Development
Talks began between The Lego Group and Nintendo in Summer 2015, where the upper management of Nintendo asked to collaborate with the company.[21] This followed into a discussion which generated many ideas, before voting on what idea to use. The idea that was the most popular was the idea of an interactive figure. The team did not have much to work with, with the only words to work with were "do something that only these two companies could do together. It's a Lego product, but it's also a Nintendo product". Lead designer, Jonathan Bennink took some inspiration from the toys-to-life video game Lego Dimensions, but in reverse by bringing the video game to life using toys.[22] The team also took inspiration from Super Mario Maker, taking the idea of players constructing Mario levels and incorporating it into Lego building.[5] The sets themselves took inspiration from many mainline Mario games, however describing the result being "a mix between Super Mario Bros. and also 3D World, with the rounded corners".[23]
With the figure itself, the concept for making Mario took two years. Bennink and his teams brainstormed a wide range of ideas and prototypes that took advantage of different technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality. Another design involved the figure having a giant screen to display Mario's face, but decided against it due to the vacant void left when being turned off. Bennink then came up with an interactive 3x3 brick with a display, something of which the team had not seen before, and decided to settle on it.[24] The design went through rigorous testing for durability and strength, resulting in Nintendo dropping 6,000 prototypes to ensure its quality.[25] Many prototypes were taken to Kyoto workshops for further testing, with the help of Nintendo's creative leader, Takashi Tezuka.[26] These visits occurred often before they were stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The sound effects that are emitted from the figure were newly recorded lines from Mario voice actor Charles Martinet, as well as music from composer Koji Kondo.[27]
The Lego Super Mario theme was first teased on March 10, 2020, also known as MAR10 / National Mario Day, on both Nintendo and Lego's Twitter accounts, depicting Mario's LED display.[28] The theme itself was then official revealed two days later, when Nintendo released a trailer detailing the sets and overview.[29] Official Lego Stores set up demos for the theme, allowing customers to test it out.[30] The Lego Nintendo Entertainment System was first leaked online by Chinese website VJGamer and German websites Promo Bricks and StoneWars, leaking price and date info.[31] On July 13, 2020, the Lego Twitter account posted a silhouette of the set before being officially revealed the next day.[32][33] Both the theme and the NES set released on August 1, 2020.[34]
In July 2020, Design Manager Jonathan Bennink and Marketing Director Christian Munk discussed the Lego Group and Nintendo became close collaborators on Super Mario. Jonathan Bennink explained: "But there is also LEGO DNA at the core of it because after that rough patch that we had, with management asking 'where are the bricks?', in one of the online brainstorms we came up with the idea of the start and the finish. And that anything you build in between out of LEGO bricks is a level. This was also the time where we added the colour sensor to it and this meant that Mario didn't just react to the RFID bricks but also any other bricks, because he can read the basic LEGO colours. Now the whole level became interactive. Then we came up with the idea of collecting coins and you can get coins from jumping on the enemies, from beating the challenges. We added a timer to it, you can get blocks that will give you a little bit more time, for example on the Piranha Slide where you spend a lot of time balancing, you want more time. That is how it evolved into what it is now." Christian Munk explained, "I think we have a unique partnership with Nintendo. This is a LEGO line and the LEGO development process but this has truly been cocreated together with the partner – three times a week we are having Skype calls with Nintendo, they have been helping us as Jonathan said with the tech part and also with the game part, what makes this fun for kids to play, so it's a good Nintendo and LEGO experience. It's all about being creative, so what we are hoping is the kids will create the coolest and wackiest creations possible and then play them out to see how many coins they can collect."[38]
Jonathan Bennink revealed why the upcoming theme does not use minifigures and how the interactive character was developed. Jonathan Bennink explained, "Mario himself looks like he is built out of fused LEGO bricks. For instance, his tummy is the car element, the car hood, and his hair is 1×1 LEGO set plates, so he looks like he is built up from LEGO bricks. Then the enemies followed suit, because the line is all about building and creativity we also felt that the enemies needed to be built rather than moulded out of one piece. Boo is super rounded in the game but he is square because it is a LEGO version."[39]
Jonathan Bennink and Christian Munk revealed why Super Mario took four years to develop and what they learned from Lego Dimensions. Jonathan Bennink explained, "Yes it did, our bosses are not too happy with it but we made something in the end, so that's good. It's definitely about finding the play recipe, that took one and a half years, from that initial idea of an interactive character, then what do you do with him? Because a lot of tech toys out there, they are fun for maybe a day, and then they drop off and here we hope there is a longevity in building levels, just coming up with your own ideas and putting your own creativity into it, and then sharing that with people around you. That just took a little while, then we had to make everything, and then Nintendo was also very concerned about quality and safety so everything that we shipped to them, they dropped five thousand times as well to make sure that it is strong." and Christian Munk explained, "Just to build on that, what also makes me really proud is we have probably one of the first truly interactive play experiences from the LEGO Group. But also what makes it truly unique is it is a hand held interactive play experience where you have the LEGO Super Mario figure in the middle but then you can build this whole world of interactive play around, so you actually build the world yourself. Of course you can follow instructions but you can creatively free build your own level, it's not special bricks, he reacts to the colour of the bricks, so you can also use the bricks you already have to build a cool world, and then he reacts both to the way you play out the world but also how you have built it, and that's what I am particularly proud of in this line."[40]
Jonathan Bennink discussed the building instructions are digital rather than the traditional printed instructions and explained, "we simply couldn't explain this new way to play on paper. We tried to prototype that a lot, believe me, with arrows kind of showing how to jump with Mario [...] on paper, it's just too difficult to explain. Kids just skip it. Basically, anything that's not a building instruction they skip because they think it's optional. So by putting the building instructions in the app, it also allows us to put videos in the app, and a 2 or 3 second video tells so much more than a page with say 15 arrows kind of flying around trying to explain a movement. And we know from other projects that kids really appreciate the 3D building instructions because they can get a good 3D view of the build and see exactly where the brick is being placed."[23]
