Let’s take a look at the three Super Mario Balancing Games
The Super Mario Balancing Games, three sets of games from Epoch Games, Ground Stage, Underground Stage and Castle Stage. Each game consists of a two-story stage with four iconic Super Mario character pieces, and a dice. That’s a total of three stages and twelve characters.
The Stages
The Ground Stage comes with Mario, Yoshi, a Koopa Troopa, and a Goomba figure while with the Underground Stage you get Mario, Luigi, a Buzzy Beetle, and a Spike figure and finally, the Castle Stage offers you Fire Mario, Princess Peach, a Hammer Bro, and a Boo figure. Click the images for a larger version.
To play the game you must roll the dice then place the number of characters shown by the dice onto the playing stage or, if all characters are on the stage already, remove that number of characters from the stage. If a player makes a character fall from the stage then that player is out of the game.
Allowing for variations in the game, each set can be disassembled and reassembled in different configurations.
The three sets all connect together via the Epoch “Link System” making for a more intricate playing stage. All of the sets also link together with other Epoch games, Blow Up Shaky Tower and Piranha Plant Escape.
Once you’ve finished playing the game, an additional feature of the sets sees them used as display stands for the character figures.
My partner bought me these from B&M in Minworth at a cost of £9.99 each. To be completely frank, and although I do like and appreciate them, I’m not sure the price tag is justified. Without the Super Mario name attached I imagine it would be something you’d find for around a fiver. They’re a nice little novelty for my retro gaming knick-knack shelves though.
