Jumpman (Unofficial)

Mario has inspired many bootlegs, and unofficial copies over the years. Only licensed titles are featured in the collection, with this game as an exception.

Why? It’s unusual because it was a legitimate and commercially available game, released in 1984 by Blaby Computer Games, and uses Mario’s likeness (presumably without permission from Nintendo).

Mario was known as ‘Jumpman’ back then with the release of the arcade game Donkey Kong in 1981. The huge success of Super Mario Bros was still yet to happen, and perhaps the local British games developer was unaware of how big the little plumber was to become.

Strangely, the game itself bears no resemblance to the cover artwork, and is actually a Q*Bert-style clone.