Automated Mario

September 3, 2007 1:48 PM

Automated Mario User-created levels from Super Mario World that play themselves. One more here.
posted by puke & cry (39 comments total)

Note: The levels are hacked from Super Mario World, not 'Super Mario Brother 3.'

My favorite is around 1:20 in video #5, where the creator makes the shell hit the blocks in time with the music.
posted by flatluigi at 2:04 PM on September 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's like digital dominoes.
posted by JDHarper at 2:04 PM on September 3, 2007

My son and his friend happened to be walking by when I clicked the first link, and they totally enjoyed it, so thanks on behalf of them. We watched the first four clips on the playlist and bookmarked the rest for later.
posted by amyms at 2:04 PM on September 3, 2007

So pointless... yet... so awesome!
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 2:19 PM on September 3, 2007

Incredibly well done and amazingly insane.
posted by gcbv at 2:20 PM on September 3, 2007

Yeah, sorry I wasn't thinking properly. Super Mario World, not SMB3.
posted by puke & cry at 2:23 PM on September 3, 2007

Yeah this is friggin sweet. In addition to dominoes, it reminds me of the way I used to use Hot Wheels car tracks to do crazy shit with marbles.
posted by autodidact at 2:24 PM on September 3, 2007

Is anyone else noticing audio synch problems? Youtube really needs to fix that, it happens in a lot of videos.
posted by delmoi at 2:45 PM on September 3, 2007

Smiling ear-to-ear over here for a lot of reasons.

I'm amazed by the complexity of these self-playing levels. The interlocking parts and precision timing reflect the computational origins of the created worlds.

The characters in the worlds, too, also have a charm missing from the first-person-shooter/perspective games so popular in the contemporary era. Giant ghosts who play peek-a-boo, carved stone gargoyles that come smashing down onto brickwork, self-propelling saw engines who chuff along hair-thin rails--they all give the game a personality that is charming, menacing, and memorable. The music also contributes to this dimension and really speaks to the dedication of the artists who designed this game.

I hadn't thought that these automated levels are reminiscent of "dominoes" and race tracks with "Hot Wheels" and marbles. That is they're basically virtualized Rube Goldberg machines. Fantastic.

I'm really glad, though, that there are only eight shorts (with the ninth being so-so) because I would be watching well past what could be called "reasonable procrastination."

Thanks, puke & cry, for the Labor Day goodie.
posted by mistersquid at 2:57 PM on September 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

Is anyone else noticing audio synch problems? Youtube really needs to fix that, it happens in a lot of videos.

YES. All this time, I thought it was just my PC. Windows Vista is just so easy to blame, you know?
posted by katillathehun at 2:58 PM on September 3, 2007

I have updated the text of this post out of deep respect for the Mario canon.

Independent of which, christ, that's fantastic.
posted by cortex at 3:07 PM on September 3, 2007

Can someone translate the following into latin? "Our hobby is your waste of time."
posted by furtive at 3:10 PM on September 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's as fun to watch as it is to play!
posted by Citizen Premier at 3:15 PM on September 3, 2007

Our hobby is your waste of time

Amusus Procrastini

(more)
posted by takeyourmedicine at 3:30 PM on September 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

furtive: With the caveat that my Latin is very rusty, you're looking at something like "Studium nostrum luxuria temporis vestra est."

And yes, I grasp the irony of the fact that I just sat down and translated that.
posted by Schlimmbesserung at 3:52 PM on September 3, 2007 [3 favorites]

So apparently SMB 1-3 and Super Mario World all have had level editors released. Kinda obvious in hindsight, but I never heard of this.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 4:04 PM on September 3, 2007

A real delight to watch. Thank you for posting this.
posted by interrobang at 4:14 PM on September 3, 2007

Amazing. So what was the deal with all those On/Off switches? What did they do?
posted by grouse at 4:15 PM on September 3, 2007

So what was the deal with all those On/Off switches? What did they do?

They toggle the paths for the chainsaws and the floating piece of wood.
posted by furtive at 4:36 PM on September 3, 2007

Mario Magoo!
posted by Laugh_track at 5:01 PM on September 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

This is what Deep Blue does in its retirement.
posted by paulinsanjuan at 5:21 PM on September 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

So do these run without use of the direction pad, or without use of the controller at all? In the second one on the playlist, Mario picks up a blue shell... that requires holding a button, right?
posted by gsteff at 5:28 PM on September 3, 2007

Neat! But is there still no way to save someone else's playlist to your YouTube favourites? I hate having a nice neat playlist already set up for me, like this one, but having to go and recreate it manually if I want to save it. Also, boo audio sync problems.
posted by good in a vacuum at 5:34 PM on September 3, 2007

This is yet another highlight of what seems to me the great triumph of human nature: that, given any system with set boundaries, humans will eventually discover and exploit everything that can be done within that system. I do not consider this person's work a waste of time in any way. Rather, I am delighted that there is an army of people like this person, and that each of them is manically digging into something different. It doesn't matter if it's hacking video games, playing with Lego, playing music, documenting pop culture, or anything else -- because it follows that there are people doing the same thing with getting to space, curing cancer, or even getting around to making those flying cars already.

I tend to call this sort of thing "misdirected creativity," mostly when I do it myself, but in truth there's no such thing as a wrong way to be creative. Every whimsical obsession is a tiny bulge in the aluminum boundary of the Jiffy-Pop pan of the human experience. There have to be vectors in every direction for the whole thing to expand.
posted by darksasami at 5:42 PM on September 3, 2007 [11 favorites]

Uncredible!
posted by unregistered_animagus at 6:42 PM on September 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

That was entertaining as hell. Thanks, P&C! Bookmarked for the kids.
posted by sidereal at 7:02 PM on September 3, 2007

wait--something's fishy here. If no one's at the controls, shouldn't Mario fall asleep and start dreaming of spaghetti and ravioli?
posted by jeremy b at 8:09 PM on September 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

So do these run without use of the direction pad, or without use of the controller at all? In the second one on the playlist, Mario picks up a blue shell... that requires holding a button, right?

It looks to me like these demos are being run with the "pick stuff up" (b?) button held down, and some of them also hold down on the D-pad so that Mario will slide down slopes.

The fact that I can tell this probably reflects negatively on my life.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:20 PM on September 3, 2007

This is ... the greatest thing I have ever seen. I can't even watch any more of them here in the cafe because I'll bust out laughing and people will look and think I'm a lunatic.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:33 PM on September 3, 2007

darksasami thank you for helping me understand the error of my comment. Seriously!

Thus:

So awesome... yet... so awesome!
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 8:38 PM on September 3, 2007

Amazing.

One question: how does he enter the pipe in the Ghost level?
posted by roll truck roll at 10:01 PM on September 3, 2007

roll truck roll, I'm pretty sure that the message box just before the pipe says something like, "For the rest of the level, hold Down, Y and B." It's not following the same parameters as the rest of the levels (though at least one is "hold Down the whole time," as TheOnlyCoolTim noted), but it is setting up a new set of parameters for the boss fight.
posted by darksasami at 10:24 PM on September 3, 2007

I want to download these levels, just so I can see if it's possible to get through them manually :P
posted by tehloki at 12:52 AM on September 4, 2007

I often prefer watching video games to playing them. Dragon's Lair was much more fun when someone who actually knew how to beat the game was at the controls, anid I finally got to see him take down the dragon and save the damsel. Of course, what's the difference between that and just watching a cartoon? Nuthin'.

This link was a fun waste of time. Thanks Puke & Cry! =)
posted by ZachsMind at 2:47 AM on September 4, 2007

Wonderful stuff.

And it reminds me of the tricks I used to look for in the canonical levels, to allow me to get through certain parts without thinking / extra mashing. Many's the level I would die a thousand deaths at a certain point, only to realize that if I jumped or tossed or whatever at a certain point earlier in the level I could zip right through all the hard parts.
posted by bovious at 5:05 AM on September 4, 2007

given any system with set boundaries, humans will eventually discover and exploit everything that can be done within that system.

That's 100% true, and it's inspiring. It's also what I would tell someone like my grandmother to help her understand how unbelievably creative these videos are.
posted by tepidmonkey at 1:32 PM on September 4, 2007

This is art.

And the syncing issue is a Flash problem.
posted by ookamaka at 9:42 PM on September 4, 2007

I'm just curious, how much time it is required to make one level like this?
posted by Rudy_Wurlitzer at 8:46 AM on September 5, 2007

There was that artist who removed all of the dangers/bonuses from Super Mario Bros, to make an existential game in which all you do is walk around...until you die.
posted by richlach at 11:17 AM on September 5, 2007 [1 favorite]