Mario was created by Shigeru Miyamoto, a titan of the video game industry. He joined Nintendo just when it was shifting focus from creating playing cards to video games in 1977 and helped create some of the most critically acclaimed games of all time. He has been a co-creator of the Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Starfox franchises. He joined the videogame industry because of his love for manga and because he was hugely inspired by the hit game Space Invaders.
The objective behind developing Mario was to create a hit game for Nintendo after the failure of previous games like Sheriff. Miyamoto originally wanted to use characters from Popeye but he wasn’t able to get the license to use these characters until later and had to create his own. Most of Mario’s characteristics were designed in order to make him simpler to animate using as few pixels as possible. This is the reason that he wears a cap that hides his hair, thus saving the trouble of animating his hair for movement. Similarly, his moustache hides his face, removing the need for animating his mouth separately. His clothes, (a blue shirt and red overalls, originally) also serve the same purpose. He was given the ability to jump, to escape rolling barrels if need be.
Mario was supposed to be used by Miyamoto in every game he created from then on and different design teams added their own changes to the central character. Mario grew 3D when the graphics permitted it and his features were given more detail. He was given blue eyes and the colours of his overalls were reversed and golden buttons were added to it.
Subsequent editions of games featuring Mario improved the graphics and widened the scope for what Mario would be doing. He even featured in educational games like Mario Teaches Typing and Mario is Missing! (a geography based game). This year saw a revival of interest in this stalwart of the video game industry when Apple announced its partnership with Nintendo for the release of Super Mario Run. This only confirms that Mr. Miyamoto’s legacy will never really die and that the Italian plumber will remain the most recognizable figure in the history of video games.
**Source: https://www.firstpost.com/tech/gaming/mario-the-story-behind-gamings-most-famous-character-and-star-of-super-mario-run-3724907.html
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