Skip to main content

The first level of 'Super Mario Bros.' is awesome in augmented reality

If you have played even just one video game in your life, there is a pretty good chance it is the original Super Mario Bros. Nintendo’s classic platformer still stands as one of the best games ever made and its first level is, without a doubt, one of the most iconic courses in gaming history. But what would it be like to play it in the real world with augmented reality? Now, we don’t have to wonder anymore.

Developer Abhishek Singh re-created level 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. for Microsoft’s HoloLens headset using Unity3D, and the results are both incredible and bizarre. Singh, dressed in Mario’s classic overalls and cap, walks through a park filled with the bushes, warp pipes, Goombas, and blocks found in the stage. Jumping and “touching” a block earns him a coin, while touching a mushroom makes him power up. As he is in the real world and can’t literally get larger, all other items displayed become slightly smaller, instead.

Recommended Videos

After collecting a fire flower, Singh even manages to take out a group of enemies by pinching his fingers together and pointing them forward. Encountering a Koopa, he knocks it out of its shell and then kicks it to send it spinning off the course.

The only thing the augmented reality demo doesn’t appear to replicate is vertical movement. As he approaches the block staircase that Mario can use to reach the top of the course’s flag, Singh is forced to walk off to the side and grab the flag from the bottom. Responding to a YouTube user’s request for the underground area of level 1-1 be included, he said that he would find a way to do that without “defying physics.” As there is not a physical object for Singh to stand on, he naturally would just return to the ground.

While it is strange seeing regularly proportioned human beings next to Mario, Nintendo is taking a similar approach with the Switch game Super Mario Odyssey. One world in the game, “New Donk City,” is a metropolitan region with human beings, traffic lights, and other “normal” objects that we don’t traditionally see in the Mushroom Kingdom. The game is currently one of our most-anticipated titles for the remainder of 2017 and earned the top prize in our E3 awards.

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Super Mario Bros. Wonder almost featured a realistic Mario and surfing
A Wonder Effect appears in Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Last year, Nintendo brought Mario back to his 2D roots with a surprise new game, Super Mario Bros. Wonder. The critically acclaimed platformer was an instant crowd-pleaser thanks in no small part to its namesake feature, Wonder Effects. These power-ups completely transformed Mario’s world, letting its developers experiment with wacky ideas from wiggling pipes to singing Piranha Plants.

The notoriously secretive Nintendo has now peeled back the curtain on how those creative swings came to be. The company hosted a panel about the game’s development at this year’s Game Developers Conference. In it, Producer Takashi Tezuka and Director Shiro Mouri went in depth about how it built Wonder Effects. The panel included some wild ideas that ended up on the cutting room floor – enough to fill a sequel.

Read more
Mario vs. Donkey Kong remake’s new levels feel right at home
Mario and Donkey Kong stare each other down in Mario vs. Donkey Kong.

When it comes to Mario, Nintendo has remake fever. The publisher is currently on a hot streak as it revisits some of the series' cult classics. We got a strong remake of Super Mario RPG last November and a new version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is on the way this year. In-between those beloved titles, we're getting a full remake of Mario vs. Donkey Kong, a unique Game Boy Advance puzzle-platformer. It's something of a 20th-anniversary edition considering the original launched in 2004.

Ahead of its launch, I played through the remake's first four worlds. For the most part, they're 1:1 recreations of the original's levels, with a charming visual boost that's not far off from what we saw in Super Mario RPG. What I wouldn't realize at first, though, is that one of those worlds was an entirely new addition made for the remake. That's how naturally its new content slots in to a very faithful recreation.
Tiny changes
Like Super Mario RPG, Mario vs. Donkey Kong's Switch remake isn't trying to mess with fans' nostalgia. The core gameplay loop is entirely unchanged here: Mario moves through bite-sized 2D platforming levels turned into small puzzles. Each level has me finding a key and bringing it to a door, before sending me to a second screen where I need to rescue a mini Mario toy. I watched a YouTube video of the original game's World 1 after beating the remake's and it was almost identical.

Read more
Our favorite Switch games of 2023: Tears of the Kingdom, Mario, and much more
Link stands behind text that says Best Switch Games 2023.

If 2023 was our last full year with the Nintendo Switch, what a heck of a sendoff it got.

The rumor mill has been buzzing for months now, claiming that Nintendo plans to reveal and release its Switch successor next year. While that’s a rumor you should take with some skepticism, there’s good reason to believe it may happen. Nintendo reportedly showed off the system to developers behind closed doors at Gamescom this year, and the Switch’s current 2024 lineup feels like the final drop we’d get right before a new system. The Switch could be old news this time next year.

Read more