The Mario franchise has come an awfully long way since it was first released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, splintering off into cross-platform games, movies, TV shows and more. And it's become so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that endless lore and fan theory has developed alongside its different iterations.
One fan has given one of the best responses I've seen to the Super Mario universe and its confusing array of levels and lands, attempting to bring order to the video game's sprawling design – no mean feat as proved by the length of the project. They've spent a full 100 days mapping out the whole of Super Mario's planet – and made an epic video explaining their process, theories, assumptions and more. If you're a Mario fan you'll love this (it's one of the best uses of map design we've seen) – see the video below.
The video, created by Charlie from YouTube channel CharlieandLuke, is a delightful mashup of fan theory worked out of hours spent playing the game and information taken from various sources including other series in the Mario universe (like Warioland), Mario movies, concept art and more. He starts out by laying down some ground rules and then jumps into the process, one land at a time. Charlie then discusses each land, one at a time, from The Mushroom Kingdom to Dinosaur Land, The Flower Kingdom and Kong Country.
Charlie cross references the different creatures found in each land (such as judging how many Yoshis migrated to each land), looks at game detail like where the pipes start and end up, considers weather patterns and also references made to geography/location throughout the Mario franchise. But he does so much more than this during his action-packed video full of clips from different games.
I love how Charlie combines hard 'facts' about the lands with his own interpretations, such as when he's discussing the geographical features of Dinosaur land. It is assumed that the land mass of Yoshi's island used to be attached as one, but slowly broke apart from "natural erosion, several attacks from Bowser over the years and the heavy, earth-shattering movements you'd expect from the kind of creatures you'd expect to find somewhere called 'Dinosaurland'. This is the kind of brilliant deep dive you get throughout the whole video.
The final result is a 2D map, which shows the whole of Mario's planet laid out in an easy-to-digest way. Brilliant.
This project is the perfect companion to the Super Mario Bros 3D remake I covered last week, which saw the platform game remade in Unreal Engine 5. Both bring new joy out from the Mario universe – I've loved seeing fans get so creative with beloved video game characters. If you want to make your own project, see our best animation software guide.
