- Who
- What
- 100+ people
- Where
- United States (Menlo Park)
- When
"Hackathons" are sprint-like events that bring software developers together over a short space of time to collaborate in the production of apps and games. Nintendo hosted a special “hackathon” event based around Super Mario Maker at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park in California, USA, on 28–29 July 2015, which proved to be the first of its kind. More than 100 employees at the social-media giant were asked to design Super Mario Maker levels ahead of the game's launch. The best was judged to be one called "Ship Love" which was designed by Facebook software engineers Doug Strait and Roy McElmurry (both USA) and it was made available as a free download when the Super Mario Maker was released. Based on Super Mario Bros, it takes place on a pirate ship and includes lots of coins, Bob-ombs and an encounter with Bowser at the end. Judges of the hackathon included Nintendo of America's senior product marketing manager Bill Trinen and public-relations manager Krystal Yang, as well as Facebook production engineer Rachel Kroll and director of strategic partnerships Ime Archibong. Scott Moffitt, Nintendo's executive vice president of sales and marketing was also judging.
The level can be seen in action at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TPmZQPMmPQ.
