If you’ve ever been bored in front of an notebook, then chances are you’ve tried to make a flipbook animation at least once. By drawing a single frame on each page, maybe you attempted to animate something simple like a stick-figure running, or a flower growing. What you probably didn’t do was animate a playthrough of an entire Super Mario level — complete with powerups and enemies — like Twitter user @KisaragiHuae6 has done.
The animation shows the franchise’s debut World 1-1 level, which first appeared in Super Mario Bros for the NES in 1985. This level established the format for every 2D Mario game that would follow it, and the animation includes it all, from punching Question Mark Blocks, to collecting 1-Up Mushrooms, and stomping on Goombas.
What’s nice is that the video has the slight imperfections of something that’s actually been made for real. The background of the page flickers slightly as its exact brightness changes between frames, and the level goes blank between each page of the notebook it’s drawn on. A follow-up tweet shows how the animation was made, with separate hand-drawn characters and models that were scrunched up and torn as needed.
動画内では分かりづらいものの、紙ならではのこだわりを持った出演者達です。実際に折ったり燃やしたり、クリボーのやられ方を考えるのは、とっても楽しかったです。 pic.twitter.com/GeawVAkagb
— 如月 二重 6 (@KisaragiHutae6) February 11, 2019
If you’re itching to play the original level for yourself, then Super Mario Bros is one of the NES games currently available to play on the Nintendo Switch via Nintendo’s online service along with 19 other titles.
