Introduction

Super Mario Bros. is one of the most famous video games of all times, and an icon of the video game culture. More than 20 years after its creation, it is still marketed by Nintendo itself, licensed to other companies and subverted or re-used by numerous artists.
A good example of a legal recuperation is the Super Mario Bros.  series of the so-called Soundrops made by Bandai. The Soundrops are small drop-shaped colored plastic key holders containing an IC, a power supply and a speaker. They feature a single large round-shaped push button and each Soundrop emits a short sound sample when pressed. In the case of the Super Mario Bros. series, the sound samples are taken from the video game.
The project dubbed Sonata per Mario aims at pushing further the use of detournement (an anglicization of the French word "détournement" that could be translated as subversion) and recuperation through DIY and lo-tech hacking techniques.

Description

In Sonata per Mario, both the game Super Mario Bros. (by Nintendo) and the related Soundrop series (by Bandai) are re-used to create a new game that in turn can be seen as a detournement of the game Taiko Drum Master (by Namco).
The players use the eight Soundrops of the Super Mario Bros. series as an eight-buttons controller for a game based on pre-recorded plays of Super Mario Bros.. The pre-recorded plays have been stripped of the sound and the goal of the game is to reconstruct it through the use of the Soundrops, in perfect synchronization with the actions of the character Mario. Players earn points by pressing the correct Soundrop button at the right instant in a way that is similar to the game Taiko Drum Master.

Sonata per Mario features a list of the highest scores and the possibility for the player to enter his/her name when a high score is achieved. Moreover, it has two levels of difficulty. At the normal level of difficulty, visual indications are provided to help the player to be perfectly synchronized with the action of Mario. At the hard level of difficulty, such indications are not provided and the player must rely only on the actions of Mario.

In addition to the sheer entertainment value of the project when considered as a game, Sonata per Mario is a reflexion on the practice of recuperation by companies and the similar practice of detournement through hacking and DIY techniques by hobbyists and artists.
The Soundrops can be classified as merchandising and as such, products of recuperation. At the same time, the object itself is an original and creative product that yet cannot be dissociated of the original product to which it is related. Without its reference, the pertinence of the object is lost.
Sonata per Mario re-uses (or hacks, "détourne") an already recuperated merchandising product (the Soundrops) to become an original game that is itself a detournement of video games. In addition, it can be seen as a reflexion on copyright issues with an ironic and parodic twist.