| Mario Paint | |
|---|---|
 North American box art | |
| Developers | |
| Publisher | Nintendo |
| Director | Hirofumi Matsuoka |
| Producer | Gunpei Yokoi[1] |
| Programmers |
|
| Artist | Hirofumi Matsuoka |
| Composers |
|
| Series | Mario |
| Platform | Super Nintendo Entertainment System |
| Release | |
| Genre | Art tool |
| Mode | Single-player |
Mario Paint[a] is a 1992art creationvideo game developed byNintendo Research & Development 1 (R&D1) andIntelligent Systems and published byNintendo for theSuper Nintendo Entertainment System.[2][3]Mario Paint consists of araster graphics editor, ananimation program, amusic composer, and apoint and clickminigame, all of which are designed to be used with theSuper NES Mouse peripheral, which the game was packaged and sold with. Per its name, the game isMario-themed, and featuressprites andsound effects that are taken from or in the vein ofSuper Mario World.
Mario Paint sold very well following its release and is one of thebest-selling SNES games, with over 2.3 million copies sold. The game was released to fairly positive contemporaneous reviews; critics highlighted its accessibility, features, innovative design, and educational potential, but criticized limitations on creation that rendered it unviable for serious creation. Retrospective reviews have been more positive, praising the game as "memorable", "addictive", "unique", and "ingenious", and it has been deemed one of the best SNES games of all time.Mario Paint's music composer in particular has been used to create original songs,covers, andremixes using the game's sounds and limitations.
A successor game,Mario no Photopi for theNintendo 64, was released in Japan in 1998. This was followed by a series,Mario Artist, released for the64DD peripheral starting in 1999; however, only four titles were released in Japan only before the next game was canceled by 2000. Similar titles andgame creation systems released by Nintendo since, such asWarioWare D.I.Y.,Super Mario Maker, andSuper Mario Maker 2, include features from and references toMario Paint;Super Mario Maker in particular was originally envisioned as aMario Paint sequel for theWii U. The game received its first official re-release on theNintendo Classics service on July 29, 2025.
According to the manual, two parts ofMario Paint are meant to familiarize the user with the SNES Mouse: the title screen, where users can click on each letter in the logo and each element on the screen to prompt a respectiveEaster egg;[4] and afly-swatting minigame, "Gnat Attack", where the player must swat 100 insects before fighting a boss named King Watinga.[5] The minigame has three levels, and after they are completed, the game starts over with the enemies swarming in and attacking at faster speed.[6] Content creation features of the program include adrawing board, acoloring book, an animation tool (called "Animation Land"), and a music composer. Collages can be saved at a time in the program to be loaded at later usage of the software[7] or recorded toVCR.[5] In the coloring book, the user can color-in and edit four pre-made black-and-white drawings, including one featuringYoshi andMario, another featuring various animals, a greeting card, and an underwater scene.[8]
The drawing board is where original paintings can be created. A user can choose from 15 colors and 75 patterns.[4] After choosing, the user can draw with a pen (small, medium, or large) and airbrush;[9] fill in a closed area the selected texture with the "paint brush" tool;[10] and create perfectly straight lines, rectangles, and circles that is the color or pattern selected (either fully colored-in, with just an outline, or with a spray-canned outline).[11] Parts of a drawing can be copied, pasted, and moved to other areas,[12] rotated vertically and horizontally,[13] or erased via pens of six various sizes.[14] An entire painting can also be erased via nine unique visual effects.[14] Animation Land involves the use of the drawing board's tools for creating four, six, and/or nine-frame animations. Elements of one frame can be copied to others for smooth animations to be created.[15] If a character is being animated, the animation box can be set on a background and move throughout it in a "path" recorded by using the mouse in the "path lever" feature.[16]
In the animation and drawing features, stamps can be added to each painting and frame, with 120 existing stamps included in the software.[4] There is a stamp editor that allows the user to create new stamps or edit existing ones via a large tile grid,[17] with the same 15 colors from the drawing board usable in the stamp editor.[18] Up to 15 user-made stamps can be saved to a "personal stamp database".[19] There are also text stamps, such asEnglish,Hiragana,Katakana, andKanji characters, that can be added and changed in size and color.[20]
The music composer allows users to write pieces either incommon time ortriple time.[21] There are 15 instruments samples to use that are notated with different icons, including eight melodic sounds (apiano represented by Mario's head, abell sound represented by a Power Star, atrumpet represented by a Fire Flower, apulse wave represented by theGame Boy, ahorn section sample represented by a goose, aguitar sound represented by an airliner, and anorgan represented by a car), three percussion sounds (abass drum represented by a Super Mushroom, awoodblock represented by a ship, and abass pluck represented by a heart), and five sound effects (Yoshi's zip, a dog bark, a cat meow, a pig oink, and a baby hiccup).[22] The icons are added to atreble clef. Notes that can be added are limited to a range from theB belowmiddle C tohigh G.[21] Since noflats orsharps can be added, pieces are restricted to notes of theC major/A minor scale.[23] Other limitations include composing only inquarter notes,[24] a maximum number of three notes on abeat,[21] and a maximum number of measures a song can last (24 bars for4
4 songs, and 32 bars for3
4 songs).[23] Pieces made in the composition tool can be played in the animation and coloring book modes.[25]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(October 2025) |
The game was released in the United States on August 17, 1992.[26]
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Computer and Video Games | 91%[27] |
| Electronic Gaming Monthly | 8/10, 8/10, 9/10, 8/10[28] |
| Game Informer | 8.75/10[29] |
| Total! | 48%[30] |
| Control | 55%[31] |
| Nintendo Magazine System (Australia) | 70%[32] |
| SNES Force | 82%[33] |
| Super Play | 55%[34] |
| Super Pro | 90%[35] |
| Publication | Award |
|---|---|
| Nintendo Power | Most Innovative[36] |
TheMario Paint and Mouse package sold more than1 million units by March 1993.[37]Mario Paint is one of thebest-selling SNES games at over 2.3 million copies sold worldwide.[38]
Mario Paint's possible age appeal and amount of features were discussed in reviews. WhileNintendo Power andGamePro suggested that it had enough features and interactive elements to fascinate a person of any age with "even a remote interest" in artistic ventures,[39][40] other reviews, even from critics who enjoyed the program, suggested the program's limitations made its novelty wear thin to those past its young target demographic[34][31][41] and made its high price tag unjustifiable.[30][31]Total!'s Steve Misery argued that the limitations were inexcusable for a title on a console that can have 250 colors on a screen at a time, stereo audio, and instantly changing graphics.[30] Additionally, he noted the program "goes completely overboard in one area, and then misses others out completely", such as the lack of a zoom feature despite there being multiple flashy ways to erase a painting.[30]
Criticisms of the program brought up in reviews include long save times, "impossible" fine detailing, and the fact that only one collage can be saved at a time.[32]
Mario Paint was honored by theParents' Choice Award, a non-profit organization recognizing children's educational entertainment.[42] The game also received a platinum award at the 1994Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Awards.[43]Nintendo Power ratedMario Paint the fifth best SNES game of 1992.[44]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| GameRankings | 72% (4 reviews)[45] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| AllGame | 5/5[46] |
| Jeuxvideo.com | 14/20[47] |
| 1UP | 80%[48] |
| Honest Gamers | 5/5[49] |
CallingMario Paint "perhaps the most ingenious and inspired idea Nintendo ever came up with for a product",AllGame rated it 5 out of 5 stars.[46]Honest Gamers stated, "It has very little flaws, if any, is very addictive, and even a child can use it. The games never get old and none of it ever gets tedious. It is one of the best games for the SNES."[49]US Gamer calledMario Paint "an era-appropriate solution to graphics programs on expensive PCs" which is "at least somewhat responsible for our modern era of 2D indie throwback games". It said, "Every single element ... is engineered to make the act of creation fun in and of itself, even if you're just aimlessly doodling."[50]
In 2006, it was ranked the 162nd best game made on a Nintendo system inNintendo Power's "Top 200 Games" list.[51] In 2014,IGN ranked it the 105th best Nintendo game in its list of "The Top 125 Nintendo Games of All Time".IGN editor Peer Schneider cited the game's "smart and playful interface" as a "game changer" and commented that "It effectively erased the barriers between creating and playing, making it one of the most memorable and unique games to ever be released on a console."[52]: 2 In 2018,Complex ranked the game 35th on their list of "The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time".[53] In 2022,IGN rankedMario Paint 22nd on its list of the "Top 100 SNES Games of All Time", noting that the game inspired different variations of popular songs.[54]
Several video game developers have citedMario Paint as an inspiration.Hirokazu Tanaka, a member ofMario Paint's sound staff, later worked onEarthBound (1994), where some ofMario Paint's sound effects and instrument patches appear. Hirofumi Matsuoka, who directed the development ofMario Paint, later worked on severalMario Artist entries and many of theWario titles, includingWarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! (2003) for theGame Boy Advance, the microgames from which originated from minigames present inMario Artist: Polygon Studio, which themselves were conceptualized by Kouichi Kawamoto.[55][56] Masahito Hatakeyama, one of the designers ofWarioWare D.I.Y. (2009) for theNintendo DS, citedMario Paint's drawing board and music composer as the inspiration forD.I.Y.'s drawing and music creation tools, and several development team members cited it as an early inspiration for their video game development careers.[57]
Further references toMario Paint appear elsewhere in theWarioWare series.WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! includes Gnat Attack as a microgame.WarioWare: Touched! (2004) for the Nintendo DS includes both a microgame set inMario Paint's drawing board and a feature called "Wario Paint", which has players color in outlines ofWarioWare series characters in a manner similar toMario Paint's coloring book.WarioWare D.I.Y. includes several easter eggs and callbacks toMario Paint, including microgames based on the drawing board and Gnat Attack.[57]WarioWare Gold (2018) for theNintendo 3DS also includes Gnat Attack as a unretaled new microgame. Sound effects fromMario Paint also appear throughout the series.
Super Mario Maker (2015), a level creation suite, was originally envisioned as aMario Paint title for theWii U.[58] Takashi Tezuka, the game's producer, stated that he "was inspired to bring the fun ofMario Paint into this course editor to make something fun and creative for people to enjoy".[59]US Gamer calledMario Paint an essential part of "the road toSuper Mario Maker".[50] As a callback toMario Paint,Super Mario Maker includes interactive title screen easter eggs, the return of the Gnat Attack minigame, and the appearance of elements and characters originally fromMario Paint, including Undodog, a tan dog functioning as theundo button in both games. Its sequel,Super Mario Maker 2 (2019) for the Nintendo Switch, also features references toMario Paint, including the return of Undodog as a prominentnon-player character in the game's story mode.
Super Mario Odyssey (2017) for the Nintendo Switch includes three costumes for Mario—a blacktuxedo, an artists' paint-coveredapron, and a classicalconductor outfit—that are directly based on artworks created forMario Paint's promotional materials, with the apron's pairedberet also referencingMario Artist.[citation needed]
A remixedMario Paint soundtrack medley can be played as background music in theMiiverse stage inSuper Smash Bros. for Wii U (2014).Mario Paint is also represented inSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018) for the Nintendo Switch through an Assist Trophy called "Flies & Hand", where the flyswatter from Gnat Attack attempts to hit both insects and opposing players.[60]
The first episode ofHomestar Runner in 1996 was animated usingMario Paint.[61] A primitive introduction video made withMario Paint can be found in the museum section of the site. A later short in the series, "Strong Bad is a Bad Guy", was made usingMario Paint.[citation needed]
Since the early 2010s, there has been an online culture of users onforums,Discord, andYouTube creating original songs and covers withMario Paint's music composer and programs replicating it, includingMario Paint Composer,Advanced Mario Sequencer, andSuper Mario Paint.[62][63]Mario Paint covers that have garnered coverage from the press include jeonghoon95's rendition ofDaft Punk's "Get Lucky",[64][65][66] a cover ofNicholas Britell's theme for theHBO seriesSuccession,[63][67][68][69] and axelrod777's cover of the Bob-omb Battlefield level music from 1996'sSuper Mario 64.[70]
A downloadable version was released in Japan via theSatellaview broadcast service in 1997. TitledBS Mario Paint: Yuu Shou Naizou Ban (マリオペイントBS版), this version was modified to use a standard controller without the need of a mouse.[citation needed]
A similar image editing program,Mario no Photopi, was released forNintendo 64 in 1998. The software allows the player to import images from compatibleSmartMedia cards and edit them similar toMario Paint.[71]
A sequel toMario Paint was titledMario Paint 64 in development,[72] and then released in 1999 as the Japan-exclusivelaunch gameMario Artist for the64DD. Nintendo had commissioned the joint developerSoftware Creations, who described the game's original 1995 design idea as "a sequel toMario Paint in 3D for theN64".[72][73]Paint Studio has been described byIGN andNintendo World Report as beingMario Paint's "direct follow-up"[74] and "spiritual successor"[75] respectively. Likewise bundled with its system's mouse,Paint Studio includes many features fromMario Paint, including new additions such as a gallery and 3D explorable spaces that can be drawn on.[74] Gnat Attack was also intended to appear inPaint Studio, but it was cut before the final release, though it was shown in several magazine previews and some reviewers received copies including it.[74]
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