This Theme of the Week brought back my early memories of console gaming when graphics were blocky and a silly little dog laughed at me when I missed my shot. This week’s theme is called Super Mario Maker and even though Super Mario is a little more current than my earliest memories the look of this theme combined with the sounds put my mindset in my grandparent’s bedroom leaning on an upright cushion with my eyes glued to the TV while mashing buttons on the wired controller.
The Super Mario Maker theme has many details and if you’ve read my other Theme of the Week articles you know that the themes I’ve reviewed so far have been missing one ingredient… sounds. This theme comes with not only one, but three appropriate tunes to match the theme. The most heard tune is the sound you hear when Mario gets a coin and then there’s the theme song when you get a phone call and a similar sound for an alarm.
Once again I’m pleased to find a theme that applies texture to not just the basic apps, but every app in your inventory and this icon pack adds a block around each app that looks like brick Mario would jump up and bump to earn a prize. The wallpaper in the app tray has a cool retro background of the a map you would find in almost any Mario game. It has a brick ground with a blue sky and blocky clouds. The lock and home screen wallpaper have the Mario from a game designed for the Wii U which has a little more detail than the rest of the theme, but it still goes well with everything.
The weather icons have a nice 3D effect on them and the clock looks great with a two-toned set of colors for the hours and a different set for the minutes. The digits of the clock look very modern and remind me of something from Mario Party.
The Super Mario Maker theme was created by Dameon Welke who has a collection of eight themes in the library and I’ll be watching for future themes to add to my column, because he definitely goes the extra mile when creating themes. This theme has been downloaded 11250 times since it’s release!
Theme of the Week: Super Mario Maker
