Someone turned Lego Mario into a controller for 'Super Mario Bros.'

If you're a fan of a certain Italian plumber and brand of plastic building blocks, you've probably seen the Lego Super Mario sets Lego and Nintendo released in August. Using a combination of technologies, they allow you to build your own IRL Mario levels with specially made Lego blocks. So obviously it was only a matter of time before someone found a way to use those toys to play Super Mario Bros. (via The Verge).

The videos you see above is the handiwork of a Twitter user named @r1ckp, who describes themselves as a self-professed hardware hacker. Using an emulated version of Super Mario Bros., they were able to code the Mario figure that comes with the Starter Course set to function as a controller in the 1985 NES title. Moving Mario in-game is a simple as tilting his real-world counterpart in the direction you want him to travel. Things get only slightly more complicated when you want the plumber to shoot a fireball or go down a pipe. In the latter case, you physically put Mario down a pipe that comes with the set.