Abhishek Singh, an amateur video game designer, recently uploaded a video to YouTube that showcases a game he created for the Microsoft Hololens. The game is an augmented reality version of World 1-1 from the original Super Mario Bros.
Since the game requires a lot of physical space, Singh goes out to New York City’s Central Park dressed as Mario to play it. Upon starting the game, 3D 8-bit hills, blocks, enemies, clouds and pipes arise around Central Park. The level is scaled to life-size, so some of the pipes are as tall as Singh himself, making them impossible to jump over for a normal, non-Mario human. Singh has no problem jumping on Goombas, however, and the game seems fairly responsive to Singh’s actions. Of course, World 1-1 was never meant to be played in this fashion, so there are parts where Singh has to walk off the 2D plane and around obstacles.
It is unclear if Singh plans on releasing this game to the public or if he simply wanted to show off AR capabilities, or his own game designing abilities. It is also unclear if he got any kind of permission from Nintendo to use Mario assets. If Singh doesn’t release the game, it might not be a problem, but Nintendo has a track record of not being super enthusiastic about fan-made games in the past. Earlier this year Nintendo shut down a fan-made project called Zelda: Breath of the NES, an 8-bit version of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and last year Nintendo shut down Pokémon: Uranium Version, a fan-made Pokémon game nine years in the making. So even if Singh does make the AR Mario game accessible to the masses, Nintendo will probably have it removed within a day or two anyway.
You can watch the video of Singh playing the game below.