The playful technology I have chosen to write about for this project is one with which I am familiar to a great degree—Super Mario World.  For anyone who might not know for sure which incarnation in the Mario series this is, it is the 2-D original SNES game that introduced the gaming world to Yoshi.  In the sections that follow, I will discuss first the formal constraints (storyline) of the game, then the material constraints (choices available to the player) before discussing how the two align. 

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            The formal constraints of Super Mario World are pretty simple:

1. Princess Toadstool has been kidnapped by Bowser (again). 
2. Yoshi and his friends are imprisoned in eggs and being held hostage in various castles. 
3. Mario and Luigi take upon themselves the quest to save the captured characters. 
4. Nearly everything that moves is a danger to the brothers and should be killed or avoided.
5. The brothers should collect as many power-ups and extra lives as possible.   
6. The game is not over until Princess Toadstool is released. 

The material constraints of Super Mario World are also simple: 

1. Players decide what route to take as they navigate within levels.  By running and “playing” the level as designed, players can fully interact with the environment—killing enemies, gaining power-ups, winning extra lives, etc.  On the other hand, players could elect to fly through a level thereby avoiding all the dangers but also interacting very little with the game. 
2. Players decide what route to take as they navigate between levels.  By taking different routs on the map, players can sometimes avoid certain levels and play others instead to open roads to desired destinations. 
3. Players have the opportunity to set their own goals in this game.  The overall goal is to “win” by defeating Bowser and releasing Princess Toadstool, but other challenges of the game could be to get a high score, collect all the coins possible, win a maximum number of lives, or to finish levels or worlds in record time.  The player can choose what is important to him or herself as he or she navigates the world of the game. 

When one considers how these two lists fit together, it becomes clear that the narrative really provides an end goal only rather than a series of goals throughout the game.  Mario must defeat the castles and Bowser to rescue the Yoshi eggs and the princess, but ultimately, large sections of the game can be skipped when players navigate in specific ways to reach the final confrontation with Bowser. 

On close consideration of the game, one might wonder why the power-ups and the enemies co-exist.  There seems to be no explanation for the various mushrooms, feathers, flowers, stars, or coins that aid Mario along his way.  Perhaps a previous Mario game offered some explanation as to why these power-ups exist in otherwise treacherous worlds alleviating player frustration at a narrative/action mismatch.