I should make something fancier here, but having finished it I just want to push it out the door and get away from the computer.

I've assembled some statistics about the recent fifty-turn playthrough of Mario Party 2. The document is probably too long and complex to directly include as a blog post, but you should be able to read and download it from here. Just as a heads-up, it's 40 pages long, with about 30 graphs and tables and 9,700 words.

I only realised mid-way through that the original is a Premium video so if you can't watch it, some of this probably won't make sense. If you can watch it but haven't - you really should.

In lieu of the actual content, here's the table of contents:

Contents

• Contents. 0
  • List of Tables. 0
  • List of Figures. 1
• Background. 2
• Before The Game. 3
  • Game Parameters. 3
  • "Story: The Legend of Mario Land", as told in the official instruction manual 3
  • "Story: The Legend of Mario Land", as told by Dan to the other players 4
• Gameplay. 7
  • Turn Durations. 7
    • Brad’s "Turn of the Game". 9
  • Die Rolls. 9
  • Events. 10
    • Bank Payments. 12
    • Bowser Beam.. 13
    • "Happening" Tiles. 13
  • Star Purchases, Hidden Blocks, and Boo Steals 14
    • Hidden Blocks. 14
    • Boo Thefts. 14
    • Star Acquisition Rate. 15
  • Coins. 16
• Minigames. 17
  • Winners. 17
  • Minigame Randomness. 18
    • "Free-for-all" Minigames. 19
    • 1-v-3 Minigames. 20
    • 2-v-2 Minigames. 21
    • Battle Minigames. 22
  • Minigame Durations. 22
• Turn 51. 27
  • Bonus Stars. 27
    • Mini-Game Star. 27
    • Coin Star. 27
    • Happening Star. 27
  • Official Results. 27
  • Player Ranking. 28
    • "Short Game" Winners. 28
  • Context-free Mario Party 2 opinions, in chronological order 30
  • Mario Party 2 content not experienced during the game (as broadcast) 32
• "Space Land" Board Statistics. 34
• Appendices. 37
  • Appendix A: Data. 37
  • Appendix B: Tools and Methods. 37
    • General Transcriber. 37
    • Path Recorder. 38
    • Data Analysis, Quality Control and Presentation 39
  • Appendix C: References and Further Reading 40

List of Tables

• Table 1: Encounters by player for various event types. 11
• Table 2: Times players were moved due to Happening Tiles. 13
• Table 3: Thefts between players (of any type). 14
• Table 4: Coins stolen by Boo. 15
• Table 5: Total coins gained and lost by each player. 16
• Table 6: Gains and losses in particular events for each player. 16
• Table 7: Times that individual minigames were played. 17
• Table 8: Minigame winners for each player and minigame. 18
• Table 9: Coins collected from minigames. 27
• Table 10: Maximum coins held by each player. 27
• Table 11: Happening tiles landed on by each player. 27
• Table 12: The final score, as calculated by Mario Party 2. 27
• Table 13: Percentage of game at each rank. 28
• Table 14: Possible outcome of a 20-turn "Lite Play" game. 29
• Table 15: Possible star counts of a 35-turn "Standard Play" game. 29
• Table 16: Possible outcome of a 35-turn "Standard Play" game. 29

List of Figures

• Figure 1: Total time of ‘player’ turns during the game. 7
• Figure 2: Duration of overall turns during the game. 8
• Figure 3: Separating time in turns by the player/event responsible. 8
• Figure 4: Die outcomes by player. 9
• Figure 5: Individual player die rolls. 10
• Figure 6: Deposits and Withdrawals by Player. 12
• Figure 7: Bank balance versus game time. 12
• Figure 8: Bowser Beam outcomes. 13
• Figure 9: The origins of each player's Stars. 14
• Figure 10: Total stars versus turn count, excluding Bonus Stars. 15
• Figure 11: Appearances and occurrences of 4-player minigames. 19
• Figure 12: Appearances and occurrences of 1-v-3 minigames. 20
• Figure 13: Times that a player was chosen in 1-vs-3 minigames. 21
• Figure 14: Appearances and occurrences of 2-v-2 minigames. 21
• Figure 15: Appearances and occurrences of Battle minigames. 22
• Figure 16: Example annotated minigame duration graph. 23
• Figure 17: Durations of various repeated minigames. 25
• Figure 18: Evidence of bet fulfilment. 28
• Figure 19: Player ranking by turn. 28
• Figure 20: Diagram of the Mario Party 2 Space Board. 34
• Figure 21: Space board tiles sized proportionally to traversals. 35
• Figure 22: Game board tiles sized proportionally to move-start locations. 35
• Figure 23: Game board tiles sized proportionally to move-end locations. 36
• Figure 24: Screenshot of the main transcribing application, with actual data. 37
• Figure 25: A screenshot of the program used for path recording, with sample data. 39