As we have gotten on through the years since Death Stranding first came out in 2019, we’ve continued to define what exactly this wacky little category means. To us at Shacknews, for a game to be a Strand Game, it has to have some level of gameplay about a community indirectly helping and connecting with one another to benefit one another. Usually, these games are placed in a broken and splintered world, but they don’t have to be. After all, the sense of indirect connection and community is what made Super Mario Bros. Wonder our vote for Best Strand Game of 2023.

What does that mean? Well, simply look at the multiplayer system. Contrary to previous similar Mario games, you get to play alongside other players in the Super Mario Bros. Wonder network, but you cannot directly affect them for the most part. Instead, you all watch each other’s ghosts wander through the levels trying to complete them like you do.

We say you can’t interact directly with them “for the most part,” because there are ways in which you do affect them. Throughout any given level in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, you can drop a Standee on the stage. Why? Well, if you die, and your fellow players are still drifting through the level, you turn into a ghost. If you can touch your fellow players, you’ll get your life back to continue the level, but you can also touch their standees to save your life. That makes Standees more than decoration. They can keep your run through a level going.

It’s also worth noting that if you collect power-ups after you already have one, they will be stored as a spare, and you can drop them at your leisure. It’s good for if you want to change power-ups, like going between Elephant Mario and Fire Flower Mario. However, you can also pass them along to the other players. It’s just another way to be indirectly gracious to your fellow players.

We never get to communicate at all with them, but players often help each other in Super Mario Bros. Wonder. We can’t count how many times we knew about a pipe or secret and hovered around it, ducking frequently to try to spell it out to the other players. They did the same for us. At the end of the day, that indirect support and ability to give each other a hand up the mountain is what made Super Mario Bros. Wonder our Shacknews Best Strand Game of 2023.

Be sure to read over the rest of the Shacknews Awards in our Year of the Games: 2023 feature.