Chris Higgins
Super Mario Bros Speedrun on Top of a Building
by Chris Higgins - July 8, 2010 - 1:22 PM

Here’s someone playing a Super Mario Bros “speedrun” (running through the entire game as quickly as possible), but the video of the speedrun has been composited onto the wall of a real-world building, complete with graffiti. It’s hard to describe, but the effect is mesmerizing. You can see the entire SMB level on the building, with tiny Mario making his way through it. How did they do that??*

Note: to see it in HD, go directly to Vimeo.

Super Mario Bros. from Surfap on Vimeo.

* = Okay, it’s not a mystery: they used an NES emulator, some fancy compositing software, and a lot of free time. But still. Dude.

(Via Waxy.org.)

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Comments (6)

  1. Software. According to the comments boujou (http://www.vicon.com/boujou/) was used.

    posted by Mike H on 7-8-2010 at 1:37 pm

  2. I was so good at SMB back in the day (beat both the arcade version and the NES version) that I decided to see how fast I could finish the game.

    My first attempt was around 11 minutes, but I kept getting faster and finding better ways to play.

    My personal best time was 5’55.56″ from the time I pressed the start button until Mario touched the princess.

    posted by Wayne on 7-8-2010 at 1:58 pm

  3. The vertical seams and the horizontal edge of the wall allows them to create a plane in a program that is attached to those points in the live action video, then you just project the video game onto the plane.

    posted by Troy H. on 7-8-2010 at 2:34 pm

  4. Neat.

    posted by Christina on 7-8-2010 at 5:16 pm

  5. I had no idea watching a video of a Super Mario game projected on a building could be so fascinating…but I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

    posted by BlueAloe on 7-9-2010 at 10:57 am

  6. That was really cool . . .

    I hate to be “that nerd” but I think it would have been a lot cooler if they had more consistent splicing of the different levels: like showing the pipe to level 1-2 sitting on the other side of the small castle as Mario finishes 1-1, etc. It took away from what appears to be the intended effect to have the entire level disappear, then we see the screen showing how many lives he has left, then having the level reappear.

    But don’t ask me to do it–I’m just here to complain.

    posted by Braden on 7-9-2010 at 3:07 pm

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