Mario Paint[a] is a 1992 art creation video game developed by Nintendo Research & Development 1 (R&D1) and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.[1][2] Mario Paint consists of a raster graphics editor, an animation program, a music composer, and a point and click minigame, all of which are designed to be used with the Super NES Mouse peripheral, which the game was packaged and sold with. Per its name, the game is Mario-themed, and features sprites and sound effects that are taken from or in the vein of Super Mario World.
Mario Paint sold very well following its release and is one of the best-selling SNES games, with over 2.3 million copies sold. The game was released to fairly positive contemporaneous reviews; critics highlighted its accessibility, features, innovative design, and educational potential, but criticized unnecessary limitations on creation that rendered it unviable for serious creation. Retrospective reviews have been more positive, praising the game as “memorable”, “addictive”, “unique”, and “ingenious”, and it has been deemed one of the best SNES games of all time. Mario Paint‘s music composer in particular has been used to create original songs, covers, and remixes using the game’s sounds and limitations.
A successor series, Mario Artist, was released for the Nintendo 64‘s 64DD peripheral starting in 1999; however, only four titles were released in Japan only before the rest were canceled by 2000. Similar titles and game creation systems released by Nintendo since, such as WarioWare D.I.Y., Super Mario Maker, and Super Mario Maker 2, include features from and references to Mario Paint; Super Mario Maker in particular was originally envisioned as a Mario Paint title for the Wii U.
Gameplay
The SNES Mouse and pad that were packaged with the game
According to the manual, two parts of Mario Paint are meant to familiarize the user with the SNES Mouse: the title screen, where users can click on each letter in the logo and each element on the screen to prompt a respective Easter egg;[3] and a fly-swatting minigame, “Gnat Attack”, where the player must swat 100 insects before fighting a boss named King Watinga.[4] The minigame has three levels, and after they are completed, the game starts over with the enemies swarming in and attacking at faster speed.[5] Content creation features of the program include a drawing board, a coloring book, an animation tool (called “Animation Land”), and a music composer. Collages can be saved at a time in the program to be loaded at later usage of the software[6] or recorded to VCR.[4] In the coloring book, the user can color-in and edit four pre-made black-and-white drawings, including one featuring Yoshi and Mario, another featuring various animals, a greeting card, and an underwater scene.[7]
