A 40-year-old Mario glitch is all I’ve been thinking about lately. That’s because there’s a cartridge in my brain labelled “Artistic Practice” and I want to blow the dust out of it.
I have a Google Doc of game ideas, but many of the ideas have languished on that list for years now. They’re trapped in an idea box, like a power-up in a Question Block, with no Mario coming around to set them free anytime soon.
Generally speaking, when I don’t put a game idea from the list into production, it’s usually because I mentally rubber stamped the words “TOO WEIRD” onto it. The idea has no commercial potential, as I see it. I can imagine myself developing the game, releasing it into the world, and… cricket noise, cricket noise, cricket noise.
Over the years, I’ve come to think of the vast majority of my ideas – game projects I’m excited to make – as TOO WEIRD. Deep down, I want to make new games for forgotten hardware. I want to make games controlled by voice or by a vintage toy. I want to make games that bridge the gap between tabletop and video games. I want to make games that explore the perverse depths of retro culture. I want to make games with full motion video instead of CG, because that’s what we thought the future of gaming was going to look like in 1995, damn it!
I want to make games that are immersive, story-driven, and utterly bizarre. In other words, games people won’t buy. Or stream. Or review. And then, what’s the point? I’m a professional game designer. I’m supposed to build successful games. After all, if I spend time and money to make a game, I’d better be earning commiserate rewards, or else I’ve failed. Money. Shares. Accolades. What if my parents find out I’m wasting my time making failed projects? Maybe they’ll say I’m wasting my life. Unlike Mario, I don’t have a couple to spare.
This kind of thinking is exactly why I’m trying to get to Minus World.
I remember reading about the Minus World in Nintendo Power magazine. It’s a glitch level in the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES. In the underground World 2-1, if you break just the right bricks and jump just the right way into a wall, you’ll get to a warp pipe that takes you to “World -1.” In the American version of SMB, it’s an endless water world, where you swim a bit, enter a pipe, and go back to the beginning of the level. In the Japanese version, it’s a crazy level where you swim through the sky and princesses float in mid-air around you. Trippy shit!
In Mario games, you leap over pits and jump on giant angry bullets with faces to collect coins, earn points, and eventually save Princess Peach from Bowser. That’s the point of Mario. But none of that matters in Minus World. You “win” Minus World by figuring out how to get there and then explore it. That’s all there is to do. There are no achievements to unlock. There’s no Minus Princess to save*. That’s the point. It’s fun just to find and experience Minus World. The reward is intrinsic.
How do I find the Minus World of game development? Where is the warp pipe to the level with no goal? No sales goal to reach or profile in Kotaku to achieve? Where I’m only making games for games sake? Where the creation of the work is creatively fulfilling in-and-of-itself, because I’m building exactly the thing I want to make and every other consideration is an afterthought? A nice-to-have, not a must-to-have?
Honestly, I don’t know how to get to Minus World. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been creating art with external expectations. In my 30s, I started Adventure Snack, hoping it would lead to more game industry jobs and a book deal. In my 20s, I wrote a Parks & Recreation spec script to try and get TV writing jobs. In my teens, I sung parody songs on a website called MP3.com to try and be the next Weird Al. In elementary school, I submitted my colored pencil comic strips to United Features Syndicate with hopes of being a cartoonist. I was, like, eight? In all those cases, I was creating art to advance my station in life. To reach a goal.
I’m in my 40s now. When do I get to make art for myself? If not now, when?
This newsletter is my attempt to learn how to find my inner Minus World, whatever that ultimately looks like. To hold myself accountable. To keep myself focused. To create a level map, like in Nintendo Power, to learn how to play this game in a whole new way, and show others how I did it.
Here I go. Down the warp pipe and to the other side. There’s a free controller. Hint, hint.
Image Credit: Singing Mountain, a great podcast for game music that’s sadly dormant.
* Okay, yeah, Minus Princess sounds pretty rad.
This is an excerpt from Geoffrey’s newsletter about making games: Equip Story. Subscribe to it!
