Do you want to waste time in a very special way? Do you have access to a Mac, or as an alternative to a Hackintosh? If the answer to both questions is yes, then you need to take a closer look at Screentendo. All this program does is transform the content of your screen into an improvised Super Mario Bros. level, with everyone's favorite plumber running, jumping, and defying gravity as he falls into the abyss…
It's not very difficult to access Super Mario Bros. these days. Despite Nintendo's tantrums, the ROM of what is probably the best platformer that the NES has to offer is almost everywhere. Over time, Mario and Luigi's flagship game expanded to other platforms, including the latest generation models, courtesy of the famous Virtual Console. However, new material based on the original art was never created, or rather, “official” material. Super Mario Bros. was the preferred target of the bootleg universe for years, and even titles like Flappy Bird were inspired by its visual content. Well, now you can make your own improvised levels, as long as you meet certain technical requirements.
The program is called Screentendo, and it was developed by Aaron Randall. Basically, all you have to do is expand the semi-transparent window of Screentendo over an image in the browser, and from there, it will turn each element into bricks and empty space as appropriate. Mario will appear by magic, and the rest is just run a little in the level. There's no score, no lives, no enemies. In other words, Screentendo is just a proof of concept, but it installs a very interesting possibility. Instead of placing each texture manually, in the future a developer could create entire levels in the style of Screentendo with a couple of simple graphics.
Regarding the technical requirements I mentioned above, well... the truth is that Screentendo only works under OS X. The complete code is available on GitHub, but there is no Windows-compatible binary there. At the same time, OS X users will need to add CocoaPods as a dependency. I hope Screentendo survives long enough to see it on Windows and Linux. We already know very well how Nintendo gets when it defends its intellectual property...
