This article was published on June 21, 2017

Super Mario Bros. in AR offers a peek at the future of gaming


Super Mario Bros. in AR offers a peek at the future of gaming

Everything old is new again. Old, in this case, is the NES classic that introduced many of us to gaming. New, is a recently re-designed level using HoloLens that allows players to become their favorite fictional Italian plumber through the power of augmented reality.

Developer Abhishek Singh recreated a single level of the classic game and played it in New York’s Central Park. He did it dressed as Mario himself, but I’d assume that part is optional. Over the course of about a month, Singh used Unity — a game engine popular with developers — to integrate each block of 8-bit artwork into a real-world environment.

Singh says:

I also had to model all the assets and elements of the game and at times rethink the experience and gameplay to work in a real-world 3D setting. The most time was probably spent on tweaking the game to work in a large outdoor environment,” Singh wrote in an email to UploadVR. “It still has a few quirks but is definitely playable. The final level was more than 110m long!

If this offers any indication on where AR can go from here, I’m all in. One request: let’s play Contra next.

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