Missed Mario Day? Don't worry: with LEGO, its-a Mario day every day

If you're a LEGO Super Mario fan, you probably don't need me to tell you that March 10th was Mar 10, aka Mario Day. But you might want to know about the LEGO expansion set it announced as part of the plumber-related fun. 

The new LEGO Super Mario Dry Bowser Castle Battle Expansion Set will be launched in August. It's made from 1,321 LEGO elements and looks like a lot of fun; it's £94.99 and likely to sell out pretty quickly. It's worth noting that this is an expansion, not a stand-alone set: you'll need to bring your own Mario, Luigi or Peach. Those characters are available via separate starter sets.

I do love the enthusiasm of LEGO's senior interactive play designer Didier Agani, who presents the expansion set in the video, although I think this was a missed opportunity to put on a comedy Italian accent instead of Didier's own French one. Maybe next time.

According to Agani, "Set in an iconic Super Mario location, fans are tasked to find the secret entrance (just watch out for the Magmaargh!), defeat the Bone Piranha Plant and Bone Goomba, use the crane to rescue the Purple Toad, then quickly grab the key. What lays behind the door is secret – you’ll have to wait and see what’s revealed!”

Behind the scenes with Bowser

LEGO's been helping you build Mario's world for some time, of course, and as part of the Mario Day fun it released a behind the scenes look at the creation of last year's The Mighty Bowser set (set 71411). It also teased another game-related set, a brick-built Donkey Kong that's coming to the LEGO Super Mario universe in Summer 2023.

Going behind the scenes is really fascinating stuff. The Mighty Bowser took a year to develop, and the marketing around it included building a massive recreation of the character made from 663,900 bricks. It weighed 6.9 tons and took 3,290 hours to build from start to finish, which is roughly how long it'd take me to build the normal LEGO version.

I've embedded the full Mario Day stream below so you can see the expansion set and the Mighty Bowser's back story.