Portal-Mario Mashup, Mari0, Arrives Without a Price Tag

Mike Kayatta

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Aug 2, 2011
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Portal-Mario Mashup, Mari0, Arrives Without a Price Tag


Indie developer Stabyourself has released a new method of putting shells through portals.

Indie games can be wonderful in their own right, but sometimes fill a purpose that so-called regular developers cannot: squishing together our favorite franchises into sweet, sweet crossover sandwiches. Sometimes it doesn't work; melding something like Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing with Superman 64, for example, would likely be a gigantic unpalatable mess. But if that's like a pickle and horseradish gyro, then Stabyourself's new, downloadable Mario-Portal blend, Mari0, is like a peanut butter and marshmallow-fluff sub! (That's supposed to mean it's good, by the way).

Taking cues from Minecraft, Team Fortress and Portal, Mari0 is a platforming mishmash of features and gameplay. At first, the game seems to be nothing more than the original Super Mario Brothers with a portal gun (which should be enough for most of you already) but digging deeper reveals a bevy of interesting, and sometimes flat out strange, new features. Firstly, there's the fact that Mario no longer has to save the princess alone. He can now bring along three additional "Mario"s to help out in real-time coop (even though that's just asking for awkward when you finally find her). Next, there's the visuals. The game comes with multiple filters to adjust how things look, while Mario himself has over thirty different silly hats to sport during his adventures. There's even a robust level editor that lets Mario move and redistribute the blocks around him, letting you modify your favorite level or create something wholly new.

Stabyourself might not have the friendliest handle on the web, but it sure seems to like us enough to program Mari0 for free, and release it on all major desktop platforms: Windows, OSX, and Linux. You can pick up the quirky little title right now [http://stabyourself.net/mari0/] from the developer's website, where (ahem) there's also a donate button so you can support its general efforts if you feel like it.

Source: PC World [http://www.pcworld.com/article/251265/hey_look_its_mari0_the_portalmario_mashup_is_finally_here.html]

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T'Generalissimo

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Nov 9, 2008
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Well, given how Nintendo tends to respond to these sorts of things, if you're interested in playing this, I would advise downloading it sooner rather than later.
 

theheroofaction

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Jan 20, 2011
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T said:
Well, given how Nintendo tends to respond to these sorts of things, if you're interested in playing this, I would advise downloading it sooner rather than later.
You know, our announcements are probably the single largest killer of fangames in existence.
 

Beautiful End

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Feb 15, 2011
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SirBryghtside said:
From what I've played so far, it's fun, but... DAT LIFE LIMIT. Half of the point in Portal is to screw around and learn from your mistakes, Mari0 just doesn't allow that.

Still very fun, though. Great concept.
Exactly my thoughts. I was trying to get the hang of the game and BOOM! Dead! Time ran out.

Eh, I'm not much of a PC gamer. The controls are just too awkward for me. In the first level, I only made it halfway through the level. In the first level. I know the controllers can be changed to my preference, but seeing how his game also needs for you to use the mouse buttons (For the portals), it feels very awkward for me.

If I even gain the necessary skills to play this game, I'll give it a shot.
 

Blue Musician

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Mar 23, 2010
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While I had fun with it, it still has the stupid lives system and the timer, which immediately put me off. Still it´s a very good mashup.
 

Jailbird408

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Jan 19, 2011
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Blue Musician said:
While I had fun with it, it still has the stupid lives system and the timer, which immediately put me off. Still it´s a very good mashup.
Me too, except replace "put me off" with "infuriated me to the point where my opinion of the game pluumeted from 'awesome' to 'utterly awful.'"
This is the most disappointed I have ever been in my life. Everyone's talked about the timer and lives system, let me talk about absolutely everything else.
About the only positive thing I can say about this game is that, with enough time and effort, you can make goombas stand on each other.
Everything else? Awful. The controls don't make sense, the difficulty curve in StabYourself's mappack can be likened to an acute angle, the puzzles have obtuse and confusing solutions (if they have a solution at all) and the BUGS! If I didn't die because the timer ran out, I died because I placed a companion cube in front of a laser and it ended up BEHIND ME?!
Guys, do not download this game. You will be disappoint.
The fun is a lie.