A Super Mario Thing is an aptly named ROM Hack of Super Mario World by Talkhaus, the community surrounding Let's PlayerRaocow. Originally made as a "tribute" to his hack-related efforts, it's a game that follows his, at times, Surrealistic commentary to a T, even moreso if one doesn't know about the plethora of insider jokes with which the community could not help but fill the game. It was started and originally managed by Kristian, and later taken up in the management department by YoshiCookieZeus.The game stars Demo, an armless cycloptic demon alien minion, which pretty much summarizes the nature of the game. During an attempt to purchase vegetables for her anonymous master, something goes wrong and she is sent to what appears to be the Mushroom Kingdom of the future, falling right into (or as it were, onto) a deep-seated political conflict about food and is sent out to create a peaceful understanding between the two parties. Mayhem ensues....Okay, so we lied. The real goal of the game is to murder the king of the Charlies (Chargin' Chucks), who is located deep within a volcano beyond a great veil of Nintendo Hard platforming, item puzzles, silly Touhoushout outs and other assorted obstacles.You can find the game as an .ips patch on ROM Hack archive SMWCentral.A sequel, A Second Mario Thing (A2MT), is currently in the works, featuring several new characters, and attempting to deviate from a Raocow based fan project to a more general fan project, as per request of Raocow himself. Demo also stars in another ROM hack, What the Hell?, by Raocow himself that is otherwise unconnected to ASMT.
According to Raocow himself, who designed that battle as a joke, what little difficulty involved was supposed to come from the time limit. The timer in that room is disabled.
Arc Acronym: ASMT shows up in a fair number of levels.
Armless Biped: Demo, Iris, and a good number of enemies. Arms are not appreciated in the Mushroom Kingdom of the future.
Bad Future: The game takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom many years after the disappearance of all the familiar characters, with Mario missing, King Charles taking Bowser's place as Big Bad, and the Yoshis living as refugees.
Bee Bee Gun: One fortress level has cannons that launch bees.
Bilingual Bonus: Tête D'Feu is (Quebecer) French for "Head of Fire"
Book Ends: At the end of the intro cutscene after you warp to the Mushroom Kingdom, you end up landing on a Charlie's head. At the beginning of the final stage of the King Charles fight, you end up landing on his head.
Panic in the Outhouse is filled with Bullet and Banzai Bills, making it, effectively a bullet hell stage in its own right. Notably, there are a bunch of coins that spell HELL.
(at the beginning of the game) Demo: Oh dear. This certainly isn't a grocery store. What to do? (later, at the beginning of the bonus world) Demo: Oh dear. These certainly are not my master's quarters. What to do?
Convection Schmonvection: The big standout in this hack is level Overly Hot Beach. It's a beach...with lava at the bottom instead of water! Also, Boss Bass is in the lava, apparently a reference to Cheep Cheeps being able to survive in lava in Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario Sunshine.
Let's Play: The game is unique in the sense that it was actually made (with some level of quality) for the sake of being LPed, with the LP predating the actual release. You can find it here.
Our Monsters Are Weird: Doughnuts of Doom! A flying lighter that throws out enemies who don't want their heads on fire, torpedoes with Groucho Marx faces, Yaranaika Bullets.
Palmtree Panic: And So It Began, Water Water Everywhere, Overly Hot Beach
Pipe Maze: In a literal sense in The Switch Where Yoshi Jumps A Lot. Played straight in a later level.
Platform Hell: Although the game normally qualifies as a Nintendo Hard hack, there is one section in King Charles's Castle that first of all, disables Spin Jumps. So? Well there's a spinning Koopa Shell that you have to jump over and avoid ... while in a room with a disco-light like dealing with giant spiked pillars, Thwimps, Thwomps, blocks that enemies can fall go through but you fall through, and Fishing Boos. Raocow even calls this specific room "Hell".
Player Headquarters: Well, plot headquarters, And Then There Was A Resistance Base.
Sequel Hook: Added in the public release where Demo returns to her returns to her master's ship to find everybody gone.
Shout Out: The game is basically made out of shout outs to Raocow and stuff he played, such as other Hacks (2chan's Vip and Wall Mix series in particular), cat planet, Touhou and a lot of other things.
Trial of Chaos got heavily toned down and is much more playable in the public release thanks to all the interface screws being removed.
Time Limit Boss: The World 7 boss. Good luck navigating that shell!
Unique Enemy: The Worms' Cave is the only level in the game that has Blarggs other than the credits, and in one of the strangest examples of this trope, multiple enemies are only used in the credits sequence due to lack of coordination between level designers.