A Super Mario Thing

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Hey there Raocow, this is everyone!

A Super Mario Thing is an aptly named ROM Hack of Super Mario World by Talkhaus, the community surrounding Let's Player and YouTuber raocow. Originally made as a "tribute" to his hack-related efforts, it's a game that follows his at-times-surrealistic commentary to a T - even moreso if one doesn't know about the plethora of insider jokes with which the community could not help but fill the game. It was started and originally managed by Kristian, and later taken up in the management department by YoshiCookieZeus.

The game stars Demo, an armless cycloptic demon alien minion, which pretty much summarizes the nature of the game. During an attempt to purchase vegetables for her anonymous master, something goes wrong and she is sent to what appears to be the Mushroom Kingdom of the future, falling right into (or as it were, onto) a deep-seated political conflict about food and is sent out to create a peaceful understanding between the two parties. Mayhem ensues.

...Okay, so we lied. The real goal of the game is to murder the king of the Charlies (Chargin' Chucks), who is located deep within a volcano beyond a great veil of Nintendo Hard platforming, item puzzles, silly Touhou shout outs and other assorted obstacles.

You can find the game as an .ips patch on ROM Hack archive SMWCentral.

A sequel, A Second Mario Thing (A2MT), is currently in the works, featuring several new characters, and attempting to deviate from a Raocow based fan project to a more general fan project, as per request of Raocow himself. Demo also stars in another ROM hack, What the Hell?, by Raocow himself that is otherwise unconnected to ASMT.

Tropes used in A Super Mario Thing include:

???: We have been awaiting the voluminous vegetal victuals, minion. We are so pleased you have finally returned.

  • Advancing Boss of Doom: King Charles
  • Advancing Wall of Doom: Pressure Point
  • After Boss Recovery: The Very Definitely Final Dungeon has 2 mushrooms after each of the pre-boss bosses.
  • Anticlimax Boss: Black Plague
    • According to Raocow himself, who designed that battle as a joke, what little difficulty involved was supposed to come from the time limit. The timer in that room is disabled.
  • Arc Acronym: ASMT shows up in a fair number of levels.
  • Armless Biped: Demo, Iris, and a good number of enemies. Arms are not appreciated in the Mushroom Kingdom of the future.
  • Bad Future: The game takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom many years after the disappearance of all the familiar characters, with Mario missing, King Charles taking Bowser's place as Big Bad, and the Yoshis living as refugees.
  • Bee-Bee Gun: One fortress level has cannons that launch bees.
  • Bee People: Acting as minions for a snail. Yeah.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Tête D'Feu is (Quebecer) French for "Head of Fire"
  • Book Ends: At the end of the intro cutscene after you warp to the Mushroom Kingdom, you end up landing on a Charlie's head. At the beginning of the final stage of the King Charles fight, you end up landing on his head.
  • Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: The credits
  • Bullfight Boss: King Charles
  • Bubbly Clouds: A whole world of them!
  • Bullet Hell: Fittingly, Rumia and Yukari are about as close to Bullet Hell as SMW can get.
    • Panic in the Outhouse is filled with Bullet and Banzai Bills, making it, effectively a bullet hell stage in its own right. Notably, there are a bunch of coins that spell HELL.
  • Call Back:

(at the beginning of the game)
Demo: Oh dear. This certainly isn't a grocery store. What to do?
(later, at the beginning of the bonus world)
Demo: Oh dear. These certainly are not my master's quarters. What to do?

Red Switch: I know. It's amazing.
Blue Switch: Seriously? Seriously.
Green Switch: It's a thing.
Yellow Switch: It's pretty rad.