okay time to straighten my legs man I'm so excited

I f eel like a suit of armour that was attacked by a welder

I am nineteen years old

I am so sorry I just turned 20 I hope you can forgive me

. yeah okay true I did do that

Made in Heaven diseries recommended play order (cannot emphasize enough that this is not a joke):

1. Donkey Kong (arcade)
2. Mario Bros. (Game & Watch)
3. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
4. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
5. Super Mario Land (Game Boy)
6. Super Mario World (SNES)
7. Mario Paint (SNES)
8. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (Game Boy)
9. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (Game Boy)
10. Virtual Boy Wario Land (Virtual Boy)
11. Wario Land II (GBC)
12. Wario Land 3 (GBC)
13. Mario Artist: Polygon Studio (64DD)
14. Wario Land 4 (GBA)
15. WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! (GBA)
16. WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$! (GCN)
17. WarioWare: Twisted! (GBA)
18. WarioWare: Touched! (DS)
19. Rhythm Tengoku (GBA)
20. Rhythm Tengoku (arcade)
21. WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii)
22. Rhythm Heaven (DS)
23. WarioWare: D.I.Y. (DS)
24. WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase (Wii)
25. Rhythm Heaven Fever (Wii)
26. Game & Wario (Wii U)
27. Rhythm Heaven Megamix (3DS)
28. WarioWare Gold (3DS)
29. WarioWare: Get It Together! (Switch)
30. WarioWare: Move It! (Switch)

you can skip warioware snapped.

Now I am curious how the actual dependency/reference graph looks, with the nodes and arcs between games, and if it is transitive.

Cause let's say for example WarioWare: Move It! (Switch) expects you to know Rhythm Heaven Fever (Wii) as you said, but not Game & Wario (Wii U) (made up example), then like you'd have an arrow from heaven fever to game & wario and heaven fever to move it, but not game & wario to move it, so not transitive.

Am I explaining the thought correctly?

it would probably look something like this.

this is skipping a lot of stuff for the sake of making the graph simpler but as a bare minimum I think this works

Can you elaborate on the specific plot point that kickstarted this conversation? 

well that depends. how familiar are you with the two-player endless games from Rhythm Heaven Fever (2011)?

I have heard of rhythym heaven before and I have seen gameplay. I know how it’s generally structured

so! rhythm heaven fever features a lot of bonus content outside of the main campaign, in particular an entire parallel two-player campaign that almost nobody ever plays. for the most part, the two-player minigames are just the same as the single-player games but with a second player.

however, if you get a high enough rating in enough of these two-player games, you can unlock two-player endless games, which are completely unique games with no single-player counterparts.

one of these two-player endless games is called Kung Fu Ball, which notably features the warioware character Young Cricket as one of the two player characters, the other being an unnamed original character that strongly resembles the also-unnamed "handful of peas!" girl from Munchy Monk (Wii).

ALT

anyway this obscure side mode of a side mode of a decade-old game that sold so poorly that used copies sometimes sell for hundreds of dollars now is referenced directly in a switch game from 2023.

ALT

the unnamed girl from kung fu ball (now named Cicada*) shows up in a dramatic reveal that doesn't explain anything about where she's from and doesn't really make sense if you don't already know who she is. unless you specifically know about the two-player endless games from rhythm heaven fever, the reveal would be completely meaningless.

*I had previously used this same name for this character in my warioware fanfic, which either means that I have a perfect understanding of warioware character naming conventions and was able to guess with 100% accuracy what this character would be named if she had an actual name or that someone at nintendo or intelligent systems got the name from my fanfic directly