While doing my weekly trawl for awesome videogame covers to post up on Chewing Pixels’ sister site, Box Art, I came across the obscure Famicom Disc System title “I am a Teacher: Super Mario no Sweater”.

Released in 1988, Super Mario’s Sweater was the brainchild of Japanese sewing machine manufacturer, Royal Industries Co., Ltd.

A quick survey of the game ROM reveals it to be a rudimentary sewing pattern designer.

The game offers fifteen save slots for players to create and colour their own patterns. The design interface, which looks a lot like the multitude of Picross titles available for Nintendo DS, works exactly like a pixel art program, presenting a grid of tiny squares which can be coloured in to build up a picture.

There are measurement markings on the grid that indicate the to-scale size of your drawing, important for making sure the Mario on your chest doesn’t make you look fat or something.

What makes the game unique is that, players could then upload their designs to a database and Royal Industries turn it into a sweater for a cost of 2900 Yen (£21/ $30). This would then be delivered to your house to the crushing envy of your friends and neighbours.

It’s one of the few instances where a virtual, user-generated object can be manufacturerd physical object via a videogame. The only other example that springs to mind is Harmonix’s system for turning your customized Rock Band 2 character into a 6″ figurine for $69.

Can you think of any others?