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

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 in order to get stars; and each player starts out with 5 stars (10 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; Bullet Candy and Bowser Candy. Both of these two candies (Bullet Candy and Bowser Candy) are hidden only on this one 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). 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 steals it and the star is taken 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 for the rest of the star battle (5 stars). Both players have 3 stars (making it 6 stars if the player steals all of their opponent's stars). If one of them lands on a Bowser Space, Bowser takes it away; and there will be 5 stars instead of 6. So if the player has only 2 stars left, and the other has 3, if the player is hit by the opponent (with the opponent having 3 stars and the player having 2), who used the Bowser Candy; the opponent wins and it's "Game Over", and then the player loses. Because the opponent will have 5 stars; and the player will have zero. Landing on the Lucky Space takes the player to Shy Guy's Space Buffet, which has a path of Blue Spaces each with 3 coins; and the player can collect three free pieces of candy (three free pieces of Bullet Candy and Bowser Candy) by passing Candy Spaces. But it does not a free star (unlike all other boards with the Lucky Space area); due to the fact it's stealing stars with candy on this board rather than trading coins for stars.

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 in Party Tent (or arrow spaces in Star Battle Arena) next to the warp tube (which is underneath the observation tower) causes players to travel through the tube and reach to the other side of the board. On Party Tent they always collect 20 Coins along the way because it's a shortcut to the other side; but nothing in Star Battle Arena because the tube is part of the board's path and 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. It is to steal stars from their opponent until they have 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. The player must complete Star Battle Arena with the first unlockable character in order to unlock the second one.

The change of direction in this board resembles the gimmick of Backtrack, a duel board in Mario Party 3.

Trivia

 * This is the only board in this game where the Lucky Space area does not lead the player to a free star. Instead, landing on a Lucky Space on this board leads the player to get three free pieces of Candy (which turn out to be Bullet Candy and Bowser Candy) obtained by Candy Spaces on the Lucky Space area.
 * Bowser Station from Mario Party 9 is similar to this board, mostly because both boards are space stations, and both are Bowser's boards.
 * This is the third of the three only boards in the entire series with a fixed and limited number of stars to steal; the other two being Snowflake Lake in Mario Party 6 and Pyramid Park in Mario Party 7.