Fan-made 'Mario Royale' pits you against 74 speedrunners

The battle royale craze has invaded the Mushroom Kingdom, albeit unofficially. A programmer and video game streamer going by the handle Inferbro has hacked together a web-based multiplayer version of Super Mario Bros. that challenges up to 75 people to finish the first stage of the classic game as quickly as possible. The fittingly named Mario Royale is available to play online via the web right now, but you better get a few runs in while you can. Nintendo isn't known for playing nice with fan-created games using its characters.

Mario Royale is a pretty chaotic experience. Once you get into a lobby, you're matched up with as many as 74 other players. You're all dumped at the start of the first stage of Super Mario Bros. While your opponents will have a faded look to them, everyone in the game is essentially identical and only an indicator floating atop your head helps you to identify the Mario you control. Your task is to get to the end as fast as possible in order to win. The experience feels similar to Tetris 99, though much more helter-skelter.

This isn't the first time a fan has taken some liberty with classic Nintendo properties. User-created versions of classic Nintendo titles like Metroid, Zelda and Pokémon have all made their way online at some point, only for Nintendo to unceremoniously get them taken down with DMCA requests. Mario Royale will likely face a similar fate, though for now you can still take a shot at racing to the flagpole.