No No-o god No! [Present Mat] You know, it's always amazed me that the channel blew up the way it did With dud jokes like that one. I mean look at it! Is that even acting? Ugh, and it's so drawn out as an intro too Man, it's a good thing We don't do the same jokes twice because that would just be Lazy. [Bob-omb noises] [8-bit music] No... No! No, oh god, no!! [Fake crying] bone boom I'm so scared right now... Hold up. If memory serves, this shouldn't do anything... [Explosion] [Intro music] *Ding* *Ding* *Din din ding* [Intro music] Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY! Where it's not only okay to make fun of yourself in front of an audience of millions... It's encouraged. Since one of the channel's biggest games of last year was Doki-Doki Literature Club I wanted to take a minute step back and analyze a topic from the first ever Doki Doki game Oh, you didn't know it had a prequel? Well it certainly does! Introducing Doki Doki Panic! Released back in 1987 and created by Nintendo's own mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto! Doki Doki Panic was a BIG departure for the series instead of being a visual novel the game was actually... [D.O.M]: Ahem
[MatPat]: What? Voice of the Internet, I'm trying to record an episode here [D.O.M]: Yeah, but Doki Doki Panic was a Mario game... or at least they got re-skinned into a Mario game [MP]: So they're not related... [DOM]: Outside of sharing the words Doki Doki in the title, no. [MP]: Wait, but without at-risk teenagers in need of my saving embrace And secret air Gees hidden under the surface what am I gonna talk about? [DOM]: How about how deadly the bombs are..? It was an awesome suggestion by TheMortyestRick on Reddit... [MP]: Well MortyestRick today You're also the Loyalists theorist even though Doki Doki- *COUGH COUGH* Super Mario Brothers 2 Was just a reskin of a different game It actually introduced a lot of new stuff to the series that ended up sticking around Snifits, shy-guys and of course, Bob-Ombs. Fun fact by the way: This is the first and last time Bob-Ombs would actually have arms! It's a good idea too. Hate to be around to clean up that mess! And they look... fleshy... [Shudders] Anyway, from that game forward these bangin' baddies would pop up in almost all of Mario's adventures Spanning a HUGE range of different sizes, which obviously leads to the question How deadly are they? Mario seems to be perfectly fine standing a few feet away when they explode, but is that really true? I mean in the Bullet Bill episode. We found that those things were absolutely useless as weapons! So will the Bob-bomb fare much better? Get ready, because this one promises to have an explosive finale Ba-Dum-Tss In order to understand what the heck is going on with a Bob-Omb we first need to know what its real-life Counterpart would be. Now based off of physical appearance They appear to be modeled after the cast-iron spheres that were the go-to ammunition model for nearly 600 years! Between the 14th and the latter half of the 19th century. If you've ever stopped to wonder why this is the iconic image of a bomb in popular media When bombs over the last hundred years have looked nothing like that? This is a large reason why. The classic round design lasted for over half a millennium! Couple that with the rise of editorial cartoons during this period The iconic design we see so often was made famous back in the mid nineteenth century in a political cartoon By Harper's Weekly: One of the most if not the most widely read publication during the Civil War. Since these were the earliest depictions of what bombs looked like in the public, the visual shorthand Just kind of stuck and has continued to stick in the public consciousness ever since. Anyway these spheres were packed with gunpowder and when the fuse was lit (A fuse that was rarely string it's worth mentioning, which is surprisingly one of the only things That's factually inaccurate about the Bob-Omb) It would cause the gunpowder to ignite Creating an immediate oxidation reaction that produced a huge amount of gas Instantaneously building up pressure inside the sphere Until the iron walls couldn't hold it anymore and then finally-- [Dom]: Ka-BOOM! [MP, in dark whisper]: Kaboom indeed... Small iron spheres acted as hand grenades and larger versions were used as artillery shells. Now for our calculations we need to identify which of those two categories Bob-Ombs fall into Since that'll affect how much gunpowder they're gonna be packed with. Luckily Super Mario Brothers 3 gives us all the information we need to find the answer. Notice here that the Bob-Ombs are being shot out of what appears to be a cannon But that's not quite accurate. Cannons have long barrels and fire round shot. Solid balls of iron, not gunpowder packed bombs. Mortars on the other hand are like cannons But have much shorter barrels and are set at higher angles. The reason for this is that they launch explosive shells. If a cannon were set up at a high angle The iron ball would just shoot up and then fall to the ground, burying itself. It would be pretty.... Pretty.... Useless. That's why cannons are always fired at a flat trajectory So the iron ball can plow through as much as it can before coming to a stop. Mortars on the other hand are all about the explosion And with that information look again at the Super Mario Brothers 3 footage. Short barrel, high angle, explosive ammunition. Bob-Ombs are definitely mortar rounds. But if you're still not convinced well then just take a look at these. From back in 1841, 10-inch siege mortars. Nearly identical to the ones that are used in the game. So now that we found our real-life parallel we can start doing some calculations. Those round black iron shells measure in at 10 inches, 25.4 centimeters in diameter And each one was filled with a whopping 5 pounds or 2.3 kg a black powder Resulting in the whole thing weighing in at an absolutely massive 87.5 pounds That's just under 40 kilograms. [Dominic]: Enough with the numbers already. Let's get to the destruction! [MP]: Jeez Internet, I know you have a taste for danger. I was just getting to it. Hold your horses! Micro Bob-Ombs bombs are the least talked about version of Bob-Ombs in the Mario verse Making their one and only appearance in the classic Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars Using our tried and true ruler Mario himself standing at 61 inches or 155 centimeters We can run through a quick analysis to find that they're just below half of Mario's height. Roughly 35 percent, in fact. This puts a micro Bob-Omb at about 21.35 inches or 54.25 centimeters in diameter. A little over twice the standard Tenant shells that were being used during the iron mortar's heyday To make sure I was getting as accurate numbers as possible I used this diagram to measure the internal and external diameters of the bomb. Since you know, the iron has to have an actual width to it. That allowed me to calculate the internal volume Of bombs of this type and then scale it up with the varying sizes of the Bob-Ombs. It also allowed me to calculate the ratio of gunpowder to the volume of the bomb To ensure that I was staying true to the construction of this type of explosive. So after doing all of that scaling to match the size of micro Bob-Omb We see that the shell would be filled with 20.5 pounds of explosive powder, 9.32 kilograms. Now in reality the actual explosive force of a bomb would vary based on a ton of variables I went through a ton of formulas! [DOM]: SO many formulas [MP]: Looking at the tensile strength of iron (Which is how much tension it can withstand without breaking), burst pressure of the bomb, Heat capacity ratios for the gases within the bomb, The Brode's method of determining the energy of an explosion, and IT WAS Boring. It was pretty dull. [Dominic]: You'd think that's studying the science of Bob-Ombs would be a little bit more explosive? [MP]: Nope, just a whole lot of math, and it was pretty dull when it was written out in script form so instead It's just a lot simpler to say this: On average, black powder contains About three megajoules of energy per kilogram of powder Which isn't actually all that much when you look at it. That's about the same amount of energy present in a candy bar. Wood contains over six times that much energy per kilogram than gunpowder. The difference is though that gunpowder releases all that energy pretty much instantaneously Whereas burning a lump of wood takes a whole heck of a lot longer. But with those numbers we can translate that to the micro Bob-Omb producing 28 megajoules of energy or 6.7 kilograms of TNT [Dominic]: Matt, you don't know what that means [MP]: Jeeeeeez I'm getting to it! Man, kids these days always just want the results of their math equations Using the United Nations explosions consequence analysis tool Yeah, that's a real thing We can input our stats and learn that the micro Bob-Ombs have a fatal zone of 4.35 meters or a little over 14 feet. Notice how close Mario and the gang are standing to that mini bomb? THEY DED, SON! THEY DED No question, They are within the 14 foot radius Vibrations from that micro explosion would be felt over 80 meters away That is over 263 feet away! That's the length of nine school buses! And remember, this is still the smallest bomb to appear in the Mario franchise [DOM]: Oh, crap [MP]: Oh crap indeed, internet! So if the tiniest Bob-Omb in the lineage is that deadly how do the rest compare? Using the same methodology as before we find That the original Bob-Omb from Super Mario Brothers 2 measures in at about 56 percent of Mario's height Which might not seem like that big of a difference, but think about those numbers! That is a bomb that is nearly three feet tall! A meter tall iron ball loaded with explosive powder. 38 kilograms or 84 pounds of explosive powder, in fact. That translates to 113 megajoules of energy, 27 kilos of TNT But what does that mean to Mario in this little bit of gameplay that we see on screen? Well I'll tell ya: HE DED SON! If he's within 23 feet or 7 meters of that explosion He dead. Flat-out dead. There ain't no coming back from that one. If he's not over 90 feet away from that explosion Or the distance from home plate to first base on a baseball field His eardrums would burst. And we're not even close to done because the boss Punchinello from super mario RPG Has one last trick up his sleeve. The standalone biggest bomb in the entire franchise, his last-ditch effort to finish off Mario: the mega bomb [Dominic]: dr-r-r-r-r-run dun dun! [MP]: Like the little roll you got there going on, it's a sexy dramatic reveal This massive Bob-Omb is twice the height of Mario and comes loaded with-- get this-- An insane 1764 kilograms of black powder. For those of you using the stupid Imperial system that is 4000 pounds of explosive powder in there. It's a number that translates to 5291 megajoules of energy just waiting to be released 1265 total kilos of TNT. Running it through that UN website, which at this point must be like "Oh, There's MatPat again. He must be doing another Mario video" We get the disgustingly large fatality radius of 25 meters. 82 feet! Remember what I said with the last bomb where running between home and first base You would have your eardrums ruptured? Well now if you're in that range [Together]: YA DED SON! Mario in that mine, YA DED, like 10 times over at this point Houses within 100 feet would be DEMOLISHED because of that blast That star piece you guys were hunting for is long gone, shattered into irreparable star bits You're not getting away with just some explosive powder on your face after that one, Mario! The entirety of that mountain would be crumbling down on top of you. Let's put this in visual terms. Even if Mario had a luxury sedan between him and ground zero He would still be killed from the mega bomb's explosion. That explosion is so big that it would be felt from over 10 football fields away And all because Punchinello, that random boss? Yeah. He just wanted to be famous. No joke, that is literally the only reason he gives for attacking you in the game And uh looking back, based on the fact that he never again appears in a Mario game... Shoot, this is like probably the most famous he'll get. Hate to break it to you, buddy. And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! Your heart better be doki-doki-ing After encountering those bombs! Little did Nintendo expect that they would be introducing the single deadliest weapon in the Mario franchise By re-skinning a simple game. [Dom]: Why stop there? [MP]: Voice of the internet, you're back. What's up? [Dom]: What about King Bob-Omb? You're ignoring the single largest explosive in the Mario franchise [MP]: You would think that but he's not the largest. Trust me. I measure. [Dominic]: Oh yes he is! He might not be the biggest in the main series But if you're looking for a bob-omb even bigger than the mega bomb You have to cover Mario Party 9 in the mini game of "Bombard King Bob-omb" [MP]: So you're telling me that I need to leave the canon lore... So I can dive deeper into the CANNON lore? [Dominic]: Yep, leave the canon so that way you can dive deeper- wait a minute *le sighs* PunPat! [MP]: Alright! Just for you, internet. "Bombard King Bob-omb" features a Super-sized version of the King (long may he reign) coming in at a towering 8 meters in diameter. That is a 26 foot tall bomb! He is the literal Tsar bomba of the Mario universe and that is no exaggeration Tsar Bomba was the nickname for the Soviet hydrogen bomb that was the most powerful Nuclear weapon ever created and detonated back in 1961 Its measurements: 8 meters long and only 2 meters wide Actually smaller than King Bob-omb in this game That said the fission of an atom is actually gonna create a much bigger boom So even though the King wins out in size the Tsar wins out in explosiveness. Still, King Bob-omb's detonation in Mario Party 9 is gonna be no joke And it will absolutely ROCK everyone across the board. With a size like this he would contain 27,562 kilograms of powder. That is 61,000 pounds of gunpowder. That's 82,686.92 megajoules of energy 19,762 kilos of TNT And what that means is that any building within the span of a soccer field would be destroyed. Anyone who's less than 200 feet away or over double the distance to first base would be demolished. If you were on the tippy top of the Statue of Liberty and this bomb went off at the base Your lungs would rupture and your eardrums would burst. In order to escape feeling any effects of the blast Mario and the gang would have to run 14,758 feet away. That is two-thirds as long as the Las Vegas Strip and three-quarters of the height of Mount Kilimanjaro It's about the length of the Daytona Speedway Forget being the life of the party! Being the death of it seems to work just fine for King Bob-omb. So what does this all mean for Mario? Well unlike the bullet bills which were far less dangerous than the damage that they caused in the games, Bob-Ombs are freakin scary. The explosions we find in-game are Nothing compared to the amount of damage that they would really cause! To make matters worse I haven't even mentioned the fact that every single one of these bombs would produce a lot of shrapnel Tiny fragments of debris that are fired off as a result of the explosion I ran the numbers through the Gurney Equations to measure the velocity Of some of these fragments and let me tell you they would be traveling at well over Twice the speed of the world's fastest bullet except here they're shotgunning out in all different directions Long story short Bob-Ombs are far and away the deadliest item in Bowser's Arsenal. Better work a bit harder on that throwing arm if you want to survive, Mario. But hey! That's just a theory- A Game Theory! Thanks for watching! And a special thanks to my voice of the Internet today: Dominic Dangerfield the second! Who legitimately not only has the most badass name ever But also happens to be joining us for a very special recording courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Anything you want to say here Dominic? [Dom]: Uhh make sure to subscribe to the Game Theorists and mainly for Austin he's my favorite [MP]: What? [Angry Inaudible MatPat Noises] who gave this kid the mic? Get him outta here! No more pizza for you Dominic. [Dominic]: Like and subscribe to Austin's videos and MatPat too maybe, and, uh, bye remember That's just a theory see you later- Bye! [MP]: AAAGH cut the audio (Temporary pauses ensues) (In the recording room, slightly muffled) [MP]: What do you think of my Sonic videos, Dominic? [Dom]: Meh... [MP]: *Laughing* [Dom]: They're alright [MP]: Yeah, yeah, are you sure I'm the guy you want to be hanging out with? [Dominic]: Positive! [MP]: *More laughing* I'll see you next week!
The writing in this episode was mad cute. Loved the recycled intro bit and the candid outros. I cannot believe how young Mat looked in that bullet bill episode, has it really been that long?
It it just me or was the editing better in this video?
At 2:12 you mention SBM2 was the first and last time Bob-Ombs would have arms, but at 2:22 you show King Bob-Ohm who in fact does have arms. I guess maybe he is a different type of creature, so you could still be technically correct.
The episode was great though.
Just for funsies.
I think the episode was good...but it completely forgot there is (potentially) a much deadlier Bob-Omb out there in Mario Lore than the King Bob-Omb. (Since he opened up the 'not canon lore' bag of worms.)
Behold, the Black Pit Bob-Omb.
https://youtu.be/D-wVoB43JhY?t=8m55s
Considering how long that crater sticks around, constantly having water pour into it, and STILL isn't filled... That level of damage puts King Bom-Omb to shame.
Pretty explosive video :D Dominic seems like a cool kid.
What's the name of that fancy chiptune sounding music at 2:04-2:47? I've heard it a few times now and have never seen the name at all ._.
What's the movie at 13:21?
I've heard that Matthew reads some of the comments, so I hope he reads this one. If Mario's word has stronger gravity (which is mentioned in several theories) and air density (according to Austin's Mario flight theory) than what if these two factors CHANGE THE BOB-OMB THEORY ENTIRELY. IF THIS IS TRUE THAN THE THEORY ITSELF COULD BE WRONG. But who knows. Maybe Matthew did think of that. But hey, that's just a theory. A theory I hope Matthew looks into. Note: I love the game theorist's channel and do not mean to cause Matthew more mathematic suffering than he already gets on a weekly basis.
You forgot how mario can pick up/kick bombs in certian games. If this theory stands, then how strong is mario!!
20:09:07 GMT+0000 (GMT Standard Time)
Now MatPat is on some sort of watch list...