Bowser has turned the Mushroom Kingdom into a hotel resort for the use of himself and his children. The land is renamed "Klub Koopa Resort" because of this. Each hotel in the area is protected by one of the Koopalings and their henchmen. The hotels represent different building types with many different locations, including a tree, a mine and a cloud. When Mario and Luigi are invited to a picnic by Princess Toadstool, Mario and Luigi enter the Mushroom Kingdom. At the entrance, however, they find a message from Bowser. They find out that Bowser has taken control over the kingdom and established seven hotels there, at one of which Princess Toadstool is being held as a "permanent guest". As they visit the first six hotels, Mario and Luigi find the Princess many times, but on every occasion she disappears out of their sight, ending up in another hotel. They eventually enter another land where Bowser himself lives. With the hotel's owner killed, the brothers run away from the building with Princess Toadstool before it falls apart. The Princess, now able to rule her kingdom in peace, thanks the Mario brothers for saving her, giving them both a kiss.
In May 1991, after failing to develop a CD-ROM-based add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System with Sony, Nintendo signed a deal with Philips to develop the add-on. However, after seeing the negative reviews of the Sega Mega-CD, Nintendo no longer considered the add-on profitable anymore, and the project was stopped entirely. As part of dissolving the deal, Nintendo gave Philips the license to use five of their characters, including Mario, Luigi, and Princess Toadstool, to be featured in their games for the CD-i. Philips used the characters to create games for the CD-i, with Nintendo taking no part in their development except to give comments on the look of the characters. The "Mario" characters were going to be used in "Super Mario's Wacky Worlds", but the game was cancelled with only some prototype versions being programmed. While "Wacky Worlds" was planned as a CD-i adaptation of the side-scrolling platformer video game "Super Mario World", "Hotel Mario" was made into a puzzle game in which level areas were limited to a single screen. Unlike the "Legend of Zelda"-related games also for the CD-i, the game was not developed by a third-party company, but by Philips' development team Fantasy Factory.
Many full motion video cutscenes were animated for "Hotel Mario". The videos show Mario and Luigi as they get to the next hotel, telling each other and giving hints to the player such as: "If you need instructions on how to get through the hotels, check out the enclosed instruction book!". The voices of the Mario Brothers were provided by Marc Graue, with Jocelyn Benford doing the voice-over for Princess Toadstool. On top of the full motion video capabilities of the CD-i, "Hotel Mario" made use of the system’s internal clock by showing messages that changed according to the date.
The backgrounds of the hotel stages were designed by freelance artist Trici Venola. After seeing "Hotel Mario"'s first version—which Venola called "mechanical" and "visually no fun"—she and art director Jeff Zoern decided to use elements from Disney and J. R. R. Tolkien to improve the game's visual style. Drawings of the stages were made out of several blocks, each of which featured one detail. The first item Venola created for all hotels was the door. Every building took one week to complete and was designed according to a specific theme. For example, a gothic design was used for Bowser's hotel.
Upon its release, "Hotel Mario" received negative reviews from video game magazines "Electronic Gaming Monthly" and "GamePro". Critics commented that "Hotel Mario"s gameplay was simple yet addicting. "GamePro", while calling the game fun, believed that it would soon bore players, and gave it a fun factor of 2.5 out of 5. When "Electronic Gaming Monthly" named Mario the greatest video game character in 2005, they considered "Hotel Mario" his most embarrassing moment. Similarly, it was considered as the worst Mario game of all time by ScrewAttack, who criticized the game for its audio and controls, as well as for being solely "based on shutting doors." GameDaily included "Hotel Mario" in its list of the worst games starring Nintendo mascots, stating its gameplay lacked identifiable Mario elements mainly used in the series. The game was also listed as the worst 2D platformer in the "Mario" series by N-Europe. The site found the Koopaling battles "uniquely bad", calling the game itself a "steaming turd".
IGN said that "Hotel Mario" was better than "The Legend of Zelda" titles, but noted that closing doors was not "a strong enough hook for an entire game." Chris Kohler of "Wired" magazine saw "Hotel Mario" as "a puzzle game with no puzzles", assuming it was one of the reasons why Nintendo was not impressed by the CD-ROM medium. The game was referred to as "craptastic" by GamesRadar and "little more than a really rubbish version of "Elevator Action"" by Eurogamer.
In its 1994 review, "GamePro" rated "Hotel Mario"'s graphics at 3.5 and sound at 4 out of 5, saying that "the only intriguing aspects of this game are the well-fashioned animated sequences." Years after the game was released, the cut scenes were also criticized among video game websites, and were called "outright terrifying" by 1UP.com. IGN described them as "abysmal" and "a bad flip-book of images printed out of Microsoft Paint. The quality of the voice acting was also questioned. Both 1UP.com and IGN thought the voices were unfitting for the characters and did not achieve the same playfulness as those of Mario and Luigi's current voice artist Charles Martinet. "Hotel Mario" was listed in the Top 20 Worst Mario Games of all time.
Greater flamingo
The greater flamingo ("Phoenicopterus roseus") is the most widespread species of the flamingo family. It is found in the wetlands areas of Africa, southwest Europe, and South Asia. This is the largest species of flamingo, averaging up to 5 feet tall, and weighing 8 lbs. Their wingspan is 4 to 6 feet. Greater flamingos live up to 20 years in the wild. Their diet consists of seeds, algae, and small invertebrates.
The bird lives in mudflats and shallow coastal lagoons with salt water. Using its feet, the bird stirs up the mud, then sucks water through its bill and filters out small shrimp, seeds, blue-green algae, microscopic organisms and molluscs. The greater flamingo feeds with its head down. Its upper jaw is movable and not rigidly fixed to its skull. It was the state bird of Junagadh State.
Bar-headed goose
The bar-headed goose ("Anser indicus") is a type of goose that lives in wetland areas in Central Asia. It has a light grey body, broad wings, and a white face and neck. Its name comes from the two stripes (or "bars") of dark feathers that wrap around the back of its head. Like other geese, its feet are webbed. They can get up to 2.5 feet long and weigh 6.5 pounds. They eat mainly grass, wheat, barley and rice.
The main physiological challenge of bar-headed geese is getting oxygen from thin air to their aerobic muscle fibres so they can fly at high altitudes. Flight is very metabolically costly at high-altitudes because birds need to flap harder in thin air to generate lift.
Studies have found that bar-headed geese breathe more deeply and efficiently under low oxygen conditions, which serves to increase oxygen uptake from the environment. The haemoglobin of their blood has a higher affinity for oxygen compared to low-altitude geese.
Bar-headed geese have a slightly larger wing area for their weight than other geese, which is believed to help them fly at high altitudes. Birds at high-altitude still need to flap harder than lowland birds.
All this is relevant, since they fly through the high passes in the Himalayas when they migrate to & from the Indian subcontinent.
Müller's Bornean gibbon