June 19, 2019, 10:43 AM
redstoneThe Lost Commodore 64 port - Super Mario Bros.
Last week I was talking old games with a friend, and we were commenting on the interest in old 80-90's era games and the new interest in them (see Pokemon Go and the interest in vintage
Games )
and I mentioned that the only computer I had was a Commodore 64 and an Atari 2600.
I then went on to talk of a friend of mine who had a modem for his C64 and I would spend saturdays at his house and we would game swap with a guy who had a game bulletin board using his modem. Basically you would agree on the swap, put your 5 1/4 disk of your game in, he would upload it and then he would put his game on and we would download the game. Granted I am a young teenager and I new nothing of piracy etc. But then I mentioned that one of my favorite games was playing Super Mario Bros. on my C64, but I was never good enough to beat it.
"Dave, the SMB was never released on the C64, it is a Nintendo only platform"
"yes, it was, I played it for a good chunk of 8th grade. On my C64, I wore out several controllers trying to get those jumps down."
"not possible"
So this went on for awhile and then we googled it. Turns out there is a chance I was right and I am not completely delusional.
Link Super Mario Bros. (lost Commodore 64 port of NES platform video game; existence unconfirmed; 1986) Super Mario Bros. for the Commodore 64 is a rumored port of the classic game for the NES/Famicom to the Commodore 64. In 1985, Super Mario Bros. was released in North America and Japan and took the consumer market by storm. A company by the name of Orpheus was rumored to have been working on a port of Super Mario Bros. for the Commodore 64 in 1986 but was possibly denied a license by Nintendo.
The first known mention of the port is in a 2005 thread on Lemon64.com, where a user recalled having played a disk copy of Super Mario Bros. on the Commodore 64 some time between 1986 and 1987. One of the members in the thread suggested that it may have been the unreleased Orpheus version, but did not go into further detail.[1] Later in 2012, an article on the port was submitted to GamesThatWerent.com, which told the same story but added that it was cancelled due to Nintendo denying the license. The page also noted the possibility that it may never have been completed or even started, in the first place.[2]
Both pages specify that it would have been an official port, not the hacked version of The Great Giana Sisters that was edited to include Mario sprites. Little else is known about the port, and it's likely that the game did not make it past the concept stages if it was ever in development at all.
References
Lemon 64 thread . Retrieved 25 Apr '18.
GW24 article . Retrieved 25 Apr '18.
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I honestly had no idea it was a port, But apparently one of the games we played was an unpublished port of SMB for C64. there is a chance I still have the floppy disc so I will dig through the boxes of crap in my closet to see if I can find them.
June 19, 2019, 02:54 PM
OrgussWhy would someone port an NES game to the C64? It would have taken 15 minutes just to load the menu!
June 19, 2019, 05:28 PM
.38supersigquote:
Originally posted by redstone:
...playing Super Mario Bros. on my C64, but I was never good enough to beat it.
I know that feeling well.
The most frustration I had back then was playing the Chocobo game on a PocketStation and loading it to the PS2. Well worth the effort (and swear words) for any FF fan.
June 20, 2019, 10:34 AM
KDRquote:
Originally posted by Orguss:
Why would someone port an NES game to the C64? It would have taken 15 minutes just to load the menu!
I played a game (I think it was Skate or Die, but not sure) on the C64 as a kid. I would fire it up, select the board I wanted to play, then go make a sandwich while it loaded.
June 20, 2019, 10:45 AM
PowerSurgeI had a 64c back then and loved to play Infernal Runner.

June 20, 2019, 10:51 AM
Gustoferquote:
Originally posted by .38supersig:
quote:
Originally posted by redstone:
...playing Super Mario Bros. on my C64, but I was never good enough to beat it.
I know that feeling well.
My brother and I, in 1990, after many late nights and many blistered thumbs, beat it. All the way to the end.