Mari0 10th Anniversary!
it's the tenth anniversary of Mari0 today... where has the time gone? i still vividly remember glancing over at the StumbleUpon page my friend had pulled up in our high school computer lab, detailing the portal gun, multiplayer, and most importantly, the full level editor. i followed the game's development like a hawk, eagerly anticipating each new blog post... until its eventual release, forever altering the course of my life.
how much do i owe to Mari0 and its community? let me count the ways.
2012
the very first thing i did with Mari0 was make a New Super Mario Bros. tileset. to show it off, i made a handful of levels under a very simple name – New Super Mario World – mostly playing around with the different structures i could build using these tiles.
once i released the first few levels, i got my very first feedback:
"your level design is really interesting."
that comment was EVERYTHING to me. it springboarded my entire level design career both in Mari0 and beyond! without this little push, i would not be where i am today.
New Super Mario World would go on to be my biggest mappack, as well as one of the few that i actually finished – and it would kickstart years of Mari0 level designs in over a dozen mappacks total. all it takes is a little validation... always be kind to fledgling creators!
2014
i stuck around on the forums – not just for Mari0, but because everyone there was genuinely wonderful to be around. we had our rough patches, but for the most part we were a tight knit community – my first online friends!
one day a new forum thread popped up called "Livestream Thread," that introduced me both to Twitch and to streaming in general. we declared 2014 the "year of streams" and supported each other both with streaming and chatting... i got to know my new friends so much more deeply!
i tried my hand at streaming as well – and that changed my life too! it helped me become far more outgoing, as i learned how to be comfortable speaking in public, both large and small groups. and the community was so supportive... it helped me find my voice!
2016
i heard about discord and started a server there for our community, hoping we could use it for streams and the like. we were already entrenched on steam, irc, and the forum – i didn't expect anyone to move from what they were already comfortable with.
today the server has over 400 members, both old and new, with a thriving community keeping Mari0 alive even after ten years... even though i didn't make the game like Maurice, or run the website and forums like Sašo – i was just in the right place at the right time to start this server.
i learned a lot about managing a community in such a short space of time, and i've made my fair share of mistakes... but i'm so humbled to play a part in fostering a new generation of our community, and i hope it's helped them grow as much as it's helped me grow over the years 💙
2018
Mari0: Special Edition's beta releases had already come and gone, but a select few of us kept maintaining it as a Community Edition, keeping interest in the game afloat. i was between jobs at the time, and had some time to add to CE as my first open source contributions.
i worked on porting Mari0 to Löve2D 11.x, fixing controller support from a previous port to 0.9.x, optimizing animated tiles, and other bugfixes... then, when it came time to look for another job, i listed CE on my resume as a moonshot, hoping it would attract some attention.
during my interview, i got TONS of questions about my work on CE... and then, i got the job. working on Mari0 helped get me hired!
it was far from the *sole* reason, of course, but i doubt my application would have stood out nearly as much without it. i still work there today!
2020
as if everything else wasn't enough, this community even helped me discover my identity – i came out as genderfluid, completing a five-year-long journey of acceptance and self-discovery that started on the forums.
i won't beat around the bush: i didn't "get" gender at first, and i had so much trouble trying to understand it. anytime somebody explained it to me, i would be reductive or dismissive in response.
but one day, somebody met my impatience with kindness... and it planted a seed.
hindsight really puts my answer in perspective, but it took a LONG time to understand and come to terms with – tons of research, asking about others' experiences, doing some hard introspection. all starting with this little spark that got me to think about it in a different way.
2022
what else does the future hold? i could make bold predictions about the state of the community, or bolder claims to finish my magnum opus of a mappack (Retrush) – but i could never have predicted any part of the last ten years, and so i shall make no attempt here.
instead i simply want to thank everyone for changing my life for the better.
Maurice, for making such a wonderful game. Sašo, for fostering such a wonderful community. and all of the friends i've made along the way, for touching my life.
i can only hope i've touched yours too!
no matter where the future takes us – whether Mari0 is part of it or not – i hope i get to be there with you, learning and growing alongside friends new and old, just as we have so far. so here's to ten years, and perhaps even ten more! let's go into the future together 💖
