in the form of flowers which, when blossoming, provided effects such as speed up and invincibility. In 1985 Super Mario Bros. introduced the Super Mushroom, which has entered popular culture, being described as "the quintessential power-up". The original game idea was to have an always big Mario as a technical advance, but later the power-up was introduced to make him "super" as a bonus effect. The development team thought it would be interesting to have Mario grow and shrink by eating a magic mushroom, just like in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Other power-ups introduced in this game were the Super Stars and Fire Flowers, which gave Mario invincibility and the ability to shoot fireballs at enemies, respectively. Konami's 1985 game Gradius had the first use of a selection bar where the player could select which power-up effect to trigger, instead of having a fixed instant effect. In 1986 and the years after, the concept of permanent power-ups appeared in the action role-playing genre in the form of perks. Types of power-ups Power-ups can be classified according to the type of benefit they give the player. Offensive abilities Power-ups can give players a new weapon, or transform the player character into a more aggressive form that increases its attack power or makes some enemies vulnerable. This also includes "nukes", which are weapons that destroy every enemy on the screen at once; these are prevalent in many different genres including vehicular combat, run and guns, and platform games. The effect of the power-up can be time-limited, have a limited number of uses, last until the player is hit, last until the player is killed, or last until game over. Examples: Mega Man series: Weapons are earned from the Robot Masters/Mavericks upon defeating them. The weapons are kept until the game is turned off (unless a password is used which can bring the player back to a point after the weapon was acquired) or when the game is completed. Donkey Kong: The hammer that Mario (Jumpman) can use to destroy barrels and fireballs. Pac-Man: Power pellets can be picked up by Pac-Man, allowing him to attack ghosts. This also makes Pac-Man temporarily invulnerable. Super Mario Bros.: The player can smash overhead bricks by jumping into them after picking up a Super Mushroom, and can throw fireballs at enemies after picking up a Fire Flower. In addition to those two; there are ice flowers,