suppermariobroth

Work Has Begun on the Supper Mario Broth Database

Hello!

Thank you once again so much for your continued support! I hope that the things I have done since returning to work have been to your liking! Here is a brief summary:
-I have begun writing long-form articles again. The last one was a week ago, with the next one coming later this week, and more every week of November until December, where they will become even more frequent. In addition, this month's long-form podcast is in the process of being written, with the projected release being the week between the 18th and 24th of Nov...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 51: Three Letters, Two Digits

Welcome, everyone, to the 51th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone - and the first long-form Patreon article created in my capacity as a full-time Mario obscure content archivist, all thanks to your incredible support! Let's dive into the depths of Mario's world together!

Today, I will be analyzing the internal filenames of Paper Mario maps, pointing out oddities that may provide insight into the game's development.

2024-10-30 22:35:57 +0000 UTC View Post

I'm Back! - Plans, Schedules, and Taking Suggestions

Hello!

To those who have recently so graciously decided to support my work and join: Welcome to the Supper Mario Broth Patreon! Here, you will see the full extent of my passion and dedication for Mario with long-form articles, podcasts, and other in-depth content! To those who have been members for a longer time and whose support has enabled me to get this far through my times of need: Welcome back to the Supper Mario Broth Patreon! I am so terribly sorry for not having had the ability to update it due to my real-life res...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 50: Into The Weapon Realm

Welcome, everyone, to the 50th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Today, I will analyze a fascinating document detailing the early bosses, enemies and basic story structure of Super Mario RPG. 

Into the Weapon Realm

Super Mario RPG was released in 1996 for the SNES, featuring a wide variety of both friendly and enemy characters. The game's story, being the first role-playing game in the Mario franc...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 49: Galaxy Colosseum

Welcome, everyone, to the 49th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Galaxy Colosseum

As the years go on and more and more video games across the industry are developed to heavily incorporate - or be entirely built around - online functionality, the scenario of content for a game being lost forever when that online functionality is shut down or no longer supported becomes more common. In the Mario series, the mo...

A brief update

I am terribly sorry, but I would like to inform you that I have been sick for the last few days (though luckily not with any strain of COVID-19, as determined by testing), leaving me unable to work on the daily articles. The notes for the next episode of the Supper Mario Broth Supper Show podcast have been finalized and it will be released as soon as I am able to record it, which should hopefully be tomorrow or in the next few days. The daily articles should also resume at the same time.

I apologize for not having been able to prepare ...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 48: Technical Snow-How

Welcome, everyone, to the 48th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

In this article, I will talk about the technical aspects of displaying snowfall effects in various Mario games over the years.

Technical Snow-How

As we approach the end of the year, snow has already begun falling in most places in the Northern Hemisphere that regularly experience snowfall, so it is a fitting time to talk about how snow is...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 47: Jigsaw Japes

Welcome, everyone, to the 47th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

In this article, I will tell a story of anticipation and disappointment as I extracted what ultimately turned out to be a faulty jigsaw puzzle from a Japanese guide for Donkey Kong '94.

Jigsaw Japes

The Game Boy version of Donkey Kong is more commonly known as Donkey Kong '94 as it was released in 1994, and to reduce confusion with the mo...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 46: When The Moon Hits Your Eye

Welcome, everyone, to the 46th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

In this article I will analyze the color theory behind choosing the Power Moon colors in Super Mario Odyssey.

Please note that due to running into unforeseen difficulties with the preparation of my Supper Mario Broth Supper Show podcast, I was unable to write an article for December 12th. I apologize; as I believe I have been able to resolve all issues, the produc...

Mario's Relationship with Oxygen: Supper Mario Broth Supper Show Episode 6

Welcome to the sixth Supper Mario Broth Supper Show podcast. This is the beginning of the new schedule where the podcasts are shorter, but are released weekly. Please note that the podcasts are no longer scripted as writing a 10,000+ word script every week on top of the daily articles and the operation of my public blogs is not feasible. 

The transcript will be available a few days from now as I am prioritizing releasing the podcasts. If you wish the transcripts to always be available at the time of the podcasts' releases, please ...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 45: Gain a Mario, Lose a Mario

Welcome, everyone, to the 45th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

In this article I will analyze what the most correct way to refer to the lives in Mario games is, according to the games themselves.

Gain a Mario, Lose a Mario

Since the dawn of video games as a medium, certain universal concepts appeared and needed to be given names that are both useful at describing the concepts in question and memorabl...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 44: The Broth Recommends

Welcome, everyone, to the 44th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

In this article I will present 5 less well-known or popular Mario games as a way to expose them to an audience who may be interested in trying them out.

The Broth Recommends

This article is slightly different than usual. Long-time patron Fish has suggested that since I specialize in obscure Mario infromation, I could write an article reco...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 43: C'est Moi, Mario

Welcome, everyone, to the 43rd issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Today, we will once again be taking a look at a unique set of Super Mario 64 maps, this time from the French 64 Player magazine.

C'est Moi, Mario

Those who have read all of the articles on the Supper Mario Broth Patreon may notice this is not the first time I am showcasing maps of Super Mario 64: in fact, I have written two articles about...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 42: Yoshi's Branded World

Welcome, everyone, to the 42nd issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Yoshi's Branded World

Yoshi's Crafted World was released for the Nintendo Switch in 2019, first being showcased at E3 under the working title of simply "Yoshi". Even in the first trailer, one intriguing detail about the handcrafted world was that the backsides of some objects appeared to be made out of packaging for products that appear to exis...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 41: Concerned about Bowser's Health

Welcome, everyone, to the 41st issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Concerned about Bowser's Health

The Super Mario Maker series is built around the idea that most objects can interact with each other, which enables a richness of gameplay interactions known in game development vocabulary as "emergence". 

Emergent behavior means that although only the individual behavior of e.g. each enemy in a stack is progra...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 40: Nintendo Power Cards

Welcome, everyone, to the 40th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Today, I will showcase all the Mario-related special collectible card sets published in the Nintendo Power magazine.

Nintendo Power Cards

As most North American Nintendo fans know, Nintendo Power was Nintendo of America's official print publication, which ran from 1988 to 2012 for 285 issues.  During this time, many promotional and extra cont...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 39: Windows To The Cosmos

Welcome, everyone, to the 39th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Today, I will talk about the different types of windows in video games and analyze the windows seen in the Super Mario Galaxy games to provide examples.

Windows To The Cosmos

The environments of video games are filled with small details that, due to their relative lack of importance, are going to be overlooked, barely noticed, or not give...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 38: The Hints That Never Were

Welcome, everyone, to the 38th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Today, I will analyze Cranky Kong's unused cryptic hints found in the code of Donkey Kong Country.

The Hints That Never Were

Donkey Kong Country, released in 1994, was the first appearance of Cranky Kong - or, at least, his first appearance as Cranky Kong, since this character is actually supposed to be the original Donkey Kong f...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 37: Randomness in Excess

Welcome, everyone, to the 37th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Today, I will showcase the entirety of the content pertaining to the randomly generated passengers on the Excess Express in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

Randomness in Excess

Like many other players who enjoy the worldbuilding in video games, I prefer to read all NPC dialogue when I play a role-playing game. Often, this is as easy ...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 36: Wario: Superstar Saga

Welcome, everyone, to the 36th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Today, I will explore a very surprising reference to Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga found in WarioWare Gold.

Wario: Superstar Saga

WarioWare Gold was one of the last games released for the Nintendo 3DS, and in fact the last game developed even partially by Nintendo for the system. Despite this, a lot of effort and care was put into the...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 35: Hidden Lives

Welcome, everyone, to the 35th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.

Today, I will showcase all instances of an obscure feature that Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 have in common: 1-Up Mushrooms that appear when touching a set of invisible activation zones. Both level editor views showing the precise locations of these zones, and animated .GIFs showing the 1-Up Mushrooms being obtained in-game are provided.

I am intending to ...

How to Increase Your Chances of Winning at Super Mario Bros. 35: An Illustrated Guide

On October 1st, 2020, Super Mario Bros. 35, an

The World's First Comprehensive Map of the Deep Woods

Few locations in Super Mario Odyssey are as mysterious and unsettling as the hidden Deep Woods area in the Wooded Kingdom.

For those who have followed the game since its announcement in January 2017, the first look at the Deep Woods area happened at E3 2017, where select journalists were able to play an expanded version of the demo available on the show floor. While the regular attendees had access to the Sand and Metro Kingdoms, these outlets...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 34: Creating a Fantasy Forest

Welcome, everyone, to the 34th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone. 

Today, I will analyze the design of the Forest area in Donkey Kong Country Returns and how the developers have created an ecosystem from scratch using fantasy elements.

Please note that all images used in this article are either taken by me in various emulators or by using noclip.website, an onli...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 33: Mario's Frequency Distribution

Welcome, everyone, to the 33rd issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone. 

Today, I will present my findings on how often each word appears in the titles of Mario franchise games, both in list and word cloud form.

Mario's Frequency Distribution

The amount of video games that can be reasonably called "Mario games" is immense. Even games where Mario is directly playable number in the hundreds; however...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 32: Super Luigi Odyssey

Welcome, everyone, to the 32nd issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone. 

Today, I will discuss what unique outfits Luigi could wear in a potential Super Mario Odyssey sequel, provided he is playable and the same outfit customization exists there.

Super Luigi Odyssey

One of the features that differentiates Super Mario Odyssey from all previous Mario platformers is the introduction of cosmetic outfi...

The Focused Design of Donkey Kong Country 3: Supper Mario Broth Supper Show Episode 5

Welcome to the fifth Supper Mario Broth Supper Show podcast. In this 1 hour-long episode, I discuss the level design of Donkey Kong Country 3 and how it is able to create a streamlined platforming experience with only few new mechanics or elements added in each level. The podcast starts with me talking about the design of Mario game levels, so even if you are not particularly interested in the Donkey Kong Country series, you may want to listen to, or read, the beginning section to learn more about the design paradigms of Mario platformers. 2020-01-17 08:34:28 +0000 UTC View Post

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 31: Deciphering the Pianta Language

Welcome, everyone, to the 31st issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.  

Today, I will examine textures from Super Mario Sunshine that appear to depict nonsense symbols which, upon analysis, turn out to be coded English.

Deciphering the Pianta Language

It all began 8 years ago, in 2012.

The author of the - at the time - newly founded Tumblr blog "Supper Mario Broth" had asked me to pro...

Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 30: Mysterious Mountainside

Welcome, everyone, to the 30th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone. 

Today, I will examine the Tall, Tall Mountain slide from Super Mario 64 and point out some little-known details about it.

Mysterious Mountainside

Super Mario 64, despite its status as one of the most famous video games of all time, still contains areas that the average player of the game would not have visited during their pl...

The Lost Humans of Isle Delfino: Supper Mario Broth Supper Show Episode 4

Welcome to the fourth Supper Mario Broth Supper Show podcast. This is the first podcast in what should be weekly releases for the $3 level Supper Players support tier, as opposed to the old ones that were intended to be monthly, but which I unfortunately did not manage to release in a timely manner due to their scripts being immensely long, reaching 40,000 words in one case. This particular episode will be free for non-subscribers to view as an example of the podcast, however, the subsequent episodes with be for $3 or higher tier supporters ...