Bowser's Warped Orbit
- “Beyond space! Beyond time! And beyond decency! We're in the blackest hole of all. Bowser's Warped Orbit! It's seriously sick and twisted!”
- —MC Ballyhoo, Mario Party 8
Bowser's Warped Orbit is Bowser's board in Mario Party 8. In order to have it playable in Party Mode, the player must unlock it by completing the Star Battle Arena once.
This is Bowser's most unique board in the entire series, as it is a space station in outer space. However, it still goes by the laws being a "lava" board, as it is located above the sun. Another difference is that Magikoopas and Toadies work here, and not the usual underlings like Goombas and Koopa Kids. The objective here is to steal Stars, with each player starting out with five (ten Stars for each team on Tag Battle Mode). Instead of Chain Chomps that were utilized in Snowflake Lake from Mario Party 6 and Pyramid Park from Mario Party 7, players must use special Candy to steal from their opponents: Bowser Candy and Bullet Candy, both of which are only hidden on this board.
Landing on a DK Space causes Donkey Kong to appear on a steel-keg satellite, and give the player a free Star (a piece of Candy in Star Battle Arena). Landing on the Bowser Space causes Bowser to come down from his observation tower to steal a Star from the player (although if the player has no Stars, Bowser will give them ten Coins instead). (Note: Everyone is gifted a total of twenty stars-*5 for each player in Battle Royale; 10 for both teams on Tag Battle*. However, there's a twenty first star for the first player that lands on the DK Space. But if the player lands on the Bowser Space, he takes the star completely out of play. Then the star total goes back to twenty.) In Star Battle Arena, however, whenever a player lands on the Bowser Space, due to Bowser's still removing one Star and Donkey Kong's giving the player a piece of candy instead, there will be only less Stars in play (five stars instead of six). Both players get 3 stars, and if one of them lands on a Bowser Space, Bowser takes it away, and there will be less stars (five). And so, if the player has only 2 stars left, and the other has 3, if they are hit by an opponent (with 3 stars and them having 2), who used the Bowser Candy, the opponent wins and it's a "Game Over". Landing on the Lucky Space takes the player to Shy Guy's Orbital Buffet, which has a path of Blue Spaces, each with three coins on them, and the player can also get three free pieces of Bowser Candy or Bullet Candy.
One of the ? Spaces on the board causes Bowser to come down and chase the player all around the board in a complete loop. Anyone that is in their path will also get chased down (this essentially just moves all the players involved to the same space). The ? Space next to Kamek makes him use his magic to shuffle everyone's Candies around, just like he did back in Mario Party 5. The ? Spaces (arrow spaces in Duel mode) next to the warp tube (underneath the observation tower) causes players to travel through the tube and reach to the other side of the board, always collecting twenty Coins along the way (but nothing in Star Battle Arena because the tube is part of the board's path, not a shortcut). All the other ? Spaces make Bowser reverse the direction of the flow of the board.
In Star Battle Arena, the winning conditions are to steal Stars from their opponent via the Bowser and Bullet Candies until their opponent has zero Stars. Players start with three Stars each. During the Star Battle Arena, if the player defeats Blooper or Hammer Bro, they will get to fight Bowser in a void-like arena. Also, the player will unlock Hammer Bro or Blooper, depending on who they fought. The opponent is random unless the player is using one of those two characters, in which case the other one will forcibly be the opponent. Therefore, to ensure unlocking both, the player should use the first villain unlocked during their second play.
The change of direction in this board resembles the gimmick of Backtrack, a duel board in Mario Party 3.
Names in other languages
Trivia
- This is the only board where the player cannot get a free Star from landing on the Lucky Space. Instead, landing on a Lucky Space gives Candy to the player.
- The Board is similar to Bowser Station from Mario Party 9, mostly because both take place in space, and both are Bowser's boards.
