Mari0

Mari0 is a fan-made video game that combines elements of the video games Super Mario Bros and Portal. The game was developed by Maurice Guégan of Stabyourself.net, who has previously worked on parody games such as Not Tetris. Mari0 was developed with the LÖVE framework, and is cross-platform. The game was released on March 3, 2012 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA). The source code is also available to download.

Released: 3 March 2012
Platforms: Android Linux Windows macOS
Genres: Action Action-adventure Adventure Indie Platformer Puzzle Strategy
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Series: Mario
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Side view
Themes: Action Fantasy Science fiction Comedy Sandbox Party
Engine: LÖVE
Country: Germany
Languages: English

About

Mari0 (pronounced "mari-zero") is a 2012 side-scrolling platform video game developed by German indie developer Maurice Guégan with creative input from Sašo Smolej and released onto their website Stabyourself.net. It combines gameplay elements from Nintendo's Super Mario series and Valve's Portal series. The game features Mario armed with a "portal gun", the main game mechanic in the Portal series, allowing him to create two inter-spatial portals on 2-dimensional surfaces which can transport himself, enemies and other objects through them. It was made with the LÖVE game framework.

Development began in 2011 as a direct port of the original Super Mario Bros. with no clear gimmick in mind. The pair's first idea was to implement a four-player multiplayer system similar to the one seen in New Super Mario Bros. Wii – however, after they viewed a Dorkly video entitled Mario With A Portal Gun, they settled on the idea of including a portal gun and other elements from the Portal series.

Keywords

fishing
unofficial
billiards
high score
free-to-play
mario
digital distribution
shopping
touch controls
in-game map editor
jellyfish
fangame

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The core game of Mari0 plays directly from the 8-bit Super Mario Bros. 2D platform game, where the player controls Mario via the keyboard, running and jumping through levels, avoiding or jumping on enemies to defeat them, while collecting coins to earn points towards their score. The game adds the concept of the "portal gun" from the Portal series; the player can click with the mouse device on two separate surfaces on the level to create a portal between them. This can be used for a number of gameplay options, often using vertical momentum entering one portal to "fling" the Mario character horizontally out of the other portal, but will also affect enemies and other game elements in similar manners.

The game features 2 main level packs: the original Super Mario Bros. levels and a level pack containing puzzles involving the portal system. The game also has multiple built-in DLC levels created by fans of the game.

Development

Mari0 began as a recreation of Super Mario Bros. created by Maurice Guégan in the LÖVE framework. He began the project largely as a creative exercise but also in part because he believed similar recreations of the time failed to match the controls of the original game. From there, Guégan and his friend Sašo Smolej were tasked with finding a purpose for the recreation.

Their initial idea was to incorporate the multiplayer gameplay of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. However, after seeing a video on the humor site Dorkly entitled Mario With A Portal Gun, the pair decided that they would add a portal gun as well.

Reception

Mari0 has been covered on various technology and video game websites. It has gained a lot of attention on sites such as YouTube and Reddit. The game has been well received on various video game blog sites. John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun stated "If it doesn't make you gasp and want to post it to the rest of the internet, then I simply don't understand you." It was covered by Wired and Joystiq.

One year after the release, the game had accumulated 1.6 million downloads from the website according to the developers.