Finding Mario's Path

The first step in solving this puzzle was following the rules for Mario's movements and finding a path for him through the world. Obeying all of the rules revealed exactly one path that Mario could take:

Decoding the Path

Mario's pattern of jumps and steps might have reminded you of another encoding with short and long components: Morse Code. This was also hinted by the background of the puzzle, which had dot- and dash-shaped clouds in the sky. Counting a jump as a dash and a step as a dot, and using the red bars as letter breaks, you could get the following letters:

Using each gold coin as a word break gave the following message:

Cloud Vigenere key Nintendo

which was a hint to the next step in the puzzle.

Finding the Answer

To finish the puzzle, you had to decode the long and short clouds as morse code. This gave the sequence of letters OZBMLRUGTZVFQ. Decrypting these using a Vigenere cypher with the keyword "NINTENDO" gave the puzzle's answer, which was BROTHERSGRIMM.