Video games have been adapted into board games almost since the start of the industry, and the trend continues today. We have recently had news about the Darkest Dungeon and Sniper Elite board games, and I have previously spoken about the potential there could be in adapting Fire Emblem and Advance Wars as tabletop games. But there are other Nintendo games that would work well as board games, all due to the unique nature of the games themselves. Nintendo’s Mario Party and WarioWare would work surprisingly well as party board games, and could be adapted in a variety of ways. Both do not need to adapt the video games exactly, but rather simply take appropriate influence from them while creating a new take on the IPs. Considering the ways the games have changed over the years, this is nothing out of the ordinary and should not cause any issues.
Mario Party is the easiest to realize, as the games themselves use a board as a basis between minigames. A Mario Party board game should involve picking a Mario character figure and going across the board earning stars within a time limit, with each space on the board leading to a type of challenge, These challenges would be between the various players, with a variety of ways to act out. These can include adaptations of the video games’ minigames, or new ideas uniquely developed for a board game scenario. For instance, the board itself could include a variety of smaller sections where small, for lack of a better term, face-offs on the board using various contraptions. Alternatively, the game could give challenges to players to act out separate from the board.
WarioWare would be rather easy to adapt to tabletop format, as it could go in one of two ways. The game would have to involve a series of challenges players would do in a very quick time frame for points, while competing against each other, but the way it could be done is with or without additional items. With additional items to act out the challenges, the players would need to use contraptions like fake noses, spinning discs and more, to simulate various minigames from the video game series. You could have a fake nose that is dripping and players would have to see who can get the fake nose to inhale fastest. Alternatively, the challenges would be ones that would not need additional items and could just be acted out based on cards. Players would have to face off to see who could get these tasks done fastest.
Whatever the decision made, Nintendo’s party games have potential as tabletop experiences, and Nintendo should look into the matter as a way to expand their IP.