Mario Clock

Mario Clock
Also known as: Nintendo DSi Tokei: Famicom Mario Type (JP) Developer: Nintendo Software Technology Publisher: Nintendo Platform: DSiWare Released in JP: April 1, 2009 Released in US: June 15, 2009 Released in EU: July 3, 2009 Released in AU: July 3, 2009 Released in CN: January 21, 2010 This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has a development article

Mario Clock is exactly what it sets out to be: a DSiWare app that could be bought for 200 points on the DSi Shop, with minimal functionality and a Super Mario Bros. theme.

However, the SMB theme is actually a game: Mario and Luigi move constantly to the right and can run and jump to collect coins, grab Mushrooms, and hit POW Blocks (which, in a cute touch, also knocks the clock pieces offscreen briefly); no enemies or pits here. The setting changes every 15 minutes, with the brothers swapping after every 100 coins (which on the analog display also replaces each successive number with Mario or Luigi). Collecting 1,200 coins sends Mario to Princess Peach briefly before going back to the endless moving. The app also keeps track of how many coins you've collected in total across all play sessions, displaying it upon tapping Exit.

Notably, the idea of an endless Mario runner would be reused to great effect in the later Super Mario Run.

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Development Info

Dummy Sounds

Inside of the SWAR folder of "sound_data.sdat" found in the "sound" folder of the game is a package of 16 dummy wave audio files numbered 0 to 15, all of which are silent and 44 bytes in size.

Unused Text Strings

Some text strings from earlier builds. These text strings aren't translated in other languages.

Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec

Indicators for months are present. Only the first three letters are shown, which would've been used instead of the month number.

Digital/Analog
DIGITAL
ANALOG

Duplicate strings for Digital and Analog. Even though this text is the same across all regions, the European version calls Analog "Analogue", rendering this unused.

STOP

Text likely meant for stopping the alarm. You just tap the screen instead.

18
12
07:15
12:30
1982

Placeholder dates and times, some of which were used in mockups. One is set to 1982, for some reason.

TIME
ALARM SOUND

Duplicate strings for the alarm settings. While these strings are present in the menu, they're not capitalized and are missing some other strings that are in this menu.

MAIN
ALARM SETTINGS

Early text for the main menu options, referring to Clock and Alarm as something else.

TIME ZONE

An option for time zone settings, which isn't present in the final build. The closest thing to this would be Time Offset, which lets you change how many minutes or hours the clock should be behind or caught up on.

ESRB Rating:
Everyone

Text for an ESRB rating. An icon of the rating is used instead.

CANCEL

Text for undoing setting changes, as seen in this flowchart.

(Source: Original TCRF research)