AR Games

The Augmented Reality Games (or AR Games for short) are built-in software on the Nintendo 3DS that use the Question Block AR Card and/or the five Character Cards (these feature famous Nintendo characters: Mario, Toon Link, Kirby, Samus, and a group of Pikmin). When activating the feature, a yellow cube emerges from the card, and a targeting reticule appears on the screen. Using the 3DS's gyroscope, the player must shoot this cube, which causes it to jump in the air. A second later, this cube is replaced by six others, each of which opening an AR Game when shot: Graffiti, Star Pics, Mii Pics, Fishing, Archery, and AR Shot. After using these for a period of time, a blue box appears in the bottom-right section of the main menu. Shooting it flips the surface that the AR Card is on to reveal seven more blue boxes: Clock, Globe, 3D Tools, Fish Gallery, Free Fishing, Archery 2, and AR Shot 2, all of which can be unlocked for one to three Play Coins.

Fishing
In the Fishing mini-game, Mario items and enemies can be caught. When the game is activated, a water droplet appears on the Question Block AR Card. It jumps up and lands on the card, turning the surface the card is on into a body of water. Both a Blooper and a Lakitu appear randomly, and the Lakitu will fish the Blooper out of the water. If lightning strikes the water, then the player can catch a Fishbone. If the AR Card is placed on a green colored surface, then the player can catch a Green Shell. If the AR Card is located on a red surface instead, Cheep-Cheeps can be caught. The chances of catching any of these are improved if the player unlocks the Free Fishing mini-game, which enables him or her to fish for an unlimited amount of time (the main game sets a two-minute time limit, after which the player is forced to fight a dragon, a boss used in Archery and AR Shot as well).

Graffiti
Mario also makes an appearance in the Graffiti mini-game, which uses tools commonly found in an art studio: a pencil, paint, stamps, and an eraser. Images of the five Character Cards are available to trace, and the stamp section includes a stamp of an 8-bit Mario sprite from Super Mario Bros. The 3D Tools option, once unlocked, allows the player to turn his or her drawing (created on the touch screen) into a three-dimensional image.

Star Pics
If the player uses Mario's AR Card, then he or she is able to take pictures of Mario using the 3DS' built-in camera feature. The first few notes of Mario's theme are heard when Mario emerges from the card, and he can posed either standing, sitting, flying, jumping, or running. With each pose, Mario emits a different sound effect (i.e. "Wahoo!" when in the flight pose). It is to be noted that all of Mario's voices (including the running sound effect) are taken from Super Mario Galaxy.