From Mario’s Mustache to the Very First Easter Egg: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Video Games

The video game universe is full of interesting facts. Discover some of them in this video

Covering everything from action to adventure, from platforms to sports to simulations and strategy, videogames have been making millions of people happy and keeping the world entertained for over 50 years.

But did you know why Mario’s mustache was invented? Or why PlayStation controls have their famous symbols? Find out in this video that reveals five fascinating gaming facts.

5 Interesting Facts About Video Games

1. Why does Super Mario have a mustache?

Picture Super Mario: denim dungarees, red baseball cap and... his characteristic mustache. Although Mario’s image has improved technically over the years, Miyamoto’s character looks almost exactly the same as when he first came to life. And that’s not for aesthetic reasons, its for technical ones.

The original Mario was a 16x16 pixel image, so Miyamoto decided not to make life difficult and created a basic design that made the most of this limited number of pixels. Long sleeves and dungarees demarcate the body, a cap means he didn’t have to animate hair in the falls and a mustache replaces the mouth, which was harder to design on such a small scale.

2. The PlayStation Symbols

You may not know anyone who hasn’t played PlayStation. But did you ever stop to think what the symbols on the controls actually mean?

They were created by Teiyu Goto, who designed the PlayStation controls and decided to associate each button with a symbol, meaning and a color.

The green triangle represents the head or direction of the player, and referred to their point of view. The pink square represents a sheet of paper, which indicates menus or documents. And the red circle and blue cross were used to make decisions: circles for yes and crosses for no, (although these two symbols were inverted for the Western market where the idea was that a cross allowed you to select something). At least that was the initial idea. But the meaning of the symbols has varied since the controls were invented, to keep them in line with game being played.

3. What do characters do when you make them wait?

Generally speaking, video game characters go forward and move according to the player’s wishes, but what happens when you stop telling them what to do? You get what’s known as idle animations.

These cover every movement your character makes when you’re not controlling them. They are super popular in action games, where it’s very rare for the character to stand still!

The best thing is that every idle gesture allows you to get to know a little more about your character’s personality, which gives you more clues about what they’re like.

Anyone forgotten Sonic impatiently stamping his foot?

4. What was the very first video game Easter Egg?

“Easter Eggs“ are the hidden messages or graphics you can only find when you enter hidden areas of the game or follow specific patterns.

Initially people believed the first Easter Egg was planted in 1979 in Adventure when one of the developers inserted their name into a secret screen, but the honor actually goes to the Starship 1 arcade game, created years earlier. When you find the Egg, the message “Hi Ron“ appears on the screen and you get 10 extra lives.

5. A desert, E.T. and a game publisher

It was 1982, E.T. had just been released and Atari wanted to seize the opportunity of its massive success. So they designed and manufactured thousands of copies of their new game in a matter of only four weeks. But it’s never good to rush.

The game was a failure that accelerated Atari’s demise, ultimately burying the company. LITERALLY! Thousands of copies of the game were buried in a landfill in a desert in New Mexico.

Love this video? What’s your favorite video game? Let us know in the comments.

And if you want to learn more about video games, you’ll find all our related courses here.

English version by @studiogaunt

You may also like:

- How Video Game Soundtracks Help You Level Up Your Creativity
- Essential Keyboard Shortcuts to be more effective in Unity
- What Is Low Poly? Learn About Polygon Art for Video Games and More