Geno RPG

What is this?

A fan-made RPG inspired by Super Mario RPG, starring Geno — one of the original game’s lesser-used characters. Rough, buggy, but made with love.

The Origin

When I was a kid, I played Super Mario RPG with my brother. It was a turn-based RPG and the first — and so far only — collaboration between Nintendo and Square. During battles, you could choose 3 out of 5 playable characters. Three were classic characters from the Mario series, while two were original to the game.

Because it was turn-based and not actually multiplayer, we made our own co-op system: whenever it was Geno’s turn, I played; whenever it was Mario’s turn, my brother played. Our third character was Peach, and either of us could control her.

Part of what made battles so memorable was that we never knew how close we were to winning. The game never showed the bosses’ HP. So we wrote it down. Every time we lost to a boss, we'd note how much damage we dealt. "At least it has this much HP." We'd try again, armed with our paper notes and determination.

That game stayed with me for years, but I never seriously considered making games myself.

After struggling in university and going through vocational counseling, game development was suggested to me as a possible path. I doubted it at first, but decided to try.

So in 2020, when I started learning how to make games, the first project I chose was a fan-made continuation of Super Mario RPG.

This is my first game.

The Story

Geno returns after a long absence. Unlike Mario, Peach, or Bowser — characters who continued appearing across countless Nintendo games — Geno only appeared in the original RPG and was rarely reused afterward. That made him feel frozen in time, still tied to the world of that game.

From there, I explored the idea that characters who were never reused in future Mario games — like Mallow and many of the original bosses — would begin to “glitch” and fade, as if being forgotten by the franchise itself. This became the central motivation of the story: Geno returns to try to save them.

I chose Bowsette — a fan-created character born from an internet trend — as the first boss and later party member for two reasons. First, at the time, she had a level of popularity comparable to or even greater than Geno, making her feel strangely relevant despite not being official. Second, her existence as a fan-made character made her fit naturally into a world where identity and existence are unstable. In gameplay terms, she inherits traits from both Bowser and Peach.

I also designed an original character: Vooster, the descendant of two villains from the original game. He wields Mallow’s thunder abilities along with glitch-related powers. This allowed me to reinterpret Mallow’s role in the party while expanding the world with a new character connected to the original cast.

Overall, the party was designed around this idea of inherited roles: Geno regains his original powers along with Mario’s fire abilities, Bowsette combines elements of Bowser and Peach, and the new character carries Mallow’s legacy.

What I Tried To Make

The project began in November 2020 in Unity. I attempted to build a complete RPG experience: isometric exploration, a dialogue system, turn-based battles—the full scope of what Super Mario RPG offered.

I wore every hat: programmer, artist, designer. I created original sprites for Bowsette from scratch and extended Geno's sprite sheet to support new animations.

By February 2021, I released this demo: exploration, dialogue, and one boss fight. Buggy. Unpolished. But real. Below, a glimpse of all the ideas I had planned:

What I Learned

Back then, I didn't think about game design or mechanics. I just wanted to make the game exist. I didn't plan for scope, didn't consider player experience, didn't test properly.

Now I think about all of those things. The difference between then and now is everything I've learned since.

This project taught me that finishing something—even something imperfect—matters more than planning something perfect that never ships.

When the Mario RPG remake was announced in 2023, I shared this project again. Full circle.

This was my first game. ♥

It has bugs. It has rough edges. But it's the project that made me a developer.

I won't hide it from my portfolio.

Made with Unity • 2020-2021

Original sprites: Geno, environments © Nintendo/Square Custom sprites (Bowsette, additional Geno animations): Raul Jeri