Super Mario Epic 2: Dream Machine

Hankering for some old-school platforming action with no clue as to New Super Mario Bros.' release on the horizon, what's a dedicated fan to do but... make their own unauthorized Mario game? And then make a sequel to it?

Digging deep into the annals of forgotten Mario history, the game's creators present a scenario pitting Mario once again against the nefarious amphibian lord Wart, employing a sinister Dream Machine to plague the peaceful denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom with restless sleep and ghoulish nightmares. His demand? Nothing short of being delivered the comely head-of-state Princess Toadstool. The answer? Mario is sent in to see if this evil plan can be undone with some combination of running and jumping.

While the controls and environmental physics aren't yet quite congruent to the Nintendo originals we drilled in to our collective subconscious over millions of hours, they're as close as anyone's yet seen in a fangame. Aspects of many official Mario games are drawn upon to flesh out this world, from the POW block to Advance coins to thrown vegetables to the Hammer suit to the poison mushroom. All that plus over 45 classic Mario enemies help to make this feel more like a complete missing entry from the series and less like a pastiche homage.