Shigeru Miyamoto, creative fellow at Nintendo and creator of Super Mario, speaks on stage during an Apple launch event on September 7, 2016 in San Francisco, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Stephen Lam)
Video gamers' favorite plumber in the jumper just landed on the smartphone industry with the release of the "Super Mario Run" early this month in the iOS but with Nintendo withholding the release of the game on Android, knockoff games have sprung up like mushrooms in the Google Play Store.
Android users will have to wait for a few months before "Super Mario Run" hits the Play Store but they can play an alternate with knockoff games such as "Super Mega Runners 8-Bit jump," "Super Marlo Run" and "Super Plumber Run," Mic Tech reported.
"Super Mega Runners 8-bit jump," from the name itself, is an 8-bit game which features "Super Mario Run"-esque mechanics but instead of controlling a character that looks like Mario, players can choose from famous pop culture characters from Mr. T, former American president Abraham Lincoln and a military guy that looks like Guile from the "Street Fighter" games. The game is free on Google Play with in-app purchases.
Unlike "Super Mega Runners 8-bit jump," "Super Marlo Run" is a definite rip-off of the original game with the character looking a lot like Mario. That likeness led to "Super Marlo Run" being removed from the Google Play Store. Players navigate Marlo with just one hand as he automatically runs, just like the mechanics in "Super Mario Run."
"Super Plumber Run" is another knockoff game where the players can make the character ride vehicles and grow into a giant plumber who can run through blocks and obstables, features that cannot be done in the original runner.
"Super Mario Run," which became available in the Apple App Store in Dec. 15, racked up 40 million downloads in the first four days of its release and hit the 50 million mark after a week. According to BGR, Apple's exclusivity of the game may last for only a month as Nintendo opened up a pre-registration for the game in the Play Store on Jan. 4, 2017. The pre-registration button will notify Android uses if "Super Mario Run" already hits the store.
Watch the video below to preview the gameplay of the "Super Marlo Run":
