The Philips CD-i is one of those rare consoles that has the distinction of having played on some officially licensed Nintendo games. And not just any old Nintendo licenses, but Zelda and Mario. The latter of both have only one game on the system – Mario Hotelwhich is often considered one of the worst Mario games – but the game’s creator has shared some insight into developing Mario games for CD-i.
Hotel Mario executive producer and designer, Stephen Radosh, sat down with Game Reviews to talk about this often mocked entry in the Mario universe, made famous from its over-the-top animated cutscenes.
During the interview, Radosh shared some tidbits about his time working on the game, including that they wouldn’t initially include a jump button for Mario until an engineer’s daughter said that ” it’s weird playing a Mario game that doesn’t allow jumping.” So they added their daughter to the credits!
Of course, with Mario being Nintendo’s most popular franchise, Big N must be relevant in some way, and Radosh shared that he had to seek approval to use multiple characters and enemies:
I had to get Nintendo’s approval for a lot of the things we did. They wanted to make sure the world we created looked like it belonged in the franchise, like anything described in Mario Hotel is a reflection of them. A manager at Nintendo named Cammy [Budd] is our main contact. They are satisfied as far as I know. In fact, there were rumors that Nintendo wanted to bring Mario Hotel for their platform.
Radosh believes that Nintendo is happy with the final product and even said that there is a chance that Hotel Mario could appear on other platforms. But that never happened despite the rumors.
The creator has admitted that, publicly Nintendo doesn’t share any thoughts on Hotel Mario, but the team “loves it”, stating that “CD-I’s technology is not intended for such interactive gameplay.” , but we overcame that obstacle.”
The team working on Hotel Mario is also pleased with the reviews and sales for the game. Despite the CD-i being a bit of a flop, Hotel Mario “was a financial success” according to Radosh.
You can read the full interview with Stephen Radosh below. And make sure you let us know below what you think of the interview and if you’ve ever played Hotel Mario!
