Mario Party series
From Donkey Kong Wiki
The Mario Party series, which first started in 1999 with Mario party for the Nintendo 64, is a multiplayer Mario game based on a board game. The Mario Party Series currently has 8 games in the series, with spin-offs including Mario Party DS, Mario Party Advance, and Mario Party-e and Mario Party Arcade.
[edit] Gameplay
In the games, players run across digital game boards as classic Mario characters, collecting coins, items and eventually stars. The game is divided into turns, usually in ranks of ten to fifty. At the end of each turn a minigame is played, and the winner receives a small coin bonus Whoever has the most most stars at the end wins.
[edit] Party Mode
Every game in the main series has a standard Party Mode in which up to four players play through a board, trying to collect as many stars as possible. In every turn, each player rolls a die and progresses on the board, which usually has branching paths. Coins are primarily earned by performing well in a minigame played at the end of each turn. On most boards, players earn stars by reaching a star space and purchasing a star for a certain amount of coins. The star space appears randomly on one of several pre-determined locations and moves every time a star is purchased, usually occupying a blue space.
Every Mario Party contains at least 50 to almost 110 minigames with a few different types. Four-player games are a free-for-all in which players compete individually. In 2-on-2 and 1-on-3 minigames, players compete as two groups, cooperating to win, even though they are still competing individually in the main game. Some minigames in Mario Party 1 are 4-player co-op, even though it doesn't say it. In most situations, winners earn ten coins each.
Battle minigames first appeared in Mario Party 2. These games are like the 4-player games, but are often more elaborate. Instead of winners earning ten coins each, each player contributes a randomly selected number of coins (or all coins if the player falls short of the pot amount). The winner of the minigame receives 70% of the pot, the second place winner receives the other 30%, and a random player occasionally gets a coin left over from rounding.
Duel minigames also debuted in Mario Party 2, and were omitted in Mario Party 4 (though the Story minigames were all duels), but returned again in Mario Party 5. Duel games pit two players against each other. In Party Mode, one player initiates the duel, wagering coins or even a star against another player. The winner of the duel receives all coins or stars wagered. Starting with Mario Party 7, the player no longer chooses the wager in a duel, rather, the duel takes place and the prize to the winner, if any, is randomly determined.
[edit] Minigame Mode
In addition to Party mode, every Mario Party has a minigame mode in which minigames are played with the board game. Minigame modes vary from game to game, but later games have many different variations. In one such example from Mario Party 5, each player tries to fill a board with as many spaces as possible in his or her color by winning minigames.
