"The staff members who have been working on it the longest started around the time Super Mario World was released, so about 5 years. The first two years were mainly spent experimenting with different ideas. We had one idea where Yoshi would move around freely, and he’d support Baby Mario and lead him through the stage. Almost all of those early ideas came to naught, but the one that really stuck and bore fruit for us was the idea of a game where even though you hit enemies, you don’t die."