Peachy Teachy

For my son’s Super Mario birthday, we turned each room in our house into a different level of the video game. Each level had a challenge, including the final level, Bowser’s Battle, where guests had to save Princess Peach from Bowser! Super fun and everyone’s favorite…Let’s-A-Go!

The game started at Mushroom Kingdom (our mini kitchen from Ikea). This kitchen has been transformed quite a few times for previous birthday parties. It’s been a bakery, castle, dinosaur booth, pirate cove, and for its latest transformation, a mushroom kingdom booth

Guests played the game in pairs. They read this sign at the Mushroom Kingdom booth, shouted “Let’s-A-Go!”, and were escorted by their super hosts (my son and daughter, aka Mario and Luigi) to the first level of the game

This was a four level game. I posted signs on the door of each room so guests could read the challenge before beginning each level

I glued card stock to the back of each sign and cut and glued pictures from my son’s Super Mario activity book to decorate each sign

I used this site to make the colored Super Mario titles for the signs and this site for the font of the level directions

Level One: Mario Memory Match

Level one was an online Mario Memory Match game we projected onto our theater screen

Player one started by pointing at two stars on the screen. My husband used his computer to turn those two star cards around. Play continued between player one and two until all matches were made. The player with the most matches earned a chocolate coin! Here is a link to the online Mario Memory Match game we played

Level Two: Boo Blasters

This one was really a blast, as the name suggests. I placed big Boos made of large paper lanterns around the room and put a bin with two nerf guns at the door

The players took turns shooting each Boo with a nerf gun

The player who used the least amount of bullets to shoot all five Boos earned a chocolate coin

I ordered these 18 inch paper lanterns which were the perfect size for the game and hot glued Boo faces I found on Google images

Level Three: Goomba Grab

I placed Goombas around the whole room along with two empty bins at the door. The players grabbed a bin and found Goombas to twist open

Some Goombas had a green or red ball in them and others were empty. If they opened a Goomba with a ball in it, they put the ball in their bin

At the end of the game, they totaled up their scores to see how many points they earned (green Luigi balls=1 point, red Mario balls=2 points). The player with the most points earned a chocolate coin (players brought their bins filled with the balls they found with them to the next level)

For the Goombas, I used these brown coconuts from my son’s Jake and the Neverland Pirates birthday party. Black poster board was used for the feet, and I found the Goomba faces on Google images. I used a hot glue gun to glue the face and feet on the coconuts

Level Four (the final level): Bowser’s Battle

I dimmed the lights in our room and had red tea lights as torches on Bowser’s castle for the perfect Bowser vibe. I played the song “Bowser’s Castle” by Arcade Player on Spotify from our Google Home which got everyone’s adrenaline going (this is seriously the coolest song, give it a listen!)

I made Bowser’s castle out of trifold posters that I wrapped in sticky wood-themed contact paper from Dollar Tree. This castle was originally a princess castle from my daughter’s princess birthday and then was transformed into Bucky the Pirate Ship from my son’s Jake and the Neverland Pirate’s birthday party. It was a huge time saver being able to reuse and repurpose it as Bowser’s castle

Players stood at the door and threw their red and green balls at Bowser. The challenge of this final level was attaching one ball to the front and back of Bowser’s shell

Bowser wore this mask and this velcro vest which acted as his shell

Here’s my daughter posing as Bowser to show the balls sticking to the vest (since my husband aka Bowser didn’t want to pose for this photo lol)

Once players hit the front and back of Bowser’s shell with a ball, Bowser fell to the floor, defeated, and threw Princess Peach (a stuffed toy Princess Peach) out of the castle and we all cheered!!

Hope you had a super time reading our DIY Super Mario levels!