Mario Kart DS

Mario Kart DS
Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Nintendo DS Released in JP: December 8, 2005 Released in US: November 14, 2005 Released in EU: November 25, 2005 Released in AU: November 17, 2005 Released in KR: April 5, 2007 This game has unused areas. This game has unused code. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused models. This game has unused music. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article This game has a notes page This game has a bugs page

Mario Kart DS is one of the most popular games on the DS as well as one of the best selling Mario Kart games of all time. It's also the Mario Kart game that introduced the Retro Grand Prix, which has since become a series staple.

There is some additional information relating to this game's development on the Mario Kart Wii page.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

To do: Two unused Archives with early Karts and Characters here and here. Those links are now dead, find new ones. A number of unused and early objects. More unused graphics. Add documentation for the unused Ice collision type. Move notes about grpconf.tbl to a more appropriate section. It does not qualify as unused code.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

Notes

Bugs

Resources

Unused Courses Long-forgotten circuits never to be driven on again.

Early Karts Some earlier versions of familiar karts along with some completely new ones.

Early Objects Early versions of a lot of junk on the road that didn't quite make the final cut.

Unused Graphics An artist's work is never done.

Oddities Not all maps can be accurate.

Version Differences

Post-Final Demo Version Mario vs. 7 Shy Guys!

Regional Differences R.O.B. in all his red-and-white glory.

Unused Menu Music

There is an unused sequence for a menu in the sound data of the game, called SSEQ_0005. It is one track away from the records screen, so it might have been used there. It has a resemblance to the Wi-Fi menu theme, and the settings theme too.

It has similar tracks/channels to the Options theme, possible case that this might also be an earlier version of the said theme.

To hear this sequence on the title screen, use Action Replay code 121DB4A4 000001B0 (US).

Unused Menu Archive

There is an unused archive called "KartModelMenu.carc" that was apparently planned to be used to house the models and textures of the karts and drivers on the selection menu.

Early Characters

To do: Are there any more?

Daisy

Unused	Used

An earlier version of Daisy's CPU model, found in the unused KartModelMain.carc archive. Her head and arms are slightly different, matching her current appearance. The crown of the used model has some pink on it, unlike the unused one.

Shy Guy

Unused	Used

KartModelMain.carc also contains an early CPU model for Shy Guy, which is carried over from the Kiosk Demo. It is very simple and lacks 3D arms and feet. It is also green unlike the final model which is red.

Unused Paths and Early Camera Leftovers

To do: There may be more. Also, get videos of this and put them in a subpage.

Some of the courses have unused routes (PATH and POIT), most of which are leftovers from earlier replay cameras for the tracks they're in.

Yoshi Falls

CAME 8 and 12 have leftover route speed settings (82 and 30), but have no leftover paths. Also the case in Kiosk Demo's track, suggesting they used paths in an earlier version of the track.

Cheep-Cheep Beach

CAME 16 has a leftover route speed setting (20) despite not using a path.

Mission 2-5 (mr11_tool.nkm) also has a unused path with two points, placed on where the second boost pad is. Purpose unknown.

Luigi's Mansion

Path 2 with two points is unused. It's located on the first S curve before the mansion. Probably meant for CAME 7 as that and the AREA 4 (where it's assigned to) is located on where it is. The said camera also has a leftover route speed setting (27) in the Kiosk Demo, making this a possible case. It's reset to 0 in the final, through.

Desert Hills

CAME 9 and 17 have leftover route speed settings (35 and 45) despite not using paths (maybe removed).

Delfino Square

Path 1 is unused. It begins from the starting line and goes towards the Pianta statue, probably used by CAME 7, as it's the only camera between the ones using Path 0 and 2, and it even has a leftover route speed setting (55) in the Kiosk Demo version, which is reset to 0 in final. CAME 9 and 19 also have leftover route speed settings (30 and 25), suggests they once used a path also (they don't have a leftover path however, unlike CAME 7)

Waluigi Pinball

Path 7 with five points is unused. It's placed right before the starting line and moves towards it. It might have been meant for CAME 1 as that and AREA 4 (which uses it) are placed on where it is, and has a leftover route speed setting (20). CAME 16 and 17 also have leftover route speed settings (65, 35) despite not using paths (might be removed).

Shroom Ridge

CAME 9, 11 and 12 have leftover route speed settings (50, 20, 30) despite not using paths (maybe removed).

DK Pass

Among the 13 paths set on this course's NKM, PATH 6 is unused. It begins from the entrance to the snow area and goes to a bit further of the track, likely meant to be a camera path.

CAME 2, 5 and 9 have route speed set despite not using a PATH; judging by the order of PATH ID settings in the CAME, this unused path might be meant for CAME 9, since it's between the ones using PATH 5 and 7.

Tick-Tock Clock

CAME 2, 6 and 10 have leftover route speed settings (50, 35, 50) despite not using paths (maybe removed).

Mario Circuit

CAME 9, 11 and 14 have leftover route speed settings (65, 40, 65) despite not using paths.

Airship Fortress

CAME 7, 8, 9 and 12 have leftover route speed settings (50, 45, 70, 60), but no leftover paths exist for them. Also the case in Kiosk Demo's track, they probably used paths in an earlier version.

Wario Stadium

CAME 7 has a leftover route speed setting (55) from wario_course (earlier version of the track) where this camera used a path. This was changed to a fixed view camera in both Kiosk Demo and the final's used track.

SNES Mario Circuit 1

CAME 8 has a leftover route speed setting (65) despite not using a path (probably removed).

N64 Moo Moo Farm

CAME 11 and 15 have leftover route speed settings (105, 115) despite not using paths.

GBA Peach Circuit

Path 3 with one point is unused. It's placed after the second left turn, and close to where Path 2 (used by CAME 7 which is a replay camera) is. It might be an earlier path for CAME 7, or something for testing. And CAME 6 in Kiosk Demo's track has a leftover route speed setting (85), probably meant for that also.

CAME 12 also has a leftover route speed setting (110) despite not using a path.

GCN Luigi Circuit

Path 7 with ten points is leftover from the removed Luigi blimp that appears in the Kiosk Demo version of the track.

CAME 11 has a leftover route speed setting (40) despite not using a path.

N64 Frappe Snowland

Path 1 with nine points is unused. It's located on the curve after the third turn and goes further. It might've been used by CAME 4 as that (and AREA 5 where it's assigned to) is located on where it is, and also has a leftover route speed setting (150) in the Kiosk Demo's track (reset to 0 in final).

GBA Bowser Castle 2

CAME 16 has a leftover route speed setting (85) despite not using a path.

N64 Choco Mountain

Path 4 with two points is unused. It's placed before the tunnel and goes towards it. It might've been used by CAME 10 as that (and AREA 7 which it is assigned to) is placed on where it is, and has a leftover speed setting (20) in Kiosk Demo's track where it's also unused (but reset to 0 in final).

GBA Luigi Circuit

CAME 2 and 3 (second camera in the GP intro) have leftover route speed settings (20), suggesting they once used paths.

N64 Banshee Boardwalk

CAME 16 and 19 have leftover route speed settings (20, 30) despite not using paths.

old_mario_gc / GCN Mario Circuit

Paths 0, 1 and 2 have two points each, placed on the Goombas' area and are meant for their movement, but none are placed, rendering them unused.

MR_stage4 / Early GCN Mushroom Bridge

CAME 8, 11 and 17 have leftover route speed settings (55, 45 and 50), suggests they once used paths but no leftover paths exist for them. This is also the case in Kiosk Demo's track, but are all reset to 0 in the final's used track.

Award

Path 6 with two points is unused. It seems an earlier version of Path 4 (the camera before the least one in the award ceremony) due to similar placement, but its first point is placed under the track.

Unused Camera Sequences

To do: There could be more.

Luigi's Mansion

There is an alternative version of the first camera sequence from Luigi's Mansion: a view from the moon and the front side of the mansion, that was replaced by a view through the door.

DK Pass

The second sequence has an alternative version, which is similar to the original sequence, but it has a different angle and was replaced by a more interesting view.

Removed Missions

The file mission.mr is a table containing configurations for missions. However there are 28 entries never used by the game, because they were scrapped. Note that MR stands for Mission Run.

Mission Name	Mission Task	Driver	Course	Time Limit	Notes
mr01	Drive Through Gates	Yoshi	GCN Yoshi Circuit	00:25:00	This is a scrapped mission from the Kiosk Demo.
mr05	Collect 50 Coins	Luigi	SNES Mario Circuit 1	01:00:00	Another scrapped mission from the Kiosk Demo. Interestingly, Luigi uses his Poltergust 4000, although in missions in the final version, the drivers only use their Standard Kart.
mr16	Collect 30 Coins	Peach	Peach Gardens	00:55:00
mr18	Drive 2 Laps	Mario	Rainbow Road	01:00:00
mr19	Destroy 5 (moving) Item Boxes	Luigi	Figure 8 Circuit	01:00:00
mr22	Collect 20 Coins	Bowser	SNES Koopa Beach 2	01:00:00
mr23	Defeat 10 Goombas	Toad	Mario Circuit	01:00:00	Seems to be an early version of Mission 7-4
mr24	Boss Battle	Donkey Kong	MR_stage1 (Big Bully Arena)	05:00:00	Also uses an unused setting, where the camera is slightly zoomed out
mr30	Drive 2 Laps	Wario	N64 Banshee Boardwalk	01:10:00
mr31	Do 8 Power Slides	Peach	GBA Peach Circuit	00:40:00
mr32	Collect 15 Coins	Donkey Kong	Delfino Square	00:15:00
mr36	Defeat 5 crabs	Wario	Cheep Cheep Beach	00:55:00	Seems to be an early version of Mission 1-4
mr42	Drive Through 10 Gates	Luigi	GBA Luigi Circuit	01:00:00
mr45	Drive 1 Lap	Donkey Kong	Figure 8 Circuit	01:30:00
mr46	Drive 3 Laps	Mario	SNES Mario Circuit 1	01:00:00	Uses an unused setting, where the track is in Mirror Mode
mr52	Collect 1 Coin	Luigi	MR_stage4	05:00:00	Collect 1 Coin with Luigi, might have been a test for the coin collecting missions. Coins also have an unused feature where they can follow specified paths, possibly intended for this mission.
mr56	Destroy 8 (moving) Item Boxes	Bowser	N64 Choco Mountain	01:00:00
mr57	Drive Through 10 Gates	Donkey Kong	Yoshi Falls	00:50:00
mr58	Destroy 15 Item Boxes	Toad	Bowser's Castle	01:00:00
mr59	Collect 12 Coins	Yoshi	GCN Mushroom Bridge	01:00:00
mr63	Destroy 10 Item Boxes	Wario	Wario Stadium	01:10:00
mr65	Do 10 Power Slides	Mario	Mario Circuit	01:05:00
mr67	Destroy 4 rolling Snowballs	Peach	DK Pass	01:20:00
mr68	Reach the finish before Luigi	Yoshi	Luigi's Mansion
mr71	Destroy 20 Crates	Yoshi	Airship Fortress	01:10:00
mr73	Destroy 10 moving Item Boxes	Donkey Kong	Tick Tock Clock	01:00:00
mr74	Defeat 15 snowmans	Peach	N64 Frappe Snowland	01:00:00	The Snowman object has an unused setting where it won't respawn after breaking it. It seems to have been intended for this mission.
mr87	Destroy 10 Item Boxes	Luigi	Delfino Square	02:00:00

Unused Code

Unused Object Settings

The Mission Coin object is able to follow a specified path, with its Setting 1 specifying the speed, however no mission uses this feature.

Unused Blur Effect

An unused display capture effect to blur the screen when boosting was found in the code. The final game tries to enable this effect whenever you get a speed boost, but since the blur doesn't get initialized, it gets ignored.

It uses the VRAM used by the ARM7 co-processor in Multiplayer modes, so it's likely that it would have only worked in Single Player Modes. This, and the fact that it can be both disorienting and distracting likely contributed to it getting scrapped.

It can be enabled through an AR code made by Gericom for the EU region of the game.

Enable Blur (Single Player Only) (EU):

121548DC 00000000
121548DE 00000008
2203AE78 00000002
0205612C 00000000
02056130 00000000
02056134 00000000

(discovery: Gericom)

Unused Data

Unused Map Object Group Configuration File

Various attributes of map objs are controlled by the file grpconf.tbl in /MainRace.carc/MapObj/ the attributes defined by this file are the following; has3dmodel, nearclip, farclip, collision type, width, height, and depth. However there's an unused earlier version of the file in the unused /Main/MapObj.carc archive, that has less entries and different settings compared to the used file.

Replacing the used file with the unused file will result in multiple tracks crashing on real hardware, due to it missing entries for some of the objects.

Unused HUD Palette

In the palette files for the global maps of unused courses (which are copies of an early GCN Yoshi Circuit minimap), There are unused Palette rows used in the E3 2004 prototype.

Palette row 0 is empty, palette row 1 is used by the actual map, while palette rows 2, 3, 4 and 5 are E3 2004 leftovers; palette row 2 contains the palette for the "TIME" and "LAP" labels. Palette rows 3 and 4 have 8 sets of blue and a set of yellow colors used on the rank list. Palette 5 is from when the global map BG was baked into the same file as the global map it's self, this is no longer the case in the final game, so this palette goes unused as well.

There being 8 sets of the same shades of blue in palette rows 3 & 4 may suggest that each player was going to have their own color on the rank list.

Unused Grand Prix Intro Graphic

Palette: //data/Scene/Race_gp.carc/race_start_gp_m_o.NCLR

Texture: //data/Scene/Race_gp.carc/race_start_gp_m_o.NCGR

This seems to be a graphic that was used for the course titles' background in the course intro. The NCGR file is empty, but editing it will show a background behind the course's name in the intro.

The graphic uses the first line of the palette file above (shown below).

Build Date

There is a file named BUILDDATE in the //data/boot/ folder, which contains the date and time the game was compiled:

Version	Build Date
Europe (Multiplayer Kiosk Demo)	Build: 2005 4/28(Thu) 9:57:13
USA (Kiosk Demo)	Build: 2005 5/30(Mon) 18:20:47
Europe	Build: 2005 10/8(Sat) 23:05:54
US	Build: 2005 10/8(Sat) 23:09:34
Japan	Build: 2005 10/17(Mon) 20:12:19
Japan (Kiosk Demo)	Build: 2005 11/15(Tue) 11:11:10
Korea	Build: 2007 2/21(Wed) 19:59:37

Development Text

NitroKart Ghost Data Test 01

Located in the ARM9 binary is text, regarding a Ghost Data test, which suggests the internal project name of the game was "NitroKart".

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Memory Filler

To do: Check if this is really unused. The staff ghosts also contains this ASCII art for kart symbols

Mario Kart DS seems to pad out certain parts of memory with repeated instances of cute ASCII art which depicts Mario from Super Mario Bros.

     UUUUU      
     UUUUU      
    UUUUUUUUU   
    UUUUUUUUU   
    DDD..D.     
    DDD..D.     
   D.D...D...   
   D.D...D...   
   D.DD...D...  
   D DD...D...  
   DD....DDDD   
   DD....DDDD   
     .......    
     .......    
    DDUDDD      
    DDUDDD      
   DDDUDDUDDD   
   DDDUDDUDDD   
  DDDDUUUUDDDD  
  DDDDUUUUDDDD  
  ..DU.UU.UD..  
  ..DU.UU.UD..  
  ...UUUUUU...  
  ...UUUUUU...  
  ..UUUUUUUU..  
  ..UUUUUUUU..  
    UUU  UUU    
    UUU  UUU    
   DDD    DDD   
   DDD    DDD  
  DDDD    DDDD  

Hidden Contest Code

If you press Up, Down, L, R, Y, A in the Time Trials records, a 16 character code with information on your ghost will appear. This was used for an official contest held by Nintendo's Japanese website, like in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.

A fan-made decoder is available online.