Super Mario is Nintendo’s biggest hitter, where nowadays only the best will do the for the overall-clad plumber. In times gone by however, he’s face has appeared on some weird and wonderful projects and today we’re looking at some of the strangest indeed. Mario’s Cement Factory (Game and Watch – 1983) Being that the Game & Watch was one of Nintendo’s least successful consoles (beaten only by the disastrous Virtual Boy), there’s many games on the hardware that have been lost to annals of time. Mario’s Cement Factory is one such game, along with a host of others that looked to cash in on the immense success of the Donkey Kong arcade title by mimicking very similar game design. In this construction-based title, Mario has to guide the cement spewing from the machine above him and into the trucks below him without covering his co-workers on either side of him in the process. To do this, he has to release the cement in each unit to the bottom before it overflows, and is impeded by the fact that moving platforms dictate when he can access the right and left side of the screen. Both a tabletop and handheld version exist, as do multiple updated remakes of the game, but none are quite as peculiar as the original game. I Am a Teacher: Super Mario Sweater (Famicom – 1986) Early on in the life of video games in the late 1980’s and early 90’s, the surge of a new industry led to everyone wanting to get in on the act and take a nice slice of the pie. Looking to breach specific markets while at the same time targeting a very young demographic and selling the game to parents, and an influx of edutainment titles flooded onto home consoles. Now we can look back with the hindsight of intact cringe, but Nintendo were not immune to this explosive frenzy. Super Mario had been established as their mascot and the chief way of marketing to ensure a seal of quality, so the Italian plumber was slapped onto a number of educational games. Possibly one of the strangest Super Mario games (and even one of the oddest Nintendo games) is I Am a Teacher: Super Mario Sweater, in which players would use the software to design a print and then send floppy disks to the Japanese sewing company Royal Industries Co Ltd. along with a fee to have their designs printed onto jumpers. A US version was considered that would ship with a full-size knitting “printer”, but after the Japanese version had very limited appeal, it was (thankfully) scrapped. Super Mario Bros & Friends: When I Grow Up (PC – 1991) Following on from the wave of educational related games is another one that is more loose in its approach to teaching but becomes a stretch to call it a fully-fledged “game” and is more a piece of creative software that kids can use to digitally colour things in, akin to a specialised version of MS Paint. Produced by Merit Software in their line of Electric Crayon games, this title featured various scenes of Mario and Luigi that the player could colour in, acting as a sort of virtual colouring book but with the bonus of that it could be reused again and again. Super Mario appeared in scenes inspired by games like Super Mario Land and Dr. Mario, with a screen of text giving context to the illustration and an explanation or series of facts about the act the brothers were performing or their location, e.g. Mario and Luigi are at a pharmacy, the following text explains what a pharmacy is, what they sell, etc. Other Nintendo IPs pop up in a few scenes like Link and the Monster buggy, as well as additional Super Mario characters like Peach, Bowser, Toad, and Lakitu. You can also print the pictures once you’ve coloured them in, which to give it it’s due, having a drawing of Mario in his SMB3 Tanuki form being examined by vet Luigi is quite cool. Mario’s Time Machine (NES/SNES/PC – 1993/1994) A more purist entertainment title and one of the better known ones, Mario’s Time Machine focuses on teaching kids about human history by having Mario stop Bowser screwing up the course of historical events. In MTM, Bowser travels back in time to various points in history to steal special artifacts like the declaration of independence using his special time-travelling Timulator, displaying the items in his castle’s museum. As Mario, you use the Timualtor to return the items to their correct year and location while learning about the events and people associated with the item by answering questions and talking to people. The game does have a strange look to it with very un-Nintendo visuals set as the background with the Mario sprite from Super Mario World overlaid on them, but the game at least achieves its goal of giving children an overview of various historical events, albeit in snapshot form (with some errors and inaccuracies actually being present). The game was re-released on PC in 1996 as Mario’s Time Machine Deluxe with (cheesy) voice acting and updated visuals. Hotel Mario (Phillips CD-i – 1994) Coming about from the deal Nintendo struck with Phillips that allowed them to use the Super Mario and Legend of Zelda characters (the latter being infamous for their awful games), Hotel Mario was a puzzle game developed by Fantasy Factory and published by Phillips Interactive Media, and is often mentioned in the same damning breath as the Zelda games. In this very hollow outing, Mario has to save Princess Peach from Bowser and his adopted children (hardly breaking any new ground for the plumber story wise) by visiting hotels and closing all the doors. That is literally the entire game. Now I’m not saying you can’t make a great game based around a single mechanic, but the variety factor is non-existent, relying on the same trope over a tedious amount of levels, and … Continue reading The Weirdest Super Mario Games