Autism and Super Mario Maker 2

 I remember coming home from school in 3rd grade, sitting down to begin my multiplication homework, and quickly becoming extremely frustrated with the distractingly loud voices of whatever television show my parents were watching. After solving a problem or two from my homework, my frustration became too much, leading me to ask my parents to turn down the volume. My parents, not wanting to sacrifice their enjoyment of their afternoon after a hard day at work, weren't eager to listen to my complaints. With only the living room table available for me to work on my school assignments, I had to crunch numbers and ignore the sounds behind me at the same time. Every equation became a grueling undertaking as I struggled to store the numbers in my head before they were torn away by what felt like a fiery noise that surrounded me. Math is already a forest that kids struggle to find their way in; adding fire to that forest certainly didn't help me. I don't know how long it took me to finish, but it felt like too much. This story isn't a perfect retelling of some particular day from my youth; rather, it's just an example of one obstacle I often encountered during my years at elementary school. In the years since then, of course, I have become much better at dealing with noise. I've also come to understand why I have such difficulty with noise: it's part of my autism, part of me.

Whenever I finished my homework, I quickly threw my completed paper into my backpack and found a video game to play. In those days, I mostly played on my family's Wii. One of my favorites was New Super Mario Bros Wii, a game I played for hours and hours with my brothers and, occasionally, my parents. After feeling like I had spent hours on my homework, jumping on koopas and collecting coins was a nice treat. As I grew up over the last decade, our Wii disappeared, its role now filled by our Switch. The games I play have grown as well; New Super Mario Bros Wii had its fun, but Super Mario Maker 2 offers even more – including a recreation of the NSMBW style, allowing Mario fans to reminisce over and reimagine the Wii classic. Super Mario Maker 2 does more than that, though; just as the Mario series has grown over its decades of existence from a blocky, pixelated, 2D platformer to a less blocky, less pixelated, and occasionally 3D platformer, I have grown from a toddler struggling to read the word "cat" to an adult capable of interpreting art and connecting it to my own experiences. I've gone from reading newspaper articles to being able to write them, and Mario has expanded his abilities beyond simply playing levels to being able to build them. In many ways, the growth of the Mario series into Super Mario Maker 2 mirrors my growth as a person.

When I first saw the Super Mario Maker 2 level "1-1 but with a twist", I immediately saw parallels to my autism. As its name suggests, the level is a recreation of the very first level from the very first Mario game, but with a crucial difference: the area is dominated by countless 10-block-wide rotating bars of fire ready to kill the player at any moment. It might be a strange comparison, but when I discovered this level, it quickly reminded me of my struggles with noise as a child. I had simple and commonplace experiences as a child, but my difficulties with handling noise made navigating those experiences exhausting and tiresome. "1-1 but with a twist" shows a similar scenario, taking a level designed to appeal to everyone and complicating it to such a degree that even professional players can spend hours for just a single victory. I don't know why, but this comparison comforts me. Maybe that's because it lets me reimagine my childhood struggles as a game that I can win. Maybe it's because it shows me how much I've grown since then.

I've never beaten "1-1 but with a twist" – honestly, I'm not very good at Mario games – but I have largely overcome my battle against noise. There are still times when I have problems, of course; but even the best Mario players can struggle against the unfair and nonsensical level design of Super Mario Maker 2. There are days when I have to wrestle against the obstacle spam of sensory overload, the pick-a-pipe guesswork of idioms and metaphors, or the nigh-impossible triple shell jump of talking to a stranger. I wouldn't change anything about that. Super Mario Maker 2 is fun because of its emphasis on creativity, allowing players to create both the worst and the best levels imaginable. It's my autism that caused me to struggle with noise as a child and causes me now to compare those struggles to a Mario game. Super Mario Maker 2 is what it is because of the good levels and the bad ones, and I am who I am today because of my problems with and celebrations of my autism. I'm sure 3rd grade me wanted to make changes, and 3rd grade me definitely would have hated Super Mario Maker 2; but I've grown, and I'm happy with the way things are.