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.

Unlike Bowser themed boards from previous installments of the Mario Party series, 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 from the previous installments. The objective here, is to steal Stars from opponents which is the way to get stars on this board. Each player starts out with five stars (or 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. The two candies to get stars from opponents are Bullet Candy and Bowser Candy; and both of them are hidden on this board only. The Bullet Candy lets them steal 1 star; while the Bowser Candy lets them steal 2 stars.

File:Mp8-warped-orbit.JPG

A view of the entire 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), not including handicaps. Additional stars can be received from Donkey Kong via the DK Space. However, Stars can be taken away from Bowser if the player lands on a Bowser Space.

Landing on the Lucky Space takes the player to Shy Guy's Orbital Buffet, which has a path of Blue Spaces. Each one has three coins. This is the only board in the game where the Lucky Space area does not result with a free star. The player instead gets to collect candy. They get three free pieces of candy via the Candy Spaces between the Blue Spaces (and they turn out to be Bullet Candy or Bowser 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 Star Battle Arena) 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 20 Coins along the way. However, there is nothing in Star Battle Arena, because the tube is part of the board's path rather than a shortcut. All the other ? Spaces make Bowser reverse the direction of the flow of the board.

Star Battle Arena layout.

In Star Battle Arena, the winning conditions are to steal Stars from their opponent via the Bullet Candy and Bowser Candy 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 if they have not unlocked Hammer Bro. and Blooper yet, unless the player is using one of those two unlockable characters. If they complete Star Battle Arena with that unlockable character, the other one is 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
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

Trivia

• Bowser Station from Mario Party 9 is similar to this board, mostly because both boards are space stations, and both are Bowser's boards.