Mario Party

is a party video game developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. It was released in Japan on December 18, 1998, in North America on February 8, 1999, and in Europe and Australia on March 9, 1999. The game was targeted at a young audience. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto served as development supervisor. It received mostly positive critical reviews for its multiplayer mode, concept, and music; disapproval of its slow pacing; and mixed reviews of its graphics. It is the first installment in the Mario Party series, followed by Mario Party 2 in 1999 for Nintendo 64. Gameplay Mario Party is a party video game featuring six playable characters: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Wario, and Donkey Kong. In the game's frame story, Mario and his friends argue about which of them is the "Super Star", a figure upon whom the entire world can rely. To settle their dispute, they set out for adventure to determine which of them is most worthy of the title. The gameplay is presented in the form of a traditional board game, and includes six game board maps themed after each of the playable characters. Two additional board maps become available later in the game. Mario Party includes multiplayer compatibility; each game on a board map consists of four players, including at least one human player and up to four. Any character who is not controlled by a human will instead be controlled by the game as a computer-controlled character. The skill level of the computer-controlled characters can be individually adjusted between "Easy", "Medium", or "Hard". After the players and board map have been determined, the player chooses how long the board map game will last: "Lite Play" consists of 20 turns, "Standard Play" consists of 35, and "Full Play" consists of 50. Upon starting a board, players each hit a dice block to determine turn order, with the highest number going first on each turn and the lowest number going last. The goal of Mario Party is to collect the most stars within the allotted amount of turns. Stars must be purchased from Toad with coins, which can be earned through a selection from one of 50 mini-games that is played once at the end of each turn. The first player initiates a turn by rolling a dice block that determines how many spaces they will advance on the board, ranging from one to ten spaces. Each board map has a variety of spaces.