# NSMB MarioVsLuigi rebuilds a DS multiplayer mode in Unity

> This project is a standalone Unity remake of the Mario versus Luigi mode from New Super Mario Bros DS, playable by 2 to 10 people in a browser or as a desktop build. It ships the five original levels plus custom ones, and its documentation is thin enough that the credits list and the editor instructions carry most of the information.

**ipodtouch0218/NSMB-MarioVsLuigi** — Standalone Unity remake of New Super Mario Bros DS' multiplayer gamemode, "Mario vs Luigi"

- Repository: https://github.com/ipodtouch0218/NSMB-MarioVsLuigi
- Website: https://ipodtouch0218.itch.io/nsmb-mariovsluigi
- Stars: 1,100 · Forks: 387
- Language: C#
- License: not declared
- Published: 2026-10-19 · Updated: 2026-10-19 · Language: en
- Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/ipodtouch0218-nsmb-mariovsluigi

## A two player mode turned into a ten player game

The project is described as a Unity standalone 2 to 10 player remake of the Mario versus Luigi game mode from the New Super Mario Bros DS download game.

The original mode is a competitive versus game, which is an unusual shape for a Nintendo DS title. Porting it to a standalone Unity application with network multiplayer for up to ten people is a substantial reinterpretation, not a straight port, and that is what the project is.

The content is the original five levels, named in the README as Grassland, Bricks, Castle, Pipes and Ice, along with a handful of custom levels to battle on. The power-ups are all included and are described as faithful to their original counterparts, with three additions: the Propeller Suit, the Ice Flower and the Hammer Suit.

The audience is a fan of the mode who wants it on a PC, and a developer who wants to read a multiplayer platformer built in Unity. The distribution is broad, with a browser build playable on itch.io and Windows, Linux and Mac builds published on the GitHub releases page. There is also a Discord for development news, feature suggestions, bug reports, technical support and finding people to play with.

The project is not archived and the last push was on 2026-09-30. The recent release history shows a two point two line, with v2.2.0.0 published on 2026-09-03 and a hotfix v2.2.0.1 about an hour later on the same day, after v2.1.1.0 from 2026-04-26. A hotfix issued the same day as the release is a reasonable sign of an active project, and it is also a sign that the release process is informal enough to patch quickly.

## The controls are designed for two kinds of player

The default controls table is the most useful piece of documentation in the repository, because it defines the vocabulary of the game.

| Action | Keyboard | Gamepad |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Movement | WASD / Arrow Keys | Left Analog / DPad |
| Jump | Space / Z | A / B Buttons |
| Sprint | Shift / X (hold) | X / Y Buttons (hold) |
| Powerup Action | E / C | RB / RT |
| Reserve Item | Q / V | LB / LT |
| Show Scoreboard | Tab | Select |
| Pause | Escape | Start Button |
| UI Confirm | Left Mouse / Enter / Z | A Button |

Two design decisions are visible here. The first is that every action has a keyboard binding and a gamepad binding, which is what a game with network multiplayer and up to ten players needs, since a shared screen with ten players means most of them are on gamepads.

The second is the redundancy in the keyboard column. Movement is bound to both WASD and the arrow keys, jump to both Space and Z, sprint to Shift and X, the powerup action to E and C, the reserve item to Q and V, and the UI confirm to the left mouse button, Enter and Z. That is not a designer being fussy, it is a designer who has played the game on a laptop keyboard, on a full size keyboard, and with a mouse, and has decided that nobody should be blocked by not finding the right key.

The shoulder buttons are split by function rather than by player, with the powerup action on the right and the reserve item on the left, which keeps the two most used combat actions under the index fingers of a right handed grip. The scoreboard on Tab and the pause on Escape are the two bindings a player needs to hit without looking, and both are on the keyboard as well as the gamepad.

For a browser build the mouse appears in the UI confirm row, which is the one place where a pointer is expected rather than tolerated.

## Opening the project needs a specific Unity version and real git

The editor instructions are given in a collapsible section titled Opening in Unity Editor, and they are eight steps that a reader can follow without any prior knowledge of the project.

The first step is the version. You need Unity 6000.3.10f1 or newer, installed through Unity Hub, and the instructions go into detail about where to find it if the version is not in the default list, namely to switch to the Archive tab and open the download archive link. The second is git, installed from the git-scm site, with a warning that matters: do not use the .zip download, as it will cause errors within Unity.

That warning is the kind of detail that saves an afternoon. A zip download of a Unity project does not carry the submodule and repository metadata that Unity expects, and the resulting errors are famously unhelpful.

The next steps are a terminal and a clone.

```bash
git clone https://github.com/ipodtouch0218/NSMB-MarioVsLuigi.git
```

The documentation suggests forking the repository first if you intend to contribute, and then opening the project in Unity Hub, changing the Unity Editor to use your computer's platform in File and Build Settings, and creating a build with Build and Run in the same window or with Ctrl+B.

Two details in the repository layout are worth noting for a developer. There is a Visual Studio solution file, `NSMB-MarioVsLuigi.sln`, alongside the Unity project folders `Assets/`, `Packages/` and `ProjectSettings/`, and there are `app.config` and `packages.config` files, which are the .NET side of the project. There is also an `LINKS.md` file at the root, which in a project like this is usually where the community resources and the related material are collected.

## The credits list is the project's real documentation

The README spends most of its length on credits, and for this project that is not filler. It is where the scope of the work and the shape of the community are described.

The contributors list runs to around thirty names, and it is followed by four more credited groups. Music has four names, one of them linked to a Bandcamp page. Translators is by far the longest list, running to over fifty people, each with their language code, and the codes include several regional variants of the same language, which tells you the project is localised seriously rather than nominally.

Quality assurance has fourteen names, and level design has six, which is a ratio worth pausing on. A level design credit list almost as long as the QA list is unusual for a fan project, and it points at the custom levels being the part of the project where the community contributes most, rather than the remake of the original five.

Then come the two lists that matter most for anyone reading the repository as a source. The first is Original Content, which lists New Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. Wii, New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Maker 2. The second is Asset Rips, which names around twenty contributors and what they provided, UI, sound, tiles, models, backgrounds, enemies, fonts.

So the artwork and audio in the project are ripped from Nintendo's games, and the people who did the ripping are credited by name and by what they ripped. That is the honest and quite common practice in the fan modding scene, and it is also the reason this project is not a foundation for anything commercial, whatever the technical quality.

The README also credits the logo work, the Mario versus Luigi online logo by zomblebobble and BluCorDev, and the INFENEK GAMES logo by TheBluePixeling.

## Reuse is the part to think about before you fork

Two things in this repository make it a poor base for anything you intend to ship, and neither is about the code.

The first is the asset situation. The original content comes from four Nintendo titles, and the art, the music and the sound effects were extracted from those games by the community members credited in the README. A fork that contains those files contains Nintendo's intellectual property, whatever the state of the code licence, and distributing it is a different question from running it for yourself.

The second is that the repository declares no licence in the metadata, and the README does not state one either. When a repository has no licence, the default position under copyright law is that nobody has been granted permission to copy, modify or redistribute it. That is a weaker position for the user than a permissive licence would be, and a weaker position for a company that wants to fork, contribute back, or vendor parts of it.

For a player, both of these are irrelevant, because running the build on your own machine and sharing it with friends is a very different act from redistributing it.

For a developer reading the code, the picture is different again. This is a complete, working, networked multiplayer platformer in Unity with a large community, and the value of the codebase is in what it shows, which is how a versus mode is built on top of an engine, how a level format is authored, and how the netcode is put together for a game where ten people share a screen.

The right framing, then, is that this is a project to read and to play, with a licence situation to resolve before you reuse anything. The README does not tell you what that situation is, which is itself the first thing to ask about in the Discord.

## Where this project is the wrong answer

There is a version mismatch problem that is easy to miss. The mode being remade is from a Nintendo DS game, and the original is a two player versus mode with a small number of levels and a tight round structure. This project takes that and scales it to ten players, adds the five original levels and a set of custom ones, and adds three power-ups that were not in the original mode.

That means the result is not the same game. It is a game in the same family, and someone who remembers the DS version will find differences in the level design, the balance and the power-up set. The README is upfront that the power-ups remain faithful to their original counterparts alongside the three additions, but the level count and the player count are the project own interpretation.

The second limitation is the platform floor. The editor instructions name Unity 6000.3.10f1 or newer, which is a very recent editor, and the project ships a Windows, Linux and Mac build plus a browser build through itch.io. There is no console release, and a browser build of a platformer with ten players is going to be limited by whatever the browser multiplayer layer can do, which the documentation does not describe.

The third is the maintenance cadence. The release history shows a 2.1.1.0 in April 2026, a 2.2.0.0 in September, and a hotfix an hour later. The repository also references a `nightly` branch in its asset paths, which suggests continuous integration builds exist, but the README does not document a nightly channel. For a player this does not matter. For someone planning to build on the project, the release process is less clear than the community around it.

## Conclusion

NSMB-MarioVsLuigi suits a player who wants the Mario versus Luigi mode from the DS game on a PC or in a browser, and it suits a Unity developer who wants to read a complete, working multiplayer platformer codebase with a large community behind it. It is the wrong project for a commercial release, since the original content and the ripped assets belong to Nintendo and the repository declares no licence. Check first that the version you download matches what you expect, because the recent history includes a same-day hotfix after the 2.2.0 release, and read the credits before reusing any of the assets.

## FAQ

### What is NSMB-MarioVsLuigi?

It is a standalone Unity remake of the Mario versus Luigi game mode from the New Super Mario Bros DS download game, supporting 2 to 10 players. It includes the five default levels, Grassland, Bricks, Castle, Pipes and Ice, plus a handful of custom levels.

### How do I play it?

You can play it in a browser on the project's itch.io page, or download Windows, Linux and Mac builds from the GitHub releases page. The project also has a Discord for finding people to play with.

### What do I need to open the project in the Unity editor?

Unity 6000.3.10f1 or newer installed through Unity Hub, and git installed from the git-scm site. The documentation warns explicitly not to use the.zip download of the repository, since it causes errors within Unity, and the project is then cloned with `git clone https://github.com/ipodtouch0218/NSMB-MarioVsLuigi.git`.

### Which power-ups are included?

The README states that all the power-ups are included and remain faithful to their original counterparts, along with the new addition of the Propeller Suit, the Ice Flower and the Hammer Suit. The controls table also separates a powerup action from a reserve item, which maps onto that distinction.

## Sources

- [ipodtouch0218/NSMB-MarioVsLuigi on GitHub](https://github.com/ipodtouch0218/NSMB-MarioVsLuigi)
- [Issues](https://github.com/ipodtouch0218/NSMB-MarioVsLuigi/issues)
- [Project website](https://ipodtouch0218.itch.io/nsmb-mariovsluigi)
- [README](https://github.com/ipodtouch0218/NSMB-MarioVsLuigi/blob/master/README.md)
- [Releases](https://github.com/ipodtouch0218/NSMB-MarioVsLuigi/releases)

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Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/ipodtouch0218-nsmb-mariovsluigi