Lego Super Mario Concept
For as long as I could remember, I always had a dream of my two favourite things in the world crossing over: Lego and Mario. Not only would I have begged my parents for every set possible, but I would likely gotten to play a Lego Mario game that would surely release alongside the merchandise.
Conceptually, a Lego Mario game is perfect. Both already exist as games, so just mix them together. However, the gameplay of Mario is significantly harder than that of Lego games, as Mario games often focus more on Mario's platforming moveset, whereas Lego games focus more on short environmental puzzles and gameplay sequences (which can include platforming, but no where near to the degree of a Mario game).
The biggest problem with creating a Lego game based on the Mario IP is that Nintendo would only allow the game to be sold on a Nintendo platform. This would obviously lessen the potential audience of the game significantly as the game wouldn't be available to the PC market or other consoles. In saying that, there is a very high likelihood that anyone who would be interested in a Lego Mario game already owns a Nintendo system, but generally speaking, the game wouldn't perform as well as a typical Lego game as they reach a broader audience from being available on all platforms.
For this game concept, I began by writing down what the overall narrative of the game is. I wanted the game to feel more like typical Lego game, but with a Paper Mario game-esque narrative, where the game takes advantage of the fact that it's made of Lego instead of being "normal".
I then came up with mechanics for a handful of characters within the Mario universe that could be put into levels / the narrative. The main restraint with coming up with these mechanics was factoring in the typical Lego game move set, otherwise it would just be a Mario game with Lego visuals instead of a Lego game about Mario. This means that the platforming will not be as diverse as it would be in a normal Mario game, but it would contain more moves than that of a typical Lego title.
From there, I began to concept other Mario related things that could be translated over to the Lego game formula.
Mario is iconic for it's use of power ups, so I knew I wanted to include them in the game for sure, and that I wanted them to function similarly to how power up suits work in Lego Batman games.
All Lego games include various collectible types, so I came up with Mario themed collectibles that would easily fit the requirements of existing Lego collectibles.
Lastly, factored in the open-world element of the game. Since Mario has so many environments to look to, it would make sense to create a world that would feature a handful of the areas.
In addition to the vast world, Mario has had many vehicles over his many games. These range from casual go-karts, to galactic space ships, so there's plenty of vehicles that could be converted into the Lego visuals to help players traverse the map.
With all of the finer details outlined and the narrative set for the game, levels can be ideated which will carry out the narrative of the game and take the players to the many different areas of the Mario Universe.