because I'm not a big enough fanboi to be happy with that situation), it's much more convenient than carrying along a 3DS. I think Nintendo did their homework on how people will play this game. It's accessible enough to play in short bursts, which suits mobile gamers.

I do respect that you don't see any depth in this. That's fine. I know that enjoyment of games is very subjective. I'm biased in that I grew up in the golden era of 8 and 16-bit 2D games, so I'm aware that this type of game has more appeal to me than others. (Nintendo probably knows that my demographic is more likely to convert to a purchase as well, but I digress) I've tried to stay engaged with recent stuff on Playstation, but triple A titles require large time commitments and have lots of grind, and hence don't appeal to me. This does.

I'm curious to find out how conversion from Pokemon Go -> Pokemon Sun/Moon games and Mario Run -> Mario Switch plays out, because both mobile games have succeeded at getting me more interested in investing time and money into their big-brother console relatives.

Huh. That's how I feel about Megaman. I suppose you disagree?

Anyways, since you're talking about new games, and seem to have an enjoyment of the 8-bits, have you tried Shovel Knight? It's incredibly well designed, and absolutely packed with content (with a third campaign coming next year. for free).

nintendo is sticking to an old school pricing model by making a f2play game?

damn im old, like older than 5 years old old

Id software pioneered the shareware model in 1990 with Commander Keen, six years before they used it in Quake.

In fact, Keen, Keen 4, Wolfenstein 3D, and Doom all used a three-episode shareware structure where the first episode was free and the rest were considered the "full version."

Doom 2 did not use this structure because Doom itself was a good enough advertisement for it. id then used it again in Quake, but fully broke from it with Quake 2, which just had a demo with a few levels.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo's_House_of_Horrors

https://archive.org/details/1990SuperKrozTrilogy

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13185932

http://pelulamu.net/unscii/

They are available through steam.

Personally, I don't think any of id's pre-DOOM games hold up well. But that could just be me...

frantic, fluid gameplay, even on lousy hardware (heck, I started quaking on a 486 dx2 66 and it ran quite okay at 320x240), insane difficulty, clever map design and lots of secrets to be found... seriously, that game was soo frigging amazing.

Don't even get me started on multiplayer... although we old folks have played our share of deathmatches on Doom/Doom2 (Dwango, anyone?) or Duke Nukem 3D, it was really Quake 1 (together with the booming Internet) that started this whole frenzy. And oh boy, then QuakeWorld came and made it really playable at 300ms+ pings (28800 bauds dial-up!), then we got mods like Team Fortress, and from there it escalated.

o/ fistbump and thank you for the trip down the memory lane.

The funniest thing about that card was that it only could do 3D graphics, so you still needed a 2D video card for normal video output. Monster 3D came with a short vga-vga cable which you used to connect your 2D card's video output to the Monster 3D, and then its own video output to your actual monitor. When you ran something using 3D, it simply took over your monitor and shut down the previous card's signal eheheh

Good times!

I despise anything that's not pay-for-cosmetics or buy-the-damn-game-once. I can pay for my entertainment, but I'm not playing a game that's designed around microtransactions, eschewing the game mechanics.

The majority of us do. Disappointing they launched exclusively on iOS.

Just paying for cosmetics is something acceptable for me. In CS:GO, you can pay for the skins but you don't have to. Yet, I'd still prefer the CS:Source model where you just pay the game once and then download any cosmetics you want for free. But well, that model won't come back any time soon.. :-)

We can only hope the gaming market keeps growing enough that indie developers can fill the shoes of AAA-games of yesteryear where we can have large enough playerbase and mod community and self-hosted servers.

I played 1v1 CoDBlOps once. It was really boring.

And then there is the pay money for currencies shenanigans.