The Minus World

No Exit

Last night I gchatted Sean about his HILARIOUS post on species of video game dorks, and we had an enlightening conversation about the elusive Super Mario Brothers "Minus World" that seemed like an urban myth in elementary school unless you were in the highest level math class, in which case it was a real level, while the rest of us played Duck Hunt with the gun directly on the tv screen. Cut and pasted below is our gchat:

me: your mario post
is fucking hilarious
Sean: hahhhh
me: -1 world
Sean: did you even get it???
me: i mean, I’ve heard of some of these things
but no
Sean: don't tell me YOU are aware of the -1 world?
me: i can’t make it past level 3
i am vaguely aware of it
never seen it
Sean: haha
me: what does it look like
how do you get there
like hitting a block
or like
up down
up down
a b a b
right left right left
Sean: i'm a hypocrite; i actually have never gotten there by myself; i've seen others do it
OMG
marin
that's the 30 lives contra code
i had no idea you had video game dorkiness in you
me: i only know this from
my friend who attended
the nintendo
music convention and attempted to drag me with him
Sean: ha in what way does that lead to your knowledge of the 30 lives contra code
me: he just rattled that off
Sean: damn
in world 1-2, before you enter the pipe that takes you back to the surface, you have to do this weird block breaking thing and somehow you end up next to the warp zone pipe and you go into it
and then you're in -1 world, which is an underwater level
me: um
Sean: and it goes on forever; once you beat it, it takes you back to the beginning of the underwater level
me: er
and then what
Sean: that's it
it goes on forever
it's very existential
me: weird