In May 1998, Nintendo and Hudson began a strategic partnership to design and develop games together for both the Nintendo 64 and the Game Boy. Mario Party was the first of the games that the partnership released.

Gameplay

Consisting of 50 mini games, Mario Party takes the form of a traditional board game, with players taking turns to roll the dice block and move ahead the number of spaces shown. There are many different types of spaces players can land on, each producing a different effect. The primary objective of the game is to collect more stars than any other player. The winner of the game is the player with the most stars after all the turns have been completed. Players can choose to play as either Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Princess Peach, Wario, or Yoshi.

Only one star is present on the board at a given time, appearing randomly on a space on the board where it remains until bought by a player for the specific amount of coins stated (20). After a star is collected, a new one appears on a different space on the game board or stays in the same place depending on what stage you chose. Stars can also be stolen from other players by either betting them in duels when a player lands on duel spaces or passing a certain location on the board where a Boo resides—the player must then pay Boo 50 coins for the service of him stealing stars; coin stealing is free.

A secondary objective is to gather coins as well, for they are necessary for buying essential items such as stars and determine the game winner in the event of a tie. Coins are earned by landing on blue spaces or winning mini-games. Coins are lost by landing on red spaces, landing on a Bowser space, or losing certain mini-games.

At the end of each round of play (ie. after each of the four players have taken their turn) a random mini-game commences. The mini-games are generally short (about a minute in length), and fairly simple. There are 56 of them in total, divided into 4 different categories.

• Four-player mini-games may be divided into three types:
• the cooperative games, in which all four players collectively win or lose
• the competitive free-for-alls, in which players must compete against each other in order to win a limited number of coins
• the non-competitive free-for-alls, in which players accrue coins independently of one another and one player's loss is not automatically another's gain.
• 2-on-2 mini-games place players on teams, so they have to cooperate with others in the mini game to win (even though they're still competing against each other in the main game)
• 1-on-3 mini-games have a team of three against a lone player. Often, the game's objective is for either the lone player or the team of three to survive for a certain amount of time while the opposing player/team tries to take them out. The team of three must cooperate in order to win.
• One-player mini-games only occur during a round when a player lands on a One-player mini-game space. They give a single player an opportunity to earn (or lose) coins depending on his or her performance in the mini-game.