Nintendo Announces Super Mario Run Game for Smartphones

Super Mario will soon be jumping into the portals of phones everywhere, hitting his head on a few brick blocks along the way. Teaming up with Apple, Mario creator and Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto announced that Nintendo’s Super Mario Run will debut on iPhones this holiday season at Apple’s iPhone press conference.

In an interview Miyamoto did with Time, he explained how he wanted to make the game more accessible by making it so that it can be played with one hand. “The approach we took was, ‘How can we take that essence of the simplicity of Mario and bring it to mobile devices?’ And that meant thinking about a game that would run automatically, on its own, but where there’s still the challenge of jumping and things like that, that are uniquely Mario.”

According to VentureBeat, Mario will automatically run to the right and players will have to tap the screen at varying speeds to make him jump to a certain height. Like the traditional game, players can collect coins and attempt to reach the flag pole before time runs out (or until he gets killed by Bowser). There will also be a battle mode where players can compete against each other, as well as one in which players can create their own Mushroom Kingdom.

Super Mario Run is already being promoted in Apple’s App Store, both within a banner and under “New Games We Love.” Those who want to download the game can also decide to be notified when the app hits the store.

Nintendo also intends on debuting five mobile apps by the end of this year, as well as adding a Mario-themed sticker pack to the App Store to help users get into that Mario-running spirit.

Super Mario Run, in partnership with DeNA, will launch on the iPhone and iPad in December 2016. Android users will have to wait a little longer for Mario to jump into action, expected to arrive sometime next year.

Will you be downloading Super Mario Run?

Photo credit: Dylan Baugh, Flickr

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