“Super Donkey” was the name of an unreleased project that was developed between 1991 and 1992 for the SNES, and aspects of which were repurposed for the development of Yoshi’s Island later.

The main character in Super Donkey’s playable builds, found in Nintendo’s internal archives, is a pilot character who resembles either the main character from the 1981 Sky Skipper arcade, or Stanley the Bugman from the 1983 Donkey Kong 3 arcade, drawn in a Rayman-like “floating limbs” style. Most available material for Super Donkey features variations on this character.

However, the development files also include graphics for the main character being Mario himself, suggesting the developers have considered (however briefly) to turn the game into a Mario game. The Mario graphics predate the pilot graphics, so that the game likely started out as Mario-themed. The footage shows the same animation of flying (the main character can fly at will) with both the original pilot and Mario graphics.

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Officially licensed Bowser watch from Japan with a glow-in-the-dark design.

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Cover of “Mario’s Adventure Land”, an officially licensed 1999 Mario adventure book that uniquely includes elements of several different titles instead of being based on a single game. The games referenced include Super Mario 64, Mario Party, Yoshi’s Story, Wario Land 2, and even Diddy Kong Racing.

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In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, it is possible to have followers like Prof. Frankly keep following Mario’s party past the point where they should leave, for essentially the rest of the game.

If Frankly is present in Chapter 7, a minor glitch can occur when entering an elevator whereby Frankly will not enter with Mario and his partner.

While this by itself is not surprising given how no followers should be present at that time and as such no code to ensure this would have been written, the notable effect of this is that instead of following the elevator, the camera will focus on Frankly instead. As such, for the duration of the ride, Frankly is considered to be more important than Mario in order for the camera to prioritize him.

After Mario arrives on the other floor, Frankly will unceremoniously teleport to his position soon after.

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2005 Walmart ad for GameCube games, featuring Donkey Kong, a snowboarding Luigi, three Pink Boos and Samus Aran at a party.

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In video game development, “attract mode” refers to a state a game enters when left without input on the title screen for long enough, whereby it usually shows demo gameplay either in-engine (e.g. Super Mario 64) or as a prerecorded movie (e.g. Super Mario Sunshine). This is a holdover from arcade machines that did this to attract customers that would be walking past.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door does not have an attract mode, instead simply replaying the game’s intro if the game is left on the title screen. However, the game’s files contain an unused attract mode that would have been a combination of movie playback and an in-engine overlay.

The game would have played a video file (deleted in the finished game so the Super Mario Sunshine credits were used in the footage due to being in the same format the game expects), and random characters from the game would occasionally enter the screen, look around, and exit, as seen in the footage.

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Bizarre design from an officially licensed 1989 Nintendo T-shirt. The object Mario and Toad are situated on is the “NES Advantage” arcade-style controller for the NES.

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Top: a bizarre glitch occurs in the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 2 in World 4-3. If the player gets a Game Over in World 4-3, then replays the game to that level from the beginning in a single session, this particular screen at the top of the tower will be completely corrupt, with most of the wall being missing and the crenellations on top of the wall being partially replaced with various animated tiles.

Bottom: how the area should look under normal circumstances.

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The files of Donkey Kong Country 3 contain an unused block of text that seems to contain most of Klubba’s dialogue from Donkey Kong Country 2. However, the text has been pasted into the files haphazardly and without any formatting, resulting in a “stream of consciousness” style frenzied rant.

Note also that due to the random cropping of the text, it starts off with an incomplete phrase (“u have plenty of. lives!”) and ends with an equally incomplete phrase (“Y'must be jokin if I’m gonna let ye across fer t”).

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Story summary from a 1989 Japanese guide for Super Mario Bros. 3, featuring four original illustrations.

Note that the first drawing reads “S. Mario Bros. 2” to show Mario and Luigi winning against Bowser at the end of that game (meaning the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, known internationally as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels; the international Super Mario Bros. 2 did not feature Bowser).

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