'No Mario's Sky' Release Updates and News: Game is Lovechild of 'Super Mario' and 'No Man's Sky'; Features and How to Play
So we have No Man's Sky, that incredibly popular game of procedurally generated planets, and Super Mario Bros., that classic platforming game of turtle shells, mushrooms and Yoshis. Both incredibly ubiquitous, both fiendishly fun, and just begging for a hackneyed crossover to happen.
Luckily for us, dreams do come true. And now the world is graced with the two games' lovechild: No Mario's Sky, which was developed by a team of Australian developers for the Ludum Dare game jam. It's exactly as amazing as it sounds, retaining the iconic 8-bit graphics to recreate a new infinite universe with less-than-conventional levels.
What it's about
The team described No Mario's Sky as a game featuring "1000s of Goombas, an infinite universe, Muscle Toad, 'Original' Music, 'Faithful' physics, social commentary about interplanetary colonialism, and a radical space ship." Social commentary about interplanetary colonialism with a radical space ship? Sounds like a true winner!
How to play No Mario's Sky
In plain English, the goal of No Mario's Sky is to search for Princess Peach in an infinite Mario universe. Like No Man's Sky, our favorite Italian plumber jumps on different planets with different species of Goomba, atmosphere and gravity effects. Because it's an infinite world, Mario will finish the level only to face off with Toad telling him Peach is in another planet, after which he'll jump on his M-themed spaceship to launch to another randomly-generated planet.
If you've played No Man's Sky, you may find the more structured form of No Mario's Sky to be limiting; on the other hand, if you're an avid devotee of Super Mario Bros., then you might find the curving worlds and shifting perspectives discomfiting and quite different from the 2-D experience the classic world offered. Moreover, because it's specifically developed for PC, it may be difficult to get around the physics of your jump, which is primarily controlled by the arrow keys.
But what can you look forward to in this game? All the classic Mario songs getting their own remakes, mutant Goombas with teeth and wings, and winged poop. Oh, and you can also jump ship whenever you feel like it, although learning how to control it can drive you insane.
Interested in playing the game? No Mario's Sky can be downloaded for free here (And quickly too, because Nintendo is notoriously protective of its intellectual property, as we've all witnessed with the fate of fan-made Pokemon Uranium).