Even before they were “super,” the Mario Brothers were a visible pair in arcades around the world. And the game that put their name on the map celebrates its 35th anniversary this month - arriving in arcades in July 1983, the game was simply called Mario Bros.

Mario himself had previously appeared in Donkey Kong, but his name was “Jumpman.” It was in this new game that his real name was established, as well as his profession. In Donkey Kong, due to the fact that the game stage was a construction site, Mario/Jumpman was referred to as a carpenter. But in Mario Bros., Mario, alongside his brother Luigi, were a pair of Italian-American plumbers who were taking on the dangers of the New York City sewers.

In the game, Mario and Luigi must work together in order to defeat wave after wave of strange creatures. The goal is to defeat a certain number of these monsters in order to advance to the next round. Though Mario and Luigi can jump, they can only defeat an enemy by either kicking it or jumping on it after it has been flipped over; flipping enemies over requires hitting them from underneath the platform they stand on.

Mario Bros. was the result of a collaboration between Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, who had both helped develop Donkey Kong. The idea was to give Mario/Jumpman some degree of superhuman ability, as he would lose a life in Donkey Kong if he fell too far downscreen. In designing the game, they felt that New York was a good setting due to its labyrinth-like underground systems, and based many of the graphics seen in the game on popular manga from the time.

The game was only a modest success worldwide, largely due to the video game industry crash that was taking place in America around the time that the game launched. However, it received a number of home console versions, including ports to the Atari 2600, Apple II, Commodore 64, and of course to the Nintendo Entertainment System. Mario Bros. is somewhat often seen as a playable mini-game in other Mario series titles, such as in the Super Mario Advance series. Though extremely simple in its nature, it was the basis for what was to come for this legendary gaming mascot.