Buzz
In Super Mario Bros., Mario's day is anything but easy. He's tasked with saving a princess all on his own, which raises some serious questions considering that royal families typically have security teams. What kind of second-rate monarchy hires a plumber to save their royal heir?
Though not remotely qualified for the job, Mario agrees to be transported to a magical realm where he runs, jumps, swims, and takes out anything that stands in his way to reach a castle. There, a sarcastic mushroom informs him that the princess isn’t there. He repeats this journey seven times before finally getting it right. Beyond the obvious psychological toll of shrinking, growing, killing, and dying repeatedly, what kind of physical strain does Mario endure?
As the sharp reader John D. posed, just how many miles does Mario cover before he reaches Princess Peach?
To determine this, I used Ian Albert's level maps, which he carefully assembled from screenshots (you can check out his website and incredible maps here) and measured their width. In the NES version of the game, Mario's relative size (in his smaller, pre-mushroom state) was then estimated as though he were a regular human. He stands with his legs apart, so the measurement was based on an approximation of someone whose feet are just wider than shoulder-width, about 26 inches.
If we assume Mario takes a route without any bonus areas or warps, the total distance from his starting point to the final castle comes out to roughly 17,835 feet, or 3.4 miles.
But what about the water levels? If we focus on those, Mario swims an estimated 1218.5 feet, or 371 meters, during his journey, which is roughly 7 and a half laps in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The longest single level is the first stage of the eighth world, measuring about 1039 feet. The shortest is world four, stage three, which spans approximately 425 feet.
If Mario indeed visits every bonus area, his total distance increases by 1574 feet, making his entire journey around 3.7 miles. Of the bonus areas, 344 feet are underwater, so Mario adds another 105 meters to his swimming total.
Mario doesn’t follow a straight path and is often whisked away to different places and worlds, so these figures are just estimates. But consider all the time spent grinding on your NES. All those hours spent mashing buttons—jumping on Goombas, falling into pits, dodging projectiles—all that effort ended with Mario completing a 5K to raise awareness for princess abductions.
Thanks to reader John D. for the question and idea. All screenshots are from ian-albert.com.
