Brandon Inada's Blog

Coming together ("assembling") nicely!

Our first look (slightly blurry) at Marvel Studios’ live-action Avengers from the Licensing International Expo in Vegas, courtesy of SuperHeroHype!

My friends got me this super sweet Donkey Kong Jenga for Christmas:

"How High Can You Get?"

The game is played in one of two ways: either by following the traditional rules of the game or by using the included Spinner to play Donkey Kong-style!

"Play classic Jenga or use the Spinner and play custom Donkey Kong rules!"

Up to 4 players take turns on the Spinner which determines how many Jenga block “Girders” to remove from the stack and how many Girders the player’s Mario climbs at the end of each turn.

Each of the 4 Mario game pieces are attached to pegs which can then be inserted into the holes at the ends of the Jenga blocks, giving the illusion of Mario climbing the construction site!

"Donkey Kong Jenga Girders, Mario, Pauline, and DK!"

The goal is to reach the top of the stack and save Pauline from that crazy ape, Donkey Kong, yet again. The player that reaches the top or is closest to the top when the stack falls wins.

Players can strategically remove Girders out from under the other players’ Mario game pieces to keep their opponents from reaching the top first!

"Donkey Kong + Jenga = Donkey Kong Jenga"

A brilliant combination really, marrying these two classic games together!

Whatever you do, don’t touch that controller! Check out this cool, player-edited Super Mario World level that literally plays itself!

Apparently, these have been around for awhile, but I wasn’t aware of them until recently.

Here’s another self-playing Mario level (an incredibly long one, I might add) that takes things a step further – the sound effects go along with the dance mix background music:

Check out this awesome Super Mario Bros. video by Andreas Heikaus, a recent motion design graduate of the Hannover University of Applied Sciences And Arts in Germany:

Check out a short video presentation on the making of the video above as well as more of his work here.

Here’s a clip from YouTube featuring Japanese violinist Teppei Okada playing the Super Mario Bros. theme music on his violin, which by itself, is nothing extraordinary, but here’s the catch: he also plays the various sound effects – Mario jumping, collecting coins, powering up, and so forth, in time with a prerecorded playthrough of the game!

Check it out:

And here he is again, this time playing through the opening of Super Mario Bros. 3:

Pretty crazy, right?

If you search for him on YouTube you’ll find other videos like these, mostly playthroughs of Japanese 8-bit games.