Mario

Mario 64 Expert Climbs One Of The Game’s Trickiest Levels Without Jumping

Scott “pannenkoek2012″ Buchanan is a Super Mario 64 expert known best for achieving memetic status thanks to a complex trick that involved “parallel universes” to complete. Buchanan is a master of the “A press challenge,” which involves clearing levels without jumping. He’s back at it again with a new, spellbinding way to climb to the…

It’s Been A Spectacular Few Days For Mario Speedrunning

The Super Mario games are among some of the most popular in all of speedrunning. From console to console, Mario has been pushed to his breaking point. The last few days have formed a watershed moment for Mario speedrunning as new records in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario 64 move into uncharted territory and…

Twitch Uses Mario Reference To Let Viewers Know Ninja Left

Last Thursday, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins announced he was leaving Twitch to stream exclusively on Mixer. Twitch has subsequently added a tongue-in-cheek reference to the original Super Mario Bros. at the top of his channel to mark the popular streamer’s departure. “The Ninja you’re looking for is in another castle,” a banner at the top of…

Mario Maker Level Locks You In A Room With A Goomba And Your Darkest Thoughts

A lot of the Mario Maker levels that go viral are pretty universally deranged. They’re usually levels made in the “kaizo” style, impossibly hard courses for expert-level Mario players to speedrun. It’s easy to see why these are widely shared online: We like spectacle. Mario games are easy to parse—a tiny plumber is running from…

I did another Mario Maker I wanted to try to do something non-linear this time. I was almost done making it when, while playing around with the parts in the editor, I hit on the idea to use it to pay homage to my favorite YouTube video ever. I really want to make a short…

Everything We Know About The Viruses In Dr. Mario World, Including Their Lethality

Dr. Mario World was released recently and I’ve been playing a lot of it. The latest game in the series, Dr. Mario World is the first built for mobile phones and features new and old viruses. But how deadly are these differently colored viruses and where did they come from? And how many different types…

‘Shop Contest: Freelancing After Making, Winners!

Construction work is hard work. So last week I asked you wonderful Kotaku readers to show me how the Mario Bros. make more money on the side. I got a whole bunch of…strange jobs. I’m not sure how well these pay, but I write about video games for a living. What do I know? Our…

Legendary Mario Player Is Building Some Of The Hardest Mario Maker 2 Levels You’ll Ever See

It’s a good thing you have to beat a level before uploading it in Super Mario Maker 2, or else who knows what kind of twisted horrors longtime player PangeaPanga would be coming up with? Panga is a member of the Kaizo community, a group of bafflingly skilled Mario players who make and speedrun through…

Dr. Mario World Is Classic Puzzle Gaming, With The Good And Bad Of Mobile Gaming

Nintendo’s mobile games have ranged from the simplified platforming of Super Mario Run to the light strategy gacha Fire Emblem Heroes. It’s only natural that the company would move out to puzzle games. At least initially, their upcoming game Dr. Mario World is a fun little blast of brainteasing, but comes with a few of…

‘Shop Contest: Freelancing After Making

Super Mario Maker 2 was recently released and I’ve got Mario Maker 2 on the brain. I also wonder if making levels pays very well? Probably not. So construction Mario and his bro must work some side gigs to help make ends meet. Your challenge this week: Show us what Mario and Luigi do when…

Put Some Checkpoints In Your Mario Maker Levels

I’ve been playing Super Mario Maker 2 nearly every night since the game was released last week and I’ve encountered some really fun and well-made levels. But I’ve also noticed an annoying trend in many player made courses. It seems a lot of level creators are uploading levels without any checkpoints. Maybe some creators are…

Apologies in advance, as I expect my latest Super Mario Maker 2 level to occupy much of the video game discourse for months to come. I anticipate many a thinkpiece. If you want to try for yourself, it’s 7JF-QBH-34G. Just know that you, the “player,” are implicated in all that happens.

Mario Maker 2 Online Multiplayer Is Laggy, Too Basic, And Tons Of Fun

Super Mario Maker 2 is the first Mario game to include online multiplayer, and it’s exactly what you’d expect from Nintendo: The tech kinda sucks, the implementation is extremely bare-bones, and despite all of that, it’s a lot of fun. You can access the various multiplayer options by going into Course World, the online portion…

Mario Maker 2 Is Hiding Two Secret New Power-Ups

While most of the course creation parts in Super Mario Maker 2 are unlocked from the start, there are two that you can’t immediately access. You’ll definitely want them, though. One of Mario Maker 2‘s new features is Story Mode, in which you play through over 100 levels designed by Nintendo. This mostly stands on…

Someone Turned Mario Into A Battle Royale, And It’s The Best Thing

Battle royale is one of the most dominant gameplay forms of the last few years, and Tetris 99 showed that you could apply the battle royale concept to anything. Mario Royale turns the classic NES game into a 75-person death race that’s some of the most fun I’ve had all year. Mario Royale, which can…

If You’re Going To Play Mario Maker 2, You Should Probably Get A Stylus

Super Mario Maker 2 is coming on June 28, the latest in a growing line of Wii U games to get repurposed (and in this case, substantially enhanced) for Switch. I was a bit apprehensive about how Mario Maker would handle the move, since it was originally designed for a resistive touchscreen and the Switch…

The Internet Has Some Ideas For More Mario Maker 2 Game Styles

Leave an empty space on a promotional image, and the internet will fill it for you. This is as certain as the sun rising in the East and setting in the West and gravity keeping us all from spinning out into space. Last night’s Nintendo Direct aboutSuper Mario Maker 2 was a fun reminder of…

It’s Time To Mario & Chill

Following on from last year’s Zelda & Chill, GameChops just released Mario & Chill, a synthwave mix that “explores the rich musical history of the Super Mario video game series through the lens of 80s and 90s electronica.” By Helynt, it clocks in at just under 35 minutes and covers 12 Mario themes, from games…

‘Shop Contest: Mortal Kombat Guest Characters, Winners!

Last week I asked you, the readers of Kotaku, to pitch some guest characters you wanted to see in Mortal Kombat. I got a large and varied list of characters, some of which I actually could see getting added into a Mortal Kombat game in the future. Our winning image this week comes from SeaBeastRising…

Super Mario’s First Level As Ten Different Games

What if Super Mario Bros. world 1-1 was a first-person shooter? How about a 100-player battle royale? A trading card game? A full-motion video adventure? Nordic Game Jam 2019 third place winner 1-1 is all that and more, and you can play it right now. 1-1 reminds me of televised cooking competitions, where everyone is…