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 Tent mode, the player must unlock it by completing the Star Battle Arena once.

Unlike boards themed around Bowser in previous Mario Party games, this board does not have a lava theme. Instead, this board is a space station located above a star. Additionally, Magikoopas and Toadies appear in shops and board events, rather than underlings like Goombas and Koopa Kids which appeared on Bowser's boards in previous games. The objective here is to steal Stars, with each player starting out with five (ten Stars for each team on Tag Battle mode).

This board is similar to Snowflake Lake from Mario Party 6 and Pyramid Park from Mario Party 7. However, instead of Chain Chomps to steal Stars, players must use special Candy to steal from their opponents: Bowser Candy and Bullet Candy, both of which are found only on this board. The Bullet Candy lets the player roll three Dice Blocks and steal one Star, while the Bowser Candy lets the player roll two Dice Blocks and steal two Stars.

Star Battle Arena layout.

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 (five for each player in Battle Royale; 10 for both teams on Tag Battle), not including handicaps. However, when a player lands on the DK Space, one additional Star can be received, or in the case of a Bowser Space, that additional Star can be taken out of circulation. Due to the alternating nature of the DK Space and Bowser Space, a maximum of 21 stars can be in circulation.

Landing on the Lucky Space takes the player to Shy Guy's Space Buffet, which has a path of Blue Spaces, each one with three coins, and the player can also get three free pieces of candy, Bullet Candy or Bowser Candy. This is the only board in the game where the Lucky Space area does not lead the player to a free Star.

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, like he did back in Mario Party 5. The ? Spaces (arrow spaces in Duel Battle 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.

Another feature of the board is the three directional buttons (two in Duel Battle), which players encounter when the path splits into two. When a player steps on one, it makes the player go in a random direction: left or right.

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. 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.

Spaces

The following tables show how many spaces there are on the board, and how many there are of a certain type.

Party Tent

Type of Space	Number of Spaces
Blue Spaces	32
Red Spaces	8
Green Spaces	10
Lucky Spaces	1
DK Spaces	2 (None if Bowser Spaces are active)
Bowser Spaces	2 (None if DK Spaces are active)
Total of Spaces	53

Star Battle Arena

Type of Space	Number of Spaces
Blue Spaces	14
Red Spaces	4
Green Spaces	4
Duel Spaces	1
Challenge Spaces	1
DK Spaces	2 (None if Bowser Spaces are active)
Bowser Spaces	2 (None if DK Spaces are active)
Total of Spaces	26

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Notes
Japanese	クッパのスペースコロシアム[?] Kuppa no Supēsu Koroshiamu	Bowser’s Space Colosseum
German	Bowsers Stahlstern[?]	Bowser’s Steel Star
Italian	La stazione orbitante di Bowser[?]	Bowser's Orbit Station
Spanish	Galaxia Bowser[?]	Bowser Galaxy