N-Mark Spade Panel
First appearance	Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988)
Latest appearance	Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition (2010)

“Flip over any two cards and see if they match. You can only miss twice!”

—Toad,Super Mario Bros. 3

N-Mark Spade Panels,^[1] also known asMatching Game Panels,^[2]Card Matching Games,^[3]Matching Game spaces,^[4] orN-Spades,^[5] areSpade Panels inSuper Mario Bros. 3 that appear on theworld map for every 80,000points gained. WheneverMario orLuigi moves onto an N-Mark Spade Panel, he is automatically taken in, unlike with otherpanels.

N-Mark Spade Panels do not appear inWorld 8; however, in the post-game ofSuper Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, the player's score is still tracked in World 8 for the purposes of an N-Mark Spade Panel, and if Mario or Luigi returns to one of the other seven worlds, it is possible to make multiple N-Mark Spade Panels appear in the same world each time he leaves alevel.

When drawn into an N-Mark Spade Panel, the player must play a cardminigame hosted by aToad titled theMatching Game.^[6] The goal is to flip over two cards, each depicting an item, every turn to try to match a pair. For each card pair successfully matched, the player wins that prize for their inventory, for a total of nine prizes per game. If the player mismatches twice, the minigame ends. Once all of the card pairs have been matched, the cards reset the next time around. Even if the player is unsuccessful at matching every card pair, the ones that they did match remain flipped over the next time they play the minigame.

In early copies ofSuper Mario Bros. 3, the Toad would say,"Flip over any two cards and see if they match. Miss twice and your^[sic] out!" with "you're" misspelled as "your." The text was revised in later copies of the game, with the second sentence instead reading,"You can only miss twice!"^[7]

In theSuper Mario All-Stars version, while theStarman cards use their new design, theSuper Mushroom andFire Flower cards retain their original designs, albeit with the former's colors inverted. The text has been reverted to the incorrect version.

InSuper Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, the text box has been enlarged enough for the Toad to use the correct grammar in the original message and a comma to be added after "twice."

Prizes[edit]

• 10coins (1)
• 20 coins (1)
• Super Mushroom (2)
• Fire Flower (2)
• Starman (2)
• 1-up (1)

Layouts[edit]

The game was intended to perform a shuffling function that would output a completely random set of cards each time the game was initialized. However, minor coding errors in both shuffling routines resulted in most of the intended shuffling mechanics not to take place, unintentionally resulting in only eight possible arrangements of cards.^[8] Despite this setup being unintentional, all future versions of the game continue to use the same mechanics. The fourth, fifth, and sixth cards from the left on the bottom row will always be a Super Mushroom, a Fire Flower, and a Starman, respectively.

Gallery[edit]

• 

  Back of card

• 

  10coins card

• 

  20 coins card

• 

  Super Mushroom card

• 

  Fire Flower card

• 

  Starman card

• 

  1Up card

• 

  1Up card (unused)

• 

  Card selector

• 

  The table in the lobby

Names in other languages[edit]

Notes[edit]

• InSuper Mario Bros. Wonder, hitting aHidden Character Block causes a sound that sounds similar to when an N-Mark Spade Panel appears in original releases ofSuper Mario Bros. 3 to play.

See also[edit]

• Power-up Panels – a similar game found inNew Super Mario Bros. Wii

References[edit]

• Levels
• Super Mario Bros. 3
• Super Mario series minigames