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Turn your screen into a playable Super Mario Bros. level with this application

Screentendo is on its way to being your favorite desktop app.

 

Imad Khan

Internet Culture

Posted on May 27, 2015   Updated on May 28, 2021, 5:59 pm CDT

Do you play so much Super Mario Bros. that everything you look at turns into a potential level? Well, this in-development desktop application could be for you.

Aaron Randall is working on Screentendo, an application that turns whatever you’re looking at into breakable blocks with a playable Mario onscreen.

The way it works is pretty interesting. After you overlay a semi-transparent window over whatever you’re looking at, the app then processes the image to generate a level. It overlays Mario’s sprite and background and throws in a physics engine to make it all work. Randall’s blog post goes into much greater detail.

Although this is a cool idea, it’s still a proof of concept—not something you can use right now. Rendering is a bit slow (it works best with images with a lot of contrast), and the physics could use some more work. For those who are curious and have some technical know-how, the source code is available here

H/T Digg | Screengrab via Aaron Randall/YouTube

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*First Published: May 27, 2015, 4:59 pm CDT