Hey, You Should Play This #9: A Super Mario Summary

Yeah, I know I did a Mario fan game not too long ago, but this is something interesting and a lot different.  A Super Mario Summary by Johan Peitz takes every level from the original Super Mario Bros. and condenses them down to single screens.  What you get is an almost completely different game, a sort of puzzle platformer that tests your reflexes and has you applying some quick thinking to snag all the coins and reach the top of that flagpole.  Cross the jiggity-jump for more (and as always, the link to go play it!).

The graphics are pretty fun too, a neat re-imagining of the tiles and sprites from SMB in a completely different style.  It goes a long way in up-ing the game's inherent charm level.  Unfortunately, some staples of Mario gameplay don't make the transition from scrolling to single screen-- you won't be grabbing any mushrooms or fireflowers on your quest, but even without those it still maintains to be a pretty fun game.  A couple of things are added to the game to make this new single screen thing work, an Angry Birds-esque three star rating system (based on how high you hit the flagpole) and the need to pick up coins in order to obtain the maximum ranking on all the stages.  This not only adds replayability to the game but makes you look at the levels with an entirely different mindset, and is where most of the game's puzzles come from.

  The game's biggest flaw though is it's sound effects, which I found pretty grating and obnoxious.  They're just a little too high pitched.  Some cool Mario sound-alike music would of been a nice touch, but the game was made in 48 hours for the 23rd Ludum Dare, so I can understand a few things missing like music or cheapo sound effects.  Personally I would of just used ripped Mario sounds (I mean it's already using a copyrighted character, why not swipe some sounds too?) but that might be against the Ludum Dare rules.  Regardless of its no-doubtably time constraint related shortcomings, it's still a fun little coffee break style game that's worth checking out.

Play A Super Mario Summary here!