a madman named leon has given us a super mario bros. world entirely in silhouette. in such a world the tone of each stage is conveyed by the background, the only source of color. the author’s color choices are inspired: a warm, hazy orange-pink for the daytime stages, a cool, bright blue for the night ones, a lush, austere purple for the underwater worlds.

beautiful, but what else can we learn? mario reads astoundingly well in silhouette, both, i think, because of the game’s strong visual design and the extent to which the elements of this game have passed into iconography. david hellman talked about using silhouette to convey the essence of the platform genre, and this is it right here, crisp black forms on glowing backdrops, the elements of the platformer suspended their essential harmony.

the super mario bros. romhacking month to which leon refers took place a year ago on the selectbutton forums. my round-up and reflection on it can be found here.