Super Mario Bros 3 PC Prototype from id Software
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited as footage of a famous piece of gaming history whenever id Software, Commander Keen, or scrolling tech comes up.
What it is
A short clip of the Super Mario Bros 3 proof-of-concept PC port built by id Software's founders to pitch Nintendo on a PC version. Nintendo passed, and the same technology led to Commander Keen.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2019 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Cites gaogao · 2019-04 · on “Super Mario Bros. has been released for the Commodore 64”
The smooth scrolling is pretty hard. One of my favorite bits of Masters of Doom about id Software was when they hacked a port of Super Mario Bros 3 to the PC, but as history can tell, Nintendo didn't bite on that one. [this video]
Cites ohithereyou · 2019-06 · on “Developers don’t want to show gameplay at E3 anymore”
One of the things that I wish was available to customers on a regular basis is the playable demo that was pitched to a company for a game that gets picked up. An example of this would be id software's demo for Super Mario Bros 3 on the PC[0] (even though that didn't get picked up). [0] [this video]
Cites enneff · 2023-07 · on “Commander Keen's Adaptive Tile Scrolling”
They actually did a port of SMB3 and presented that to Nintendo. When Nintendo didn’t bite, they made new assets to make what became Keen. Here’s a video of the port: [this video]