Developer and computer science student Roystan Ross is doing a random act of kindness, albeit with a tinge of self-promotion, in offering a throwback to the early days of gaming and the glory days of Super Mario.
All you need is a PC and Internet access. Just download the free game off Ross' website and play it in a browser by tapping the Unity Web Player.
Get into work early Monday, set up a quick screen escape and get ready to replay those glory days of this Nintendo 64 classic's first level of game play, which first debuted in 1996. Yes, nearly two decades ago.
There are a few tiny things missing but, for the most part, Ross' endeavor is getting kudos for being spot on with the original experience. There are no red coins or Wing Cap of a Big Bob-omb, but there are coin blocks and giant springs.
You can use a gamepad and keyboard controls as well as a game controller, obviously. In posting the news on his blog, Roystan provided insight on setup and how Unity developers can access the game.
Roystan built the PC and web version as a way to put a spotlight on his Super Character Controller.
"I currently do not have any plans to develop this any further or to resolve any bugs, unless they're horrendously game breaking and horrendously simple to fix," he wrote, adding the project is as-is, free for use but is not allowed to be sold for profit.
"Other than the Super Character Controller (and it's respective libraries), I use a heavily modified cInput v1.4 from roidz to handle custom input, and pixelplacement's iTween for path tweening (for the rolling balls)," he explained.
Roystan did all the animations and art, but the Goomba, Power Star and Mario meshes are taken from the Super Mario Galaxy. He uses mostly sounds from existing Mario games.
The throwback play experience is a single developer effort by Roystan, who says he is not planning on building other worlds but will be around the game to fix any major bugs.
"I currently do not have any plans to develop this any further," he said.
For those who want to spend more time in the past, playing the full version of Super Mario 64, you can find it via Virtual Console on Wii.
