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• Why not use a tilemap?
• Where can I find the grid reference for stage 1-1?

Using a tilemap for level design does make the process of constructing the levels easier; however, it makes other aspects of the game more difficult to implement. I did use a tilemap for my first iteration of the game but as soon as I started scripting everything in the game, it become clear that a tilemap was only making the game much harder to make.

Frankly, Unity's tilemap system isn't very good if you want to have interactive, scriptable objects placed on a tilemap. For example, some of the blocks are animated when Mario hits them. There's no straightforward way to do this without jumping through some loopholes. I'm not saying it's not possible, but it becomes a lot harder and ultimately not worth it, in my opinion.

You cannot even attach a script to an object placed on the tilemap unless you install a tilemap "extras" package. I used this package in my Pacman tutorial, but I wanted to keep this tutorial as simple as possible, so I decided not to use a tilemap.

The reference image can be found here: https://github.com/zigurous/unity-super-mario-tutorial/blob/main/References/1-1%20Grid.png