Super Mario Run: Here's What It's Like to Play On iPhone

December 8, 2016 12:30 AM EST

Super Mario Run, Nintendo’s first Mario-themed game for mobile devices, is launching for the iPhone and iPad on Dec. 15.

What separates this game from other installments in the Mario franchise is the way in which players control the character. Rather than navigating by using directional buttons and action keys, players tap the screen to make Mario jump over obstacles and clear levels. The longer a player presses on the screen, the higher Mario jumps.

After spending a brief amount of time playing, I found that understanding how to play is simple, but mastering the game takes more effort. As is the case with many Mario titles, timing is key in order to clear levels with a high score.

“We didn’t think about bringing an existing Mario gameplay to iPhone and just porting over something that you controlled with buttons before,” Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, best known as Mario’s creator, told TIME. “We really focused on, what is the best Mario experience for what you get with iPhone?”

The images above provide a closer look at the game, which will cost $9.99 when it debuts. To read more about our overall impressions, check out our post here.

TIME's Lisa Eadicicco spoke with Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto about the game. He commented "the biggest challenge was really in zeroing in on those core elements of Mario that would be best suited for play on smart devices."Nintendo

"...we’ve sort of tried to go back to the roots of the original gameplay and reset so that it has an easier entry point for people."Nintendo

"We really focused on, what is the best Mario experience for what you get with iPhone?"Nintendo

"you’ll be able to play not just as Mario, but after going through the game and unlocking some things and meeting some conditions you’ll be able to play as some of the other characters as well."Nintendo

A few things that we did, for example, is we took the Bullet Bill characters that usually come at you from the direction that you’re heading and we changed them and made them red, and now we have them coming at you from behind. The spiny characters with spikes on their shells are also little bigger so they’re easier to see.Nintendo

"By playing these levels and replaying Super Mario Run, I think people will find a lot of fun just in slight changes to the timing of their taps in order to get all of the colored coins or maximize their score."Nintendo

"Even if you’re trying to collect the same group of colored coins, doing so with a different character will require you to do in a different way. "Nintendo

"Actually for us, one of the biggest challenges was deciding what doesn’t go in because we were very quickly able to fill it up with content."Nintendo

Check Out This Sneak Peek at Super Mario Run

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