Indicators in Super Mario Maker 2: Evolution and Rhetorical Signification in Visual Languages

Abstract

As a key element of user experience, communicating expectations to a user through visual elements instead of natural language can produce a more intuitive interface as users interact with a system. While such visual languages are developed by domain experts for specific purposes, these languages can also grow, change, and evolve within a community of users in the same manner as natural language. Video games are one area where communication with the user directly affects the enjoyability, usability, and accessibility of the system. While work has been done to create and leverage visual languages in order to gamify learning or improve accessibility, this research focuses on the creation and evolution of these visual languages by external experts. This exploration of a "crowd-sourced" context-aware visual language through the lens of a structural linguistic framework examines a system of indicators that has evolved over time, created by the very users of the language, to communicate the expectations and necessary actions to complete a task with other members of the community. Extending the analysis and design of visual languages to account for linguistic theory affords designers new tools and approaches in their own work, as too often disciplinary experts can be restricted by conventional understanding, "best practices", and what can be considered a "legitimate" object of study. In this paper, we examine a recent and widely popular visual language of indicators used in the Super Mario Maker games, and show how this use of indicators is central to making a usable text, a playable level, creating a relationship between player and designer that foregrounds the human elements in creating a visual language to assist users in a task. Or, in the case of "Troll" levels, prevent the user from doing so.