pretty much just a thread for some notes and observations n whatnot about the game. many of these ive already shared in the discord, but itd probably be better to have them here. ill edit in pictures later.

the tile behaviours for the big mushroom platforms in the "w7 style sky" tileset dont match the tilemap; laying the tiles out like how they are in the "with flowers and bushes" sky tileset would probably fix it (but i dont believe the particular tiles affected by this get used in any levels anyway)


the brightest green shade for the dandelion bush in the "sky with flowers and bushes" tileset is noticeably off--- its brighter than it is in the grasslands tileset. [EDIT: most of the greens are brighter apparently (which makes this somewhat less interesting i suppose), just the brightest shade is quite bright]


some colours change between the jyotyu palettes when they probably shouldnt. the most obvious is probably the darkest shade of the indestructible block changing to a sorta bluish grey colour for the red/lava jyotyu palette, but also things like the colours for the door and the goal flag base are subtly different from the normal palette in the red, grey, and blue palettes.

the jyotyu palette has several redundant or unnecessary colours, such as multiple blacks and whites, colours for seemingly unused graphics (such as the unused arrow), and colours set aside for a graphic that said graphic doesnt use (such as the boss bridge debris, which only uses a handful of the 8 colours set aside for it (unless theyre used for something else =P)). of particular note are the black, white, and blue shades seen in the palette lines related to most items (barring the blue shell) and 1up minigame graphics--- it seems a little like they were copied from a 16 colour palette and the blue shade used to be a transparent colour. or something.

the red, grey, and blue enemy palettes are missing two colours present in normal palette that are used by the meteor debris: a pure red shade and a pure yellow shade (perhaps of note is that these two shades are in the perfect spot to be used by the unused arrow). this means that the debrisll display a little wrong if you were to, say, change the jyotyu palette the meteor-making volcano bg uses.


palette 8 from the enemy256 palette seems to be an early version of the boo palette (as pointed out by bester). the colours arent different from the final (as far as i can tell with just my eyes), but they were re-arranged.

the titlescreen bushes are different from the ones in the grassland tileset. if i had to guess, the latter are based on the former.


the underwater bg has some unused tiles that seem to form a totally unrelated bg--- one of light shining though the water surface.


several bgs have unused tiles. this is easiest to see with the pipe bg.

the vine graphic in the bitmap with the item graphics doesnt seem used by the game (i wouldve expected it to be used by that clone mario vine thing if anywhere, but it isnt, afaict). additionally, the "placeholder curve" (as tcrf calls it) seems to be the bottom right corner of the coin bubble graphic (it also doesnt appear to be used).

EDIT: the bottom half of the unused first palette of the castle bottom bg is strikingly similar to the bottom half of the w7 boss tileset palette--- not a doubt in my mind exists that the two were somehow related



(for the record, many, many tilesets and backgrounds have unused palettes)

the semisolid platforms in that tileset use different colours and vary in shading (usually by a few pixels) from the normal underground semisolid from the jyotyu tileset


there are some unused stair tiles in the "light grey castle" tileset that use, oddly, the wrong palette lines

the top ones are what they should use. heres about what theyd look like with the right colours:

additionally, the tileset is laid out a bit similarly to the pipe (or "factory") tileset, and even shares some (x'd out) graphics with it

(the red ones. red isnt the right colour, i jus didnt wanna take another screenshot with the other palette)

the subnohara tileset has some invisible solid tiles above the tower ones

they even have tile objects, which are identical to the tile object for the tower wall


the subnohara tilemap also has a thing if you run the "change palette" thing over it. before:

after:

i dunno enough about the tilemap format to understand why this happens specifically.

theres an early koopa troopa sprite in the files (I_nokonoko_ncg.bin), which only uses 16 colours. (since the palette is unknown, i made one. additionally, it may be assembled wrong in the image since the graphics for it are dismembered)


thats prolly everything i can get to without needing pictures to explain myself so uhh
personal todo: castle bg palette, unused miscoloured w8 castle tiles, w7 boss tileset semisolids, bg gradients, koopa troopa, subnohara things

What's exactly what you want to do/know about these concretelly? Also, can we use this thread to share some information we found out, because I discovered a few small things I'd like to mention but I'm not really sure if they're too relevant
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i want to use pictures to explain my observations regarding those sure, the more trivia the better

Well, something I noticed regarding the jyotyu tileset is that this spot here (marked in red) seems to be restricted, if you place something there, it won't show up in game no matter where you place it on Map16


Also, whatever you place here is what will show up when you break the flagpole with Mega Mario, this may seem a little obvious, but I initially thought those broken flagpole tiles were just decorative


Normally, if you have a Mega Mushroom in your sub-item box and collect any other powerup, the Mega Mushroom won't be replaced unless you get rid of it, but if you groundpound on a blue koopa, the blue shell will replace the Mega Mushroom in the sub-item box.

That's probably all the info I have, sorry if there are any grammar mistakes
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Am I also allowed to post about glitches here, or only graphics (given that I'm a non-hacker (when it comes to NSMBDS))? I'm an avid glitch researcher. Most glitches are documented elsewhere though, but if this is to collect data and have it in one thread...

W00t, thanks!

Shell Jump Glitch

A well-known one. If you're shell-dashing as Shell Mario/Luigi, are in midair and your current vertical speed is equal to zero (the case if you've just dashed off a cliff/platform/the like or at the peak of a jump), if you let go of the dash button if the above conditions are met, Mario/Luigi will make a midair jump - with the jump animation of punching the air. Especially useful in a run that aims to jump as few times as possible, but may also be useful in a kaizo hack.

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Mega Dorrie Glitch

In W4-6, if you ride Mega Dorrie to the area with the Piranha Plant warp pipes on the ceiling as quickly as possible, remain on the lowered part on the far-left of that "Piranha pipe ceiling island" until the timer reaches 140, then proceed to the right, if you jump into the poison water pit past the island, you, if all is done correctly, will land on an invisible, seemingly infinitely-extending back of Mega Dorrie. You can now just walk around on air, but if you go too far to the right, the game refinds its lost track of Mega Dorrie and teleports you (with a noice sweep) to far below the island to the right of Mega Dorrie. Normally you can't escape from underneath there, but I did once manage, IIRC with a Mini Mushroom-powered Triple Jump, to escape from underneath the island and walk around the course, underneath the poison water.

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Growing Mega behind the flagpole

In W2-5, in the area where the third Star Coin is hidden, if Challenge Mode is enabled, you can get the right-side wall of the Star Coin alcove on-screen in such a way that if you jump into the alcove from the Blockhopper, you'll be wedged into the wall and be pushed rightwards through the ground (only works if not Small or Mini). This allows you to walk around behind the flagpole - the castle is not solid except for some tiles in the bottom-right corner. If you equip a Mega Mushroom from the Touch Screen here, Mario/Luigi will instantly snap to the flagpole and break it after finishing having grown. After that, the course clear cutscene plays as intended.

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Goombas in the ground

In W6-2, in the "room" you start in, if a Mega character pounds the ground right next to the red warp pipe and causes Goombas to fall down, one of them might spawn inside the wall and land inside the sand tiles. It can walk around normally there, but watch out - every Mega Mario/Luigi's step could clip the Goomba onto the sand ground. If it reaches the (sloped) floor, it'll turn around, and if it reaches the far-right edge of the room, it'll fall off, as no tiles are beyond sight.

Cool. Maybe this thread can serve as some kind of notepad till some of those things (the bigger ones) are worked out into tutorials or some.

edited in images n such. i think most of the "bigger" stuff would be better fit in threads of their own. this probably isnt the best thread for important hacking info

also, permission to change the thread title back to the original (cooler)?

Ooh, that explains some things I ran into long ago.

But why, why would you store the colors of an "enemy" that only appears once in the enemy palette? 💀



Oh wow, that actually looks so pretty! It reminds me a bit of a background in NSMBWii.

Some of the early, more detailed and realistic backgrounds of NSMB were so pretty. I wish they had not gone with the simpler, more cartoony art style in the end.



Okay, but is it me, or does the early Koopa actually look better than the final one? It has more shading which makes it appear less flat.



Okay

Oh yeah, some normally unused animations can be seen in specific situations:
• Mini Mario/Luigi crouching: in Challenge Mode, when pressing DOWN on a slope descending towards the left edge of the screen if you're on the far-left. Doing so as Shell Mario/Luigi will make the plumber rapidly alternate between crouching and uncrouching, giving him a translucent, ghostlike appearance.
• Shell Mario/Luigi sliding: if on the ?-Switch triggered stairs in one of the ghost houses if they're collapsed. Shell Mario/Luigi will slide off on his butt.

EDIT: Thanks for the +1,  Keeper! I found those myself, by accident.

pretty much every stage object that doesnt use an nsbtx or nsbmd uses either the jyotyu palette or the enemy palette. the only exceptions i can think of would be the mvsl big star and the end game wallpaper shop blocks, which use the enemy256 palette.
ill be destroy you:marioready:

In W2-3, somewhere near the end, where there are also !-Switchable Red Blocks and a Piranha Plant, there are two downwards-opening, horizontally-placed Flippers next to each other, forming kind of a trapdoor. If Mario/Luigi jumps into the gap between the two Flippers from below, as long as he doesn't move horizontally, he'll be in an infinite freefall. _{Mario astronaut training}

Oh? So what else then?

Also, the debris is a 3D model. At least when it's close by. Where's the model stored then and the bitmap?

Here I have another one you probably already know: on the path between W4-1 and the green Toad House, Mario/Luigi moonwalks. This happens nowhere else.

And in the aboveground part of W8-6, the background doesn't scroll. I actually first read about that one here.

If you jump off a "rotating carry-through-wall turntable-like lift" present in W4-Ghost on the same frame you land on it, you'll be able to walk around while the course is in Time Stop state. The clock keeps ticking, though. Effects include:
• If you break a brick from below, the brick debris particle effect will freeze on the first frame and the brick will retain its tangibility and act like a Used Block;
• If you Ground-Pound a breakable brick, the debris will once again freeze on frame 1, but the brick will lose its collision;
• Any coins collected, will not be added to the coin counter until the Time Stop state ends;
• If you hit an item block, it won't release its item until Time Stop ends. If you hit a multi-coin block, only the first coin will be dispensed;
• The camera may act wonky, dunno how to explain;
• Any power-ups spawned from the Touch Screen will freeze and be uninteractable as soon as they are to start falling down;
• Any other turntable lifts than the one jumped off of, lose their collision. Stepping on the turntable lift previously jumped off, taking damage or going through a door end the course's Time Stop state.

Non-glitch-related, but the warp from W8-6 underground to W8-6 aboveground can be entered without using the cannon pipe, by using Wall Kicks as a Mini plumber.

by debris im refering to the broken bits that come from the meteors when the hit the ground and break, to clarify

Oh okay. But there's also this issue where the 3D models' textures aren't shown or loaded.

Ooh, I totally forgot about this one! I've read somewhere (probably Supper Mario Broth or TCRF) that...

Well, y'all know NSMBDS's opening cutscene, right? Mario/Luigi and Peach are taking a walk when all of a sudden, lightning strikes Mushroom Castle and Toads start running around in panic.

What if I told you the distance Mario moves isn't necessarily equal to his speed those Toads aren't actually Toads, but Toadsworths?! Also, just by looking at the positions of those Toads Toadsworths on the screen, some speedrunners can tell which power-up they'll get from the Red Flying ? Block in W1-2 (obviously they all want a Blue Shell to unlock the cannon to W5)!

Oh yeah, and tapping any "w" during the credits plays an unused sound effect!

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EDIT because I don't want to doublepost: If you trigger the Goomba-growing-into-Mega-Goomba cutscene while in Mega form, the Goomba will be floating above the ground during the cutscene. Has something to do with the Goomba spawning at Mario/Luigi's eyeheight.
If you hang on a ledge and climb onto a wooden lift, you will hang on the wooden lift.

If, in the flagpole room of W8-5, Mega Mario/Luigi first pushes the warp pipe as far into the wall as possible, then waits to shrink, lets the camera scroll as far to the right as possible without clearing the course, then returns to the warp pipe, the pipe's graphics will be garbled with parts of a red and parts of a yellow warp pipe.

Fire Mario/Luigi's fireballs will sometimes pass through Giant Wiggler.

Mini Mario/Luigi can jump off of a P-, !- or ?-Switch the frame he lands on it, and the switch won't be pressed.

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Non-glitch:
Hitting an empty Lakitu cloud during a Shell Dash awards the player points. So if you can get a Lakitu cloud into a, like, 4 tiles wide or something depression in the ground, you can keep Shell Dashing in that depression, bouncing back and forth while repeatedly hitting the cloud to farm points.

An unused object exists that's often dubbed "invisible fireball". It's an object like the invisible back-and-forth-moving ? Block, and the Phantom Hands will point to it, but it damages the player. That was a little unfair, so the big N scrapped it.

In the files, an unused, fully functional even larger variant of Mega Dorrie, Giga Dorrie, exists. Probably scrapped because they didn't want to use the same gimmick in three courses.

One of the "glitch" power-up states (can only be seen if hacks or possibly cheats are used) causes Mario/Luigi to grow indefinitely until he becomes too huge for the game to handle, which then crashes due to the awesomeness. I don't know the hex index number of this power-up state, though.

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Glitch: the walljump glitch from SMB can still be performed, but only as Mini Mario/Luigi. It's very likely you'll accidentally walljump while Wall Kicking up a long shaft.

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Cheese: the ghost house stairs don't even need to get activated with the ?-Switch if you have a Blue Shell. Just Shell Dash up the unactivated staircase