Development:Mario's Early Years: Fun With Letters (SNES)

This page details development materials of Mario's Early Years: Fun With Letters (SNES).

This page or section details content from the July 2020 Nintendo Leak. Check the July 2020 Nintendo Leak category for more pages also sourced from this material.

To do: There's a few sprites with Peach, but her palette is unknown.

Various sprites were present among the 2020 leaks, and can be found in NEWS_09\home\nogami\renshu\mario.cgx.

What makes these particularly interesting is that the game was developed in the United States, suggesting that the sprites were created by Nintendo and sent to The Software Toolworks for reference/reworking. These early sprites seem to be more detailed and overall better versions of their final counterpart.

Early Sprites

Sentence World (Garden)

Early	Final

The sprite for Luigi sitting in the mud was recolored.

Sentence World (Kitchen)

Early	Final

The sprite for Mario standing in the kitchen was recolored. In the final version, his hand was cut out for him to hold a magnifying glass, and his thumb was also shortened a bit.

Sentence World (Desert)

Early	Final

The sprite that accompanies the word "tug" was recolored and Luigi's hat was slightly redrawn.

Early	Final

The sprite that accompanies the word "ran" was recolored. A slightly thinner version with an alternate face was made but not used.

Early	Final

The sprite that accompanies the word "fed" was recolored. In the final version, the bowl was emptied, and a small portion of the cat's tail was also thickened.

A sprite for Luigi getting stung by a bee. In the PC version of the game released a year earlier, an almost identical-in-concept sprite accompanies the word "bug" in the desert location of Sentence World. For the final release of the SNES version, the sprite of the ladybug from the previous locations was used instead.

A sprite for Luigi wearing a hat. In the PC version of the game released a year earlier, an almost identical-in-concept sprite accompanies the word "hat" in the desert location of Sentence World. For the final release of the SNES version, the sprite of the hat (without Luigi) from the previous locations was used instead.

First Letter World

Early	Final

The sprite that accompanies the words "Yoshi" and "sit" was recolored. In the final version, one of the stool legs was thickened, and an extra black pixel was added in between the eye and the nose.

Alphabet Room

Early	Final

The sprite of Mario used for the illustration of the letter M was recolored.