Paper Mario: Sticker Star contains an unused “Invisible” status, which is identical in function to the same status as seen in Paper Mario and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

However, unlike in those games where Mario was merely invisible to the enemies and appeared visible but translucent to the player, here, Mario is actually invisible to the player as well. The only thing that remains is his shadow on the ground (bottom left corner). Note that this would make timing Action Commands for jumps harder as the player would be unable to see Mario and use the visual to time the button press.

Interestingly, this appearance (only a shadow remaining) is how invisibility works for Peach in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, but not for Mario himself. It is unknown if this unused effect is specifically a reference to that or merely a new idea to make the status effect influence the Action Command difficulty, which happened to look identical.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: HunterXuman

There is a programming failsafe that was included in Super Mario Galaxy that was for some unknown reason removed from Super Mario Galaxy 2. This is despite them sharing the same engine, and no advantages possibly being gained by removing a failsafe and introducing vulnerabilities to the code.

In Super Mario Galaxy, if Mario talks to an NPC that has no text assigned, the NPC will say a blank text box, as seen in the screenshot. This can even be seen during gameplay using cheats to visit areas Mario should not be able to visit during normal gameplay, which sometimes have NPCs in them.

However, this was removed in Super Mario Galaxy 2, so that if Mario talks to an NPC that has nothing to say in that game, the game crashes instead.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: HEYimHeroic

Top: in Luigi’s Mansion 3, it is raining for nearly the entirety of the game’s plot, and areas on the outside walls of the Last Resort hotel are visibly covered with raindrops sliding down. The way the raindrops are implemented on a technical level is by using a normal map (a texture that simulates deformation of a surface) representing raindrops, and simply making it scroll downward along the walls.

Bottom: however, this approach needs to be implemented carefully in order to avoid oversights. Every polygon has an orientation, i.e. information about which side is the “top” and which the “bottom”. Often polygons are mirrored vertically to create symmetrical shapes, in which case the “bottom” of one side becomes the “top” of the corresponding polygon on the other.

However, normal maps being programmed to scroll down will always do from the top to the bottom of a polygon. And if a polygon is upside-down, the normal map will also scroll upside-down, which can be seen on the narrow border of the stone in the middle of the image. Note how the raindrops crawl upward on that one narrow strip of stone, seemingly defying gravity due to the programmers using the mirroring technique to create the object and then overlooking that fact when implementing the raindrops.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: Samb

Early concept art for the 2023 Super Mario Bros. movie, showing young Mario and Luigi in the process of growing their mustaches.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: C_Lavanda

In Super Mario 64, the “Stand Tall on the Four Pillars” star in Shifting Sand Land requires Mario to touch the top of each of the four pillars surrounding the pyramid. After he touches the fourth pillar, the top of the pyramid levitates while spinning rapidly and then explodes.

Normally, this happens too quickly for the player to be able to interact with the top of the pyramid before it explodes. However, if the player uses a Koopa Shell for this task, Mario can in fact quickly jump towards the pyramid to surf towards the top.

This reveals that surprisingly, the top still has collision while spinning, despite this object clearly not being intended to be interacted with in this state. This can lead to the humorous scenario shown in the footage: Mario becomes caught on a corner of the spinning top and finally thrown directly onto the “Shining Atop the Pyramid” star, collecting it and exiting the level despite the player’s actual aim being to enter the hole left behind by the top exploding.

As such, caution must be exercised to not approach the top before it explodes.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: twitch.tv user “iotku”

Supper Mario Broth: A Primer

If somebody ever asks you: “What is Supper Mario Broth?”, just show them this video.

Thank you all, for everything. With your incredible support, Supper Mario Broth will continue bigger and better than ever before. I hope I can make you proud for believing in me. Now, I will get to work.

My thank you message and plans for the near future. I welcome any suggestions on what new kinds of content you would like to see from Supper Mario Broth!

Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart. Tumblr is a special place to me since this is where Supper Mario Broth started, and although I was not the one running it in the beginning, Supper Mario Broth quickly became my identity and Tumblr became my home. I will continue posting here for as long as this site exists.

Top: a page from the 2020 “Gamer’s Edition” of the Guinness World Records. Note the column of various Luigi designs in the middle.

Bottom: zooming in on the “Super Mario 64 DS” Luigi, it becomes apparent that this Luigi is not from Super Mario 64 DS at all. Instead, it is a fan-made model of Luigi to be imported into Super Mario 64, where he does not appear.

While a legitimate unused model of Luigi made for Super Mario 64 was found in development files for the game shortly after this book was published, this fan-made model (made by a modder named CJes) has existed for years and was known for being used in hacks and fan animations, which is likely how the writers of the book found it and confused it for an official model.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: nintygametube

Illustration of Peach from a 1988 Super Mario manga.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source: oroti_famicom

Promotional Japanese 2005 T-shirt of Sonic saying “20th HAPPY MARIO!” for the Super Mario Bros. 20th anniversary, distributed by Sega.

Main Blog | Twitter | Patreon | Small Findings | Source