Recently, “Super Mario Bros. Remastered” has gone viral — a public archive that breathes new life into the legendary NES title and is making waves across the retro-gaming community.
The project was created by Joe H (aka JHDev2006), who decided to share the result of years of passion with the public: a complete remake/port of Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels, developed entirely with the Godot engine. This is not a simple emulation — the game has been rebuilt from scratch, offering improved graphics, support for custom resource packs, new characters, and even an integrated Level Editor to create brand-new worlds.
In addition to the enhanced visuals — with widescreen support and levels adapted to display a larger portion of the scene — the project also includes numerous bug fixes. For example, issues with map movement fluidity have been resolved, softlocks that could trap Mario inside walls have been fixed, and some of Luigi’s animations with specific power-ups have been improved.
The entire project is distributed as open-source: it does not include Nintendo’s original assets and requires the player to provide their own ROM in order to run. This choice allowed the author to keep the remake available without directly infringing on the rights to the original material.
Although the GitHub repository is now archived and read-only, Super Mario Bros. Remastered remains a small phenomenon: a fan-made project that went viral, not only celebrating one of the most iconic video games of all time but also opening up new possibilities to play and reinvent it on modern platforms, including PC, Linux, macOS, and Steam Deck.
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🔧 How to Install Super Mario Bros. Remastered on Steam Deck
Installing the remake on Steam Deck is fairly straightforward, but it requires a few manual steps since it’s not an official Steam game.
1. Enable Desktop Mode
- Press the Steam button → go to Power → select Switch to Desktop.
- You’ll enter the KDE (Linux) desktop environment of the Steam Deck.
2. Download the Project
- Open your browser and go to the official GitHub repository:
👉 JHDev2006 / Super-Mario-Bros-Remastered - Download the package from the Releases section (v1.0.1 recommended).
- Extract the archive into a folder of your choice, e.g. ~/Games/SuperMarioRemastered/.
3. Add the Original Assets
- The project does not include Nintendo’s assets.
- Copy your original NES Super Mario Bros. ROM (personal dump) into the game’s assets/roms/ folder.
- This step is essential to run the remake properly.
4. Launch the Game
- Inside the folder, you’ll find the compiled Linux executable (SuperMarioRemastered.x86_64).
- Double-click it to test the game in Desktop Mode.
5. Add to Steam (Optional, for Gaming Mode)
- Open Steam in Desktop Mode.
- Go to Games → Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library.
- Select SuperMarioRemastered.x86_64.
- Now you’ll be able to launch it directly in Gaming Mode, just like any other library title.
6. Configure the Controls
- In Gaming Mode, press the Steam button → Controller Settings to customize controls.
- You can use the default scheme (similar to an NES controller) or remap them as you like.
🎮 Quick Guide to Mapping Controls on Steam Deck
By default, the remake uses keyboard inputs (WASD), so you need to map them to the Steam Deck controller.
Here’s the recommended setup:
Here’s the recommended setup:
- Keyboard Arrow Keys → Move the character
- Map these to the D-pad on the Steam Deck.
- Z → Run
- Map to the B button (comfortable for holding down to run).
- X → Jump
- Map to the A button.
- Start (keyboard) → Pause
- Keep it mapped to the Start/Menu button on the Steam Deck.
👉 To configure:
- Launch the game in Gaming Mode.
- Press the Steam button → Controller Settings → Custom Layout.
- Remap the keys according to the scheme above.
- Save the profile: it will automatically apply every time you start the game.