Check out Super Mario Bros. as a surprisingly gorgeous first-person shooter

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All the Mario charm is still there

(Image credit: Sean Noonan)

The charm of the original Super Mario Bros. goes beyond the game. The swanky tune, bright colors, and trademarked enemy design hits me right in that nostalgic bone whenever I experience it. It could work as anything, including a breezy little first person shooter.

Mapcore, a game development community with origins in the Half Life modding space, recently put out a challenge to developers to redesign the first level Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike 1.6, or Super Mario Bros. with a software of their choosing (Thanks PC Gamer). This redesign of World 1-1 is a product of that challenge. 

Level designer Sean Noonan, whose currently working on Gears: Tactics and has credits on games like Watch Dogs and Star Citizens, decided to take on World 1-1 as a first person shooter in Unreal. 

"Straight out of the gate I decided I wanted to make 1-1 as a time attack FPS. I started with the FPS template and began to work out what art style to go with. I aimed to emulate Super Mario 3D Land (3DS) - I love how colourful it is," Noonan said in a Tweet thread following his progress. "By day 2 I had a couple of basics down. For some reason I felt the way to make a gun work in the Mario universe was to use a plunger? I feel like it was some unintentional Quackshot or Rabbids inspiration."

You can follow more of the project's progress on Noonan's Twitter page.

Looking to scratch a platforming itch after seeing 1-1 as a shooter? Check out the best platformers ever that aren't Mario.

Aron Garst
Contributor

Aron Garst is a journalist and writer exploring the future of games and interactivity. Follow him on X at @GarstProduction.