Defeating Bowser with A* Search - Smith

Adrian Smith demonstrates how to control an NES emulator from a Clojure REPL and use the A* search algorithm to beat Super Mario Bros.

Beating the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES is no easy feat, but what if Mario had access to parentheses and time travel? Let's fire up a REPL and find out! We'll show how to use libretro to run an NES emulator, inspect memory, and search for a combination of moves that wins the game. We'll do this all from the comforts of the Clojure REPL. Biography Adrian is a software engineer and the creator of Easel, a pure clojure IDE in the spirit of Emacs. He got started programming by making tic-tac-toe for his TI-83 calculator. Since then, he's built web, mobile, and desktop applications using python, javascript, ruby, php, objective-c, and c++ before finally finding clojure. He believes that programming should be for everyone and that you shouldn't need a CS degree to make a simple web, desktop, or mobile app. Recorded Nov 13, 2025 at Clojure/Conj 2025 in Charlotte, NC.