Super Duper Mario! (A Really Super Mario Adventure!)

[NICKtendo DS]

(10-18-2012 01:36 PM)Mighty Switch Gors Wrote:  I don't know, I kinda liked Mario better than this one, because this new guy here looks out of place. Maybe it's a step on the right direction though, I can't tell.

Maybe if you make him like a cool Mario rip-off, then it could work?

Kinda had the same idea. You could make a character that parodies Mario. You could give the new character a hat.

I have 2 Mario parody characters. One of them is Lou the Custodian (named after Lou Albano), which is a blue cat with a red cap and overalls and a moustache, though a different one than Mario's. Physically, he and Mario are nothing alike, yet he clearly parodies him.
The other is Baron van Oldskool, which looks absolutely nothing like Mario. He even lacks the cap and moustache. He wears a blue, striped shirt and red overalls, but what makes him clearly reference Mario is his stance and ability to shoot bouncing fireballs.
I hope this gives you ideas.

The enviroment is perfect the way it is. I'd keep it like that.

[Kitsu]

Honestly, if you're making a game that is gameplay-wise a straight up Mario game and isn't intentionally a blatant parody, using some character other than Mario will probably just make your game look like a ripoff that really IS just banking on the Mario IP's success, instead of an homage or something.

Also, this character looks like a generic "weird indie" character, which further tells the viewer that this game is probably a generic Mario ripoff (notice the use of the word ripoff here instead of homage or clone, both of which are generally better received than ripoff). Some examples of games that were considered ripoffs instead of simply clones would be Final Combat (which took the gameplay and some assets from Team Fortress 2 and reskinned them) or that one Chinese Mario Galaxy game that switched out a little dinosaur for Mario.
This is made even worse by the fact that the environments are still pretty much Mario environments, though I imagine you're planning on changing those.

Personally, I think that, if you're planning to make a Mario game, just use Mario, and if you're going to make a game that emulates the Mario style, you'll have to change a bit more than just the playable protagonist (preferably the gameplay, since right now it still plays like a pretty normal (good) Mario fangame, as seen in the trailer).