Mario - like pretty much every other 2D platform star - runs from left to right. That's just the natural order of things, and has been since the platforming genre began decades ago. However, Mario's direction isn't just a stylistic choice; apparently, our brains prefer left to right movement.
Lancaster University psychologist Peter Walker is the man behind the theory, and he has analysed thousands of images of people and objects in motion in order to compile the journal Perception.
Here's what he said:
What artistic conventions are used to convey the motion of animate and inanimate items in still images, such as drawings and photographs? One graphic convention involves depicting items leaning forward into their movement, with greater leaning conveying greater speed. Another convention, revealed in the present study, involves depicting items moving from left to right.
Interestingly, this only seems to apply to moving objects, and not static images - like photographs. Walker's research would indicate that there's a "fundamental left-to-right bias for visual motion", and that means that Mario will always be better than his sibling.
[source gizmodo.com]
Comments 32
Luigi says the otherwise...
Makes sense, just about everything we do is left to right
Did he test people who are used to reading/writing right to left or not ? (e.g Arabic or Hebrew).
Doesn't mean much if he didn't.
But don't the Japanese like things right to left?
My brain prefers chocolate.
Pitfall Harry moved to the right before Mario.
Just sayin'.
@Dipper723 exactly. I'm sure there is a reason why Mario goes right to left but i doubt its anything to do with brain stuff.
Uhm... More like we've been CONDITIONED to prefer left to right. Did this guy test non-Westerners?
While it would certainly be interesting if our brains do prefer left to right movement, I'd have to look at the particulars of the study to see how rigorous it is. While I find going from right to left in a platformer odd, how do I know it's not just conditioning from playing so many platformers that go left to right, as well as other things in my upbringing (such as writing left to right like others have mentioned). You see the effects of conditioning especially in Mario Kart, which is why it takes a while to get accustomed to Mirror Mode.
@Dipper723 Comics and books in Japanese go from right to left, but their horizontal writing system is left to right like ours. Most of the time they'll write from top to down in columns that you have to start reading from the rightmost one, but when writing horizontally for certain purposes, they'll write like us, so I guess it would make sense for them that if they should make something travelling horizontally, like Mario in Super Mario Bros. levels, it would be from left to right.
@Kafei2006 I see.
I wonder if that's a western thing. As @Kafei2006 says, JPN has a lot of right to left media.
Is it not because the pad with the d pad is on the left and the buttons are on the right? As a physical/subconscious link between the player and the game.
Actual psychological studies go through numerous trials in case the conclusions are just self-fulfilling. This seems like one of those studies where they stopped short and just called it a day with one sample set.
@unrandomsam From the source:
"The left to right bias can also be found in typography: Italics, used to convey motion or speed, always appear to be moving from left to right, even in Hebrew texts where the reader's eyes scan right to left."
I got the first Metroid when I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. I only played the first Super Mario Bros. and a few other games. I was stuck for days BECAUSE I DIDN'T REALIZE YOU COULD GO LEFT AND GET THE MORPH BALL FROM THE BEGINNING! Also as far as left and right. Most Manga artists draw and design their comics from right to left, and if they're reversed for English publication it has been known to expose many flaws in the artwork. If you're ever drawing and have the ability to scan or (flip layer horizontal), you can easily check for overseen mistakes.
This is ethnocentric dribble, typical of scholars who become diluted by their own grandeur.
That reminds me, I hope we can change this in Mario Maker. lol
It sounds like they did include such other cultures, seeing as they found a difference with static images. If it was truly our conditioning from reading left to right, then they should've found the same preference with static images. Besides, would it make sense for the Japanese themselves to design left to right platformers if they were conditioned to prefer it the other way through their reading?
Um...okay?
@Damo Italic type debuted in the 1500s, while hebrew inscriptions debuted nearly another 2,500 years earlier. Keep in mind greek type (800 BC) was left-to-right. Cute attempt, but the sort of shallow thinking the article elicits doesn't hold any value.
@warvad You've completely lost me. I was quoting the source as the original question related to Hebrew text.
There have been many writing systems for writing both left-to-right and right-to-left, but ultimately it has been the tools and physical media that has made the choice for us. Writing with your right hand with ink and nib required the hand to move left to right, and book printing turned it into a uniform script because you needed to lay tiny metal letter fonts into the trays.
Asian languages have largely been written with a brush that can keep the hand elevated to allow many directions, also their printing letter fonts were based on square ideograms that can be laid uniform in any direction.
But when it comes to the video games, reading direction is a definite learned factor, but it's hard to say if there are inherent preferences to going left to right or interpretations due to direction. It has been a theme of image composition since the dawn of history, that left is home and right is adventure; left is sorry and right optimistic; left is known and right is unknown... Although the following research tells:
"The aim of the present study was to determine the extent to which aesthetic preference, previously attributed to cerebral dominance, may be determined by reading habits. One hundred and sixty two normal subjects were presented pairs of images, one being the mirror-image of the other, and were asked for their aesthetic preference. Half of the subjects were left-to-right readers (French subjects) and the other half were right-to-left readers (Israeli subjects). We found a significant effect of reading habits on aesthetic preference, with left-to-right readers showing a preference for stimuli with a rightward directionality while right-to-left readers preferred stimuli with a leftward directionality. These findings raise the question of an interaction between cultural factors and cerebral dominance."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926641000000215
In the start of the first Mario game he is situated slightly to the left of the screen, giving the player the incentive to start by going right. But interestingly Super Mario World starts with a crossroad, it would be cool to do a test and see how many people would choose which and if it correlates with any other aspects of the player's relation to the game.
All this debate and Miyamoto probably did it because of the limited hardware he had to work with.
People have brought up some convincing arguments. Many ancient Roman and Egyptian relief stories are recorded from left to right. Also keep in mind Super Mario only scrolls one direction, wheras all future Mario titles scroll both ways. But I do think there is precedance. The CRT beam scans left-to-right and top row to bottom row, too!
And that is why the Japanese read from right to left...?
His analysis is flawed and abit lazy. Many previous studies show that right-handed people work from left to right, but left-handed people from right to left (just that we lefties are forced to work from r-to-l). Left-handed people also work better with clocks with the numbers backwards (i.e., 12.11.10.9..etc rather then 12.1.2.3) - if you are left-handed try a reverse clock face - you'll be surprised how easy and natural it feels versus a right-handed friend!!
oops, '...work from r-to-l' should have been '...l-to-r' !
@Samurairu
Get a new Thesaurus?
@ThumperUK
When I was learning to write, my left-handed brain told me that I should do it right to left. I mean if 'they' did it left to right it only made sense to me. It caused some problems with teachers whose logic differed from mine. I could write mirror image faster and neater than the correct way. Still can. It just feels more natural.
We lefties learn to adapt to a right-handed world because we have to. It's a given that when work stations can be set up for lefties production improves.
I use regular scissors the regular way. I use the mouse with my right hand, but I had a Wacum tablet with the stylus in my left for work.
I'd love to play Mario right to left.
Tell that to Ghostbusters 2 for NES
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