Nintendo Campus Challenge was a video game competition sponsored by Nintendo and held at nearly 60 college campuses throughout the United States. There were two Campus Challenge events, one in 1991 and another in 1992.
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Like Nintendo World Championships 1990, the official event gave player 6 minutes and 21 seconds to play in the contest, but there are three different minigames. The first minigame of the competition is to collect 25 coins in Super Mario Bros. 3. The next minigame is a version of Pin*Bot where players must get 100,000 points. The final minigame is Dr. Mario and this lasts until time expires. Once time does expire, a player's score is totaled using the following formula:
There is only one known original copy of the 1991 Campus Challenge cartridge in existence. The game was found by a video game collector, Rob Walters, at a garage sale in New York [1] in 2006.The game sold for $14,000 in July 2009[2] After 3 months, the game was resold on ebay for $20,100.[3]As of December 15, 2011, the cartridge is up for auction on eBay. [4]
The original was replicated by Retrousb.com and released to the general public in March, 2008. It is exactly the same as the original and has its own set of dip switches.
The 1991 Campus Challenge was held at 58 college campuses and spring break locations. The event consisted of three stages. The main stage had the competition on 12 different game stations. The second stage was Nintendo Entertainment System systems with various games while the third stage had Game Boy systems. Attendees at the events could play as many times as they wanted and the highest score at the end of the day was announced the winner.
The winner from each location was flown to Disney World in Orlando over New Year's weekend in January 1992[5]. All the competitors played in the first round followed by a second round with the six highest scoring players only. The final round was a head-to-head match between Steven Lucas and Matt Sekelsky. Steven Lucas won with a score of 2,394,130 [6].
| Date | College | City |
|---|---|---|
| 11/29/1990 | Louisiana St | Baton Rouge |
| 12/3/1990 | Texas A&M | College Station |
| 12/6/1990 | Oklahoma University | Norman |
| 1/10/1991 | Consumer Electronics Show | Las Vegas |
| 1/15/1991 | Cal Poly | San Luis Obispo |
| 1/17/1991 | UC Santa Barbara | Santa Barbara |
| 1/21/1991 | UCLA | Los Angeles |
| 1/24/1991 | USC | Los Angeles |
| 1/28/1991 | Cal State Long Beach | Long Beach |
| 1/31/1991 | UC Irvine | Irvine |
| 2/4/1991 | Cal State Fullerton | Fullerton |
| 2/7/1991 | San Diego State Univ. | San Diego |
| 2/11/1991 | UNLV | Las Vegas |
| 2/14/1991 | ASU | Tempe |
| 2/18/1991 | Univ. of Arizona | Tucson |
| 2/21/1991 | Univ. of New Mexico | Albuquerque |
| 2/25/1991 | Texas Tech | Lubbock |
| 2/28/1991 | Univ. of Texas | Arlington |
| 3/4/1991 | Univ. of Texas | Austin |
| 3/7/1991 | Univ. of Houston | Houston |
| 3/11/1991 | Spring Break | South Padre Island |
| 3/19/1991 | Spring Break | Daytona Beach |
| 3/25/1991 | Spring Break | Daytona Beach |
| 4/4/1991 | Univ. of Georgia | Athens |
| 4/8/1991 | Georgia Inst. of Technology | Atlanta |
| 4/11/1991 | Auburn Univ. | Auburn |
| 4/15/1991 | Univ. of Alabama | Tuscaloosa |
| 4/18/1991 | Univ. of Tennessee | Knoxville |
| 4/22/1991 | Ohio St Univ. | Columbus |
| 4/24/1991 | Chevy Open House | GM Tech Center |
| 4/25/1991 | Univ. of Michigan | Ann Arbor |
| 4/29/1991 | Indiana Univ. | Bloomington |
| 5/2/1991 | Univ. of Wisconsin | Madison |
| 5/6/1991 | Univ. of Minnesota | Minneapolis |
| 5/9/1991 | Northwestern Univ. | Evanston |
| 8/2/1991 | Ohio State Fair | Columbus |
| 8/15/1991 | Illinois State Fair | Springfield |
| 8/22/1991-9/20/1991 | Canada Tour | Canada |
| 9/23/1991 | State Univ. of New York | Albany |
| 9/26/1991 | Univ. of Massachusetts | Amherst |
| 9/30/1991 | Boston Univ. | Boston |
| 10/3/1991 | Univ. of Rhode Island | Kingston |
| 10/7/1991 | New York Univ. | New York |
| 10/10/1991 | Rutgers Univ. | New Brunswick |
| 10/14/1991 | Univ. of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia |
| 10/17/1991 | Univ. of Maryland | College Park |
| 10/21/1991 | George Washington Univ. | Washington DC |
| 10/24/1991 | Univ. of North Carolina | Chapel Hill |
| 10/28/1991 | Clemson Univ. | Clemson |
| 11/11/1991 | Univ. of Washington | Seattle |
| 11/13/1991 | Nintendo Open House | Seattle |
| 11/18/1991 | Univ. of Oregon | Eugene |
| 11/27/1991 | CSU Sacramento | Sacramento |
| 12/2/1991 | Univ. of California Berkeley | Berkeley |
| 12/5/1991 | Stanford Univ. | Stanford |
| 12/9/1991 | San Jose State Univ. | San Jose |
| 1/4/1992 | Walt Disney World | Orlando |
The rules are the same as the 1991 version except with three SNES minigames. The first minigame of the competition is Super Mario World, where players must collect 50 coins ( very similar to Nintendo World Championships 1990's first minigame, Super Mario Bros. ). The second game is a version of F-Zero where players must complete two laps. The final minigame is Pilotwings where players must land on two targets successfully. Once time does expire, a player's score is totaled using the following formula [7]:
There is one known '1992 Campus Challenge" cartridge. It was found at the same New York garage sale by Rob Walters as the 1991 cartridge. The cartridge is owned by a video game collector named Rick Bruns [8]. The 1992 cartridge has also been reproduced and is selling copies on retrousb.com. [9]
The 1992 "Nintendo Campus Challenge" competition was held at 35 college campuses throughout the US[10]. The winner at each location won a Super Nintendo system with Super Mario World, F-Zero, and Pilot Wings. Consolation prizes of $100, $75, and $50 were awarded to second, third, and fourth place contestants. The winner of the whole US competition won $10,000.
Similar competitions were held in Europe and Japan in 1992. The winner of the US competition, Jeff Hanson wins against the winner of the Japanese competition, Yuichi Suyama and become the World Champion at the 1993 Consumer Electronics Show.
Nintendo held two other major video game competitions, 1990 Nintendo World Championship and 1994 Nintendo PowerFest '94.