I requested more Mario Party minigames from AI, so Nintendo doesn't have to worry.
It seems that ChatGPT is ideal for a number of things. I can think of cover letters, essay checks, and publicizing my regret on Twitter in a statement. Does it also have a sense of humor, though? In the only way I know how, I test this by requesting a ton of Mario Party minigame AI ideas to see how they compare to the actual thing. Though there is something a bit off-putting about them, we don't see many of these concepts entering the list of our favorite Mario Party games.
Naturally, there's a point to be made here, even if testing ChatGPT is a lot of fun. We will have to get accustomed to this because developers of all stripes—from young people in their homes creating Roblox games to executives running multi-million dollar studios—are gradually beginning to experiment with this kind of technology. However, based on the experiment's findings, I don't believe we'll see it completely implemented just yet—at least not in the Mario Party games.
The three formulaic ideas that result from my initial assignment, "Write three concepts for new Mario Party minigames," are "Super Star Sypmhony," "Goomba Gauntlet," and "Pipe Maze Mayhem." Regretfully, I must give ChatGPT some credit since, as far as we know, Mario Party like alliterative minigames. Luckily, the devil is in the details, and these are really boring details.
The AI for "Pipe Maze Mayhem," the least interesting of the bunch, explains that "players are placed inside a labyrinthine maze composed of interconnected pipes." The aim is to make your way through the pipes and get at the destination ahead of the other players. The problem lies in the fact that the pipes are always changing how they link, opening up new channels while closing off others. If this sounds just like every Mario Party minigame you've ever played, then so are you. Although it's clearly following the plan, it's not terrible, and I'm not exactly wanting to play it.
The second idea, dubbed "Goomba Gauntlet," is also reminiscent of the kind of forgettable minigames we've already seen. The objective is to beat or dodge the Goombas and get to the finish line as soon as you can. In order to temporarily disable Goombas, players may stomp on them. They can also employ power-ups to obstruct opponents' paths or clear them out. The minigame is won by the person who reaches the finish line fastest. Yes, there are a lot of similarities between this concept and "Goomba Stomp" from Mario Party 4, but we have to give the robots some leeway in terms of originality since there are 10 games in the series. Even so, I'm not anticipating this one with bated breath.
With the third notion, things start to become a little more interesting. The AI description of "Superstar Symphony" annoyingly makes it seem like something I may appreciate. "In this cooperative minigame, participants take charge of an orchestra with a Mario theme and act as the conductor. A set of instruments, such as drums, piano, brass, or strings, is allocated to each musician. As the conductor, players must adhere to the beat and cues shown on the screen, executing the appropriate movements via motion controls or button pushes. The players' total performance score increases with improved movement synchronization and note accuracy.
The final one has the closest conceptual and thematic similarities to a Mario Party minigame, even if the description seems more like something out of an instruction manual than like anything enjoyable. I would still play it, however. I would play it, I'm sorry to say.
What I've discovered is that ChatGPT is still struggling to provide the kind of lighthearted fun that we anticipate from Mario Party minigames, despite a few quite excellent tries. It feels, predictably, like it lacks that creative edge. Although the ideas are in accordance with the formula for a Mario Party minigame, the AI seems to favor following this pattern above having fun—at least most of the time. Fun always comes first, if Nintendo is any indication. As it ought to be.
These are the outcomes of our AI experiment for the Mario Party minigame. Take a look at some amazing Mario merchandise while you're here by using our Mario figure and Mario Lego guidelines. If you would rather play a deep space role-playing game than party games in Mushroom Kingdom, check out our Honkai Star Rail codes and Honkai Star Rail tier list.