Just because video games are unrealistic doesn’t mean you can’t play around with them and look at them through a scientific lens. Over at PBS Digital Studios’ new channel, SpaceTime, host Gabe Perez-Giz measures height and time and then uses just a little bit of math (that you can do at home and shouldn’t be scared of) shows how the gravity of Super Mario World can be calculated.
Cutting to the chase a little – Super Mario World’s gravity is just under eight times that of earth. “Now wait,” you say, “Wouldn’t that mean Mario would be squished?” Well, yeah…but he’s not, so how can he do what we see him to?
The freakishly powerful leg muscles of an Italian plumber, of course (but now that “Italian” this is totally under suspicion, since Super Mario World isn’t earth, and it’s never been made clear if SMW has it’s own “Italy”…).
The whole thing then gets a touch creepy when Perez-Giz takes us down the road that has to consider Mario not being human, after all…or is totally set in a parallel universe.
Check it out – and try to use the method Perez-Gil uses on other games. Our bet – despite “realistic physics” being all the rage in video game design, there’s a lot more fast and loose going on than you suspect.
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