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January 21, 2025 12:01 PM

Most Mario games with polygonal logos have a different color per letter, but the sequence of colors in Mario’s name is rarely the same sequence across games. This captivated me—for some reason—and I set out to analyze every Mario video game logo to see if I could find a pattern for specific arrangements of colors and to determine the “most Mario” color scheme: The Most Mario Colors
posted by chavenet (12 comments total)

When I was a kid and fascinated by Carl Barkʻs wildly creative Duckburg world, I once tried to ascertain who was who among Huey, Dewey and Louie, using the colors of their red, green and blue hats. Tried and tried and tried, delving deeper and deeper into my comics collection. Not all episodes clarified which duckling wore which hat, but some did, so I persevered, marking into a ledger whenever Mr. Barks chose to reveal the kidsʻ names/hat colors. No pattern ever formed.
posted by Droll Lord at 12:21 PM on January 21 [17 favorites]

Luigi green is the most Mario game color. Heroic color.
posted by nofundy at 1:57 PM on January 21 [2 favorites]

In case anyone else wondered - the O in Super Mario Odyssey is a green and blue globe, which is why the color is listed in the charts as "?"
posted by caution live frogs at 2:07 PM on January 21 [3 favorites]

Peak Internet nerd. Love it.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:11 PM on January 21 [3 favorites]

My kinda guy. A few years ago I determined which Irish political party was most patriotic by calculating the Euclidean RGB distance from their official publicity-and-bunting to the #009A49; green of the national tricolour. Exec Summ Patriot Games 1st: Sinn Féin 2nd: Fianna Fáil 3rd Greens 4th Fine Gael 5th SocDems. But several defunct parties incl Clann Éireann (founded Jan 1926: merged with FF August 1927) and Socialist Republican Party (1944-1949) were yet more patriotic.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:25 PM on January 21 [6 favorites]

& this is why I internet. Thank you for sharing!
posted by psylosyren at 2:41 PM on January 21 [2 favorites]

🍄
posted by HearHere at 4:20 PM on January 21 [1 favorite]

Was about to post that this dude so needs to have 88x31 gifs on his site. Went back and scrolled down juuuuuust to be sure....

Nevermind. Dude totally has 88x31 gifs on his site.
posted by ifatfirstyoudontsucceed at 9:07 PM on January 21 [1 favorite]

I love it.
I have this mental image of the art director, behind locked doors, shaking dice in a cup and making throws... "M is... 23... hmmm... and 20 to 25 is green!"
posted by TrishaU at 12:17 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

I went to one of David McCandless' "Information is Beautiful" workshops and it was about this sort of thing - find a data set, break it down into something visibly pleasing, come up with some fun interpretations and maybe predictions. That's how I ended up on the BP Lecture Theatre stage at the British Museum presenting my findings on optimal character selection in Street Fighter II when you're a goldfish.
posted by Molesome at 3:17 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]

Well don't hold out on us, what's the optimal character choice for the fish? I'd guess one that can dish out a lot of damage with the simplest commands, maybe also someone who can absorb a lot of damage since the fish obviously can't dodge or block.
posted by star gentle uterus at 7:34 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

It was Dhalsim at first because of decent distance chip damage, but this changed when the tank mapping was altered from a 3x3 grid to a dial that including hadouken input. All a fish had to do was float in the upper right of the tank and they were guaranteed a win with Ken/Ryu/Sagat.
posted by Molesome at 12:59 AM on January 23