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Jamie Eisner hosted a life-sized version of Mario Party for her fiancé’s birthday, and shared a video of the event online
The game included costumes, home-brewed minigames and plenty of opportunities for strategy
The video has since been viewed more than 900,000 times on TikTok
One woman is bringing the fun of Mario Party to her living room — no console needed.
In a video posted to TikTok, Jamie Eisner showed her life-sized version of Mario Party, bringing eight players together in a version of the game set up in her living room. Using pieces of construction paper as the tiles of the game board and some home-brewed minigames inspired by the Nintendo 64 version of the game, the party successfully brought the popular video game to life.
“It was my fiancé’s idea to have a life-sized version of Mario Party,” Eisner says exclusively to PEOPLE, noting he’s the one dressed as Princess Peach in the video. “He loves games and has been saying for years that for his birthday, he wanted to do a life-sized Mario Party.”
jeisner/Tiktok
Balloon game in the life-sized game of ‘Mario Party’
Eisner’s fiancé had thrown a similar party in college, so taking heavy inspiration from that, she went to work crafting the finer details over the course of two weeks. Each participant was pre-assigned their character, giving them time to plan out their costume, and Eisner decided how the teams would be divided for the minigames ahead of time to avoid the hassle in the moment.
Just like in the video game, the construction paper tiles offered branching paths to players, allowing them to detour to cross Challenge or Drinking Buddy tiles. Those who crossed these tiles could either challenge the player of their choice to rock paper scissors or a pushup or long-jump challenge. These tiles could also be used to derail another player who was close to getting a star, as once someone reached three stars, the game was over.
“Our friends also got very into their characters,” Eisner continues. “For example, our friend who dressed as Donkey Kong brought bananas with different things written on them like ‘truth or dare’ or ‘take a drink,’ and she would randomly throw them at other players, which was a lot of fun.”
To add some higher stakes to it, players also had the opportunity to vote “Survivor-style” for who had the best costume, with the winner earning another star. Additional stars were given for the winner of the most minigames and the player who had collected the most coins (which were won by winning minigames or challenges). Just as in the video game, the player with the most stars after all had been doled out took home the win.
“The logistics of planning the game was the most challenging part,” Eisner says, noting that she elected to sit out of participating to run the game, and had an additional friend setting up minigames and passing out coins. “Once everyone arrived, I also had to make sure the game ran smoothly enough with all of the moving parts that everyone understood rules and also could move through the game stress-free so we could have fun! Before we started playing, we all sat in our living room and went through the rules so all of our friends had an idea of what they were getting themselves into.”
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Since posting the video to TikTok, it’s received more than 900,000 views, with many commenters applauding her organization and execution of the game (and some others saying they wanted to steal the idea for themselves).
jeisner/Tiktok
The winner of the life-sized version of ‘Mario Party’
“I had about 25 followers when I posted it, so I never expected it to blow up like it did,” she says. “I think it is great that so many people are interested in the game and want to play! We had so much fun designing it and playing, so I hope other people can also have fun doing it.”
“I also think it’s important for adults to not forget that it’s okay to play and that being goofy with friends is something we can still do as adults. I think we sometimes forget how to lean into our playful sides as we get older,” Eisner continues. “I’d love to see if more people play and how people tailor it to their own friend groups because you can get so creative with it!”
Read the original article on People
