Airships

An airship, Super Mario style.

Scott: Dancing or airships?

Helen: Airships.

Scott: Okay, airships.

Helen: No, dancing.

What is an airship?

Scott: An airship is a ship that flies in the sky – I don’t think aeroplanes are airships. I only thought of airships because I played on in 3D Land.

Have you seen one in real life?

Scott: No.

Do they exist?

Scott: I don’t know. Why, do you think they do? Because I’ve never seen one, I’m just going to have to draw a Mario one.

They do exist, but they’re not very common.

Scott: Oh.

They were popular during the early 20th Century.

Scott: Why were they popular then?

Eh, probably because plans weren’t as common.

Scott: Now it’s the other way round – planes are so common. Eh… Do airships have cannons on each side?

No.

Scott: Because that’s what the one in Mario looks like – they’re like ships except they fly. Like pirate ships, the airships in Mario.

Would you like to fly in one?

Scott: Not in the war, but do they look like pirate boats with helicopters on the back?

They’re kind of like balloons with propellers.

Scott: That’s not what an airship looks like in Mario – nothing like it.

Mummy: Like a rugby ball…

Scott: A rugby ball… An airship rugby ball…

A picture of a Mario airship, taken from Scott's DS.

Birthday

Scott: It’s my birthday.

How was it?

Helen: Good.

Scott: Yeah, good.

Helen: Fabulous.

Scott: How did you know? It wasn’t your birthday.

Helen: I just thought it might be.

Scott: Second best. It’s not the best because I was at school.

But was it good apart from that?

Helen: Yeah.

Scott: Yeah. I got to link up with Harvey – there’s actually a channel for linking up on the 3DS.

You better explain – you got a 3DS.

Scott: Yeah – I got a 3DS for my birthday.

Is it great?

Scott: Yeah.

You got some games too.

Scott: Yeah.

So what was the best thing about today?

Scott: Linking up DSes with Harvey.

Helen: No.

What’s it like being eight?

Scott: Not really very much difference.

Is it better than being seven?

Scott: Well, yes.

Why, if there’s not much difference?

Scott: Well, just… So you know you’re another year older.

I’ll change the way your blog looks soon, too.

Helen: Yeah.

Scott: It was the second best birthday ever!

Helen: And Scott hated it.

Scott: If it was my second best birthday, how can you say I hated it?

Helen: There’s a lot of days until your birthday.

Scott: Yes, but I liked it – I woke up at four o’ clock in the morning.

Donkey Kong

Scott's brilliant drawing of a Donkey Kong level.

Who is Donkey Kong?

Scott: Well, Donkey Kong is a Nintendo game really. There’s three versions of Donkey Kong. Well… Hang on… There’s actually four. Actually, five. Yes, five. There’s Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong Country Returns and, for some strange reason, two Donkey Kong Juniors.

Is he a goodie or a baddie?

Scott: Well, baddie really – but sometimes he’s good. What’s really strange is that in Donkey Kong Returns, in the final level, you don’t battle Mario

Who does he battle?

Scott: I don’t know.

What kind of creature is he?

Scott: A monkey.

Helen: And he’s a gorilla, not a monkey.

Scott: He also rides on a rhino. Donkey Kong is the one where Mario was called Jump Man and had to try and rescue not Peach, not Princess, but Pauline.

Helen: Who was Pauline?

Scott: Mario’s girlfriend.

Helen: And who’s Mario’s girlfriend?

Scott: Pauline.

Helen: Is she a princes?

Scott: A princess? No!

What’s your favourite Donkey Kong game?

Helen: Boo hoo.

Scott: Well, Mario Kart really because he’s a playable character. The Mario Kart series is great but overall, I’d say… Donkey Kong. The basic one – Jump Man’s first game. Did you know Mario was also called Osias – O-S-I-A-S, which is Japanese for middle-aged man. And probably his second game was Wrecking Crew. Third was Pinball. Fourth was Mario Brothers NES, which was followed by…

You know quite a lot about Mario.

Scott: Yeah – I learnt all that from one magazine.

Super Mario again

Want to blog about Marlo?

Scott: Yes – because I did two Mario pictures.

You’re quite into Mario at the moment.

Scott: Yes.

Why?

Scott: Well, because that’s probably the only game I really play on the Wii. The Nintendo 64 normal sign is N-N-N, instead of being a game Cube. It’s a cube of Ns.

What ot you back into Super Mario?

Scott: What game was I playing before I was playing Mario? I can tell you what my first experience of Mario was, but, apart from that, I can’t say. Once upon a time we saw an old Mario 64 box in… in a… What are they called again? A skip! And I said: “What is it?” And you wondered if we still had an old Nintendo 64 at home.

And we did.

Scott: And we did. And I mostly played Nintendo 64. But it went “bzz bzz bzz” when I played it.

So we got a Wii.

Scott: We got a Wii.

And you’re hoping to get a 3DS.

Scott: Or a DS. But yes.

What’s so good about Mario?

Scott: He’s probably like 27 or 28 years old now. And probably from y first experience of Mario, I’ve liked him ever since.

What’s so good about him though?

Scott: Probably he’s had hundreds of games and the original Mario Bros for the NES got 40 million sales.

So he’s very popular?

Scott: Yeah, probably.

What’s your favourite Mario game?

Scott: Well, at the moment… I really like Mario Bros 3, but I don’t get the chance to play it because you’re not around much.

Can you not play a one player game?

Scott: No! I want to do it two players so I can complete levels properly.

• At last, we have the scanner sorted, so normal service is resumed!

Mushrooms and smurfs

A mushroom/toadstool and a Smurf posing together especially for this blog...

Scott: Mushrooms?

Okay, as long as you don’t use it as a sneaky way to talk about Mario…

Helen: Can I talk about Smurfs too?

Okay, but I’ll talk to Scott first – what are mushrooms?

Scott: Mushrooms are like… They’re like little umbrellas and usually grow in darkish caverny places and they can sometimes be poisonous.

Helen: And sometimes they can’t.

Scott: Sometimes if you buy them, they might still be poisonous.

Helen: Buy little mushroom seeds and plant them in the ground.

Scott: And you’d plant them everywhere, and we’d die because your foot would eat them: “nom nom nom.”

What do mushrooms taste like?

Helen: Yucky.

Scott: Great and mushy.

Helen: No, they taste yucky – they’d explode you.

Scott: Will they? How come you’ve tried them?

Helen: If you get mushrooms in your oaxters, they’re not the kind you stomp on.

Scott: If you had mushrooms for dinner and stomped on them, that would be funny.

Helen: And you would get an electric toe.

What’s the biggest mushroom in the world?

Scott: I don’t know? 50 feet?

And what’s the smallest?

Scott: One centimetre.

Helen, what do you want to tell me about the Smurfs?

Helen: La la la la la la la la la la la…

Scott: Seriously, what do you want to tell him?

Helen: La la la la la la la la la la la…

Scott: I know what you want to tell him.

What do you think it is?

Scott: She saw it in the cinema. She likes it. She has McDonald’s toys for it. And so on.

Helen: Not toys.

Scott: Yes, you do.

Helen: No, cuddlies. Cinema cuddlies, more like.

Hacks

What do you want to talk about?

Helen: Babies.

Scott: Maybe we could talk about hacks – I’d like to.

Helen: I can’t talk about that.

Scott: Don’t worry, I’ll explain it.

What is a hack?

Scott: A hack is a type of cheat you do to games consoles. Some people put their cheats on to YouTube to make it look as though they really got to play that level. I’ve even seen someone do a cheat that wasn’t really a cheat.

So a hack is like a cheat?

Scott: Yeah.

Why do people do it?

Scott: I’d say… Probably to entertain people who look at it on YouTube. Or to maybe show off or something.

It sounds a bit odd to me.

Scott: Me too. I don’t know why people would do that instead of playing the real game, which is a bit better.

I agree completely.

Scott: Maybe cheating was their career or something.

You mean that’s all they do?

Scott: Maybe they just did it to entertain viewers on YouTube.

Is it entertaining?

Scott: Yeah – I like it, but sometimes there’s a cheat that’s really boring. Just playing as Luigi is boring because Luigi’s like… Em… Luigi’s just like Mario and it’s not like giant mushroom for the whole game or something.

 

The future

Scott struggled with drawing the future, so opted to draw the past - an old Donkey Kong game. So good I've reproduced it bigger than usual...

Let’s talk about the future.

Scott: Okay.

What is the future?

Scott: There’s no better way to say it… Really, apart from going forward in time. Or forward in time.

So what do you…

Scott: So tomorrow’s kind of the future.

What do you think the future will be like?

Scott: (pause) I don’t know – maybe food will bake or something itself. Maybe food will bake itself, you never know.

What will computers be like?

Scott: So powerful – but maybe ever so small.

And computer games?

Scott: The graphics will be so good it will be like real life, I say. They might even suck you into the game so the real life you is in the game. We’d be sooked into the game so the TV would kind of eat you up and put you into the game. That means it would be easier for people who don’t know the controls of the game.

What will you be like as an adult?

Scott: I don’t know.

What will you work as?

Scott: I don’t know. I haven’t thought of that – I’m only seven.

Will you have children?

Scott: That’s a… Yes.

What will your children be like?

Scott: I can’t say that because I don’t know who I’ll be marrying.

What kind of father will you be?

Scott: I don’t know that either.

Like me, or different?

Scott: Three words – I don’t know. How am I supposed to know? I’m only seven…

Helen: (whispers) I’m only 13. I’m not even old.

3DS

What do you want to talk about?

Scott: 3DS!

Why are you so desperate to talk about that?

Scott: Because I’m so excited about having one when it’s my birthday… Well I hope I have one.

Why do you want one?

Scott: Well… Well… For two reasons – or three reasons. Number one – normal DS games fit into it, but 3DS games don’t fit into the normal DS. Number two – you can… Link up DSes with Harvey – that’s spelt H-A-R-V-E-Y – and link play the same game as him. And number three… I… I think it’ll have really good 3D graphics. But when I played 3D Land, it didn’t look 3D even though I turned the 3D on.

Sounds fun – better than the Wii?

Scott: Well, of course – it’s a tiny bit easier to control. I think it’s X for fire, Y to grab… And eight jump… And there’s a little button on the left side, top bottom, that’s the joystick.

Sounds complicated.

Scott: Really quite easy, I’d say.

A DS is expensive…

Scott: Yeah…

So I think you’d have to be a very good boy and a very lucky boy to get one.

Scott: Well, I’ll be good. And my luck… I can’t really control my luck.

Helen: (whispers) Your luck is yours.

What did you say, Helen?

Helen: Don’t put that writing in the blog, what I just said.

Pilotwings

Scott's brilliant drawing of the cover of the original N64 version of Pilotwings.

Scott: Let’s blog about Pilotwings. Is that okay, or do we have to blog about something else?

No, that’s fine – what is Pilotwings?

Scott: Em… Well… It’s a only Nintendo game. It’s… I think it’s like a flying game, so you’re in the air and collect little items. I’ve not played it – do you collect little items? Or is there hoops?

Yes, to both.

Scott: Is it items, like Mario items? Or is it timer items?

I think it’s things you have to collect or touch – they’re not power-ups.

Scott: So, I mean it’s like Mario in a different way. If you touch all the things, you complete the level.

Yeah.

Scott: That’s like in a few Nintendo 64 levels – of you collect all the red coins, you find a star.

Pilotwings is quite like the flying game on Wii Sports Resort.

Scott: Oh yeah – Where you hold up the controller. Do you hold up the 64 remote, or do you use the joystick?

The joystick. Does Pilotwings sound like fun?

Scott: Em… Like… I don’t know how it will work on the DS. I only know Mario 3D Land on the DS.

I think it’ll look good – very 3D.

Scott: Yeah. Mario 3D Land wasn’t really all that 3D. The drawings were just one on top of the other. Realistic, but not 3D. There’s some advantages of Mario 3D Land. It looks like two blocks, but it’s just a bad camera angle.

You’re hoping for a 3DS for your birthday.

Scott: And Mario 3D Land, yes.

Super Mario Bros Wii

All the gang in action in Super Mario Bros Wii - Mario is even holding a helicopter block.

So you’re playing a lot of Super Mario Bros Wii again, aren’t you?

Scott: Yeah.

Why are you back into it?

Scott: (pause) Well, it’s not anything about the levels – it’s more about the power-ups. I can’t believe in that long I’ve gone from world five to world four, world six and world seven.

What made you start playing it again?

Scott: (pause) Eh… Well… I think before this I was just playing as many random games as I could find. Then I came across it and really like it so I thought I would keep playing it.

What’s the best thing about it?

Scott: Em… In world nine, there’s no boss.

Why not?

Scott: Well, they’d run out of bosses by then.

Who’s the best boss?

Scott: I always thought Magi Koopa. You spell that M-A-G-I K-O-O-P-A…

What do you think now?

Scott: Yeah – Magi Koopa is my favourite boss, but he’s usually involved in some boss battles – but you don’t battle him, you only battle him in world eight.

Is it your favourite game?

Scott: Yes.

Is it the best Mario game?

Scott: Well, they said the best selling Mario game was Super Mario Bros 1.

How many did that sell?

Scott: Like, 40 billion – over 40 billion.

That’s a lot.

Scott: Oh – hang on… Over 40 million, or was it billion?

Whatever – it’s still a lot, isn’t it?

Scott: Yeah. They say Mario World 2 – Yoshi’s Island had no sales at all, nor did Galaxy 2.