If you'd like to support our preservation efforts (and this wasn't cheap), please consider donating or supporting us on Patreon. Thank you!
Prerelease:Super Mario Kart/Internal Material
This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Super Mario Kart.
 | 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. |
Various sprites, tilesets, maps, etc. can be found in the following directories:
- other\NEWS\テープリストア\NEWS_04\NEWS_04.tar\home\sugiyama\CAR
- other\NEWS\テープリストア\NEWS_05\NEWS_05.tar\home\kimura\kart\data.lzh
- other\NEWS\テープリストア\NEWS_04\NEWS_04.tar\home\sugiyama\mori
Early Sprites
Car.cgx
Possibly one of the earliest graphics that were created for Super Mario Kart, inlcuding:
An unnamed guy who mildly resembles Mach Rider in a "car" with an helmet. The car's design is already very similar to that of the Super Mario Karts. No palette can be found but it fits pretty well with the driver pallets from the final game with the exception of some colours (Mario's palette is used here). He has animations for driving to the horizon and for steering. A sideview of the driver and a rear view with an outline can be found as well.
Directly below these graphics is the same guy but sitting in some sort of Hovercraft. It has two designs of its sideview.
Then there is this font, possibly used in a very early prototype.
At the very end of this file we can find these very early sprites of Mario characters sitting in karts. This is, where the Mario Kart series was born.
MARIO-CAR.CGX.BAK
A sketch with all of Super Mario Kart's drivers with a rear and a front view. Some look quite similar to their final sprites while some of them look pretty different.
- Donkey Kong Jr. has a different face
- Yoshi appears bigger and thicker
- Bowser's mouth is closed.
- Some minor adjustments
Below these graphics are also a slightly earlier Mario with an even earlier Koopa Sprite, who had a... uh, different face.
Tires
Some stacked tires, possibly a hazard that was later replaced by the pipe.
Podoboo
The firebubble, possibly planned for the Bowser Castle tracks. It most likely jumped out of the lava similar to the Mounty Moles jumping out of holes.
Monty Mole standing
Maybe, they originally waited on the ground for some driver to jump on. Or it was for an animation where it moved its paws.
Coin
While the coin is used in the final game, it does not have graphics for different distances. This could mean that the coins where originaly supposed to appear more like billboards and not lying on the track.
Freezie
Found in Ghost Valley's and Rainbow Road's background graphics are these fiery flames, which seem to resemble the fireball enemy from Donkey Kong or the freezies from Mario Bros. They have the same placement as the boo graphics and were most likely used in their place before scrapped.
HUD
Early Item Icons
Sketches with different designs for the item storage and its items.
1UP and 2UP
Found within the final HUD graphics is this extra graphic of 1UP and 2UP.
SROT-DRAM.SCR
A tilemap showing some items listed.
Maybe you could see which and how many items you got/used after a race or a battle?
Early Position Icons
Early graphics for the small icons which are displayed after race. They didn't have two frames for the winning animation. Some even originally cried in their loser icon.
Early Numbers
Various sketches for the time counter graphics.
Early Fonts
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Early Choose your driver...
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Early Track Graphics
Item Fields
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
 |
The item fields where originally more round. It can be found in various track tilesets.
Coins
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
 |
A larger coin that fills up the entire tile as well as a normal sized coin, both with different shading can be found. A slightly different coin can still be found in the final game in Rainbow Road's graphics.
Flower Decoration
Some flowers for Mario Circuit's lawn can be found together with duplicate Mario Circuit tiles in Donut Plains' tileset.
Mushroom Field
Possibly an early idea for the acceleration fields. It can be found next to the flower graphics.
Early Oil Slick
What appears to be an unfinished graphic of a larger oil slick. It can be found next to the final oil slick graphics.
Early Koopa Beach Bushes
Towards the bottom of Koopa Beach' tileset is a several early designs for the bushes, including one that looks nothing like what was used in the game.
Early Vanilla Lake Ice Block
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
 |
The breakable ice hazard looked more like the multicolloured blocks early on. A frame of its destroying animation was different.
Early Ghost Valley Palette
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
 |
It was brighter.
ZE2.CGX
A very early track tileset. It also contains graphics from Pilotwings, namely the ship and the helipad.
It has two different palette files, C.COL (shown left) and C1.COL (shown right).
C1.COL already contains the paletts for all Super Mario Kart drivers.
The early track ZE2-X.scr uses this tileset.
Tracks
ZE2-X.scr
Possibly the very first track created for Super Mario Kart, dated 11th July 1991. It is an early version of Mario Circuit 3 and uses the early track tileset shown above. Some of the Pilotwings graphics need to be replaced with some of the track tiles in order to fix some of the curve tiles.
XX.scr
Seems to be a test with highway-like roads and some crossings. Unlike any other Super Mario Kart track, this one was possibly supposed to loop itself. It uses a slightly earlier Mario Circuit tileset with more lines and a yellow colloured line.
Strangely, it has a timestamp of 18th March 1994, long after the release of Super Mario Kart.
B1-X.SCR
| Mario Circuit | Donut Plains |
|---|---|
 |
 |
A very early battle track that is more reminiscent of a labyrinth. Dated Feb 26, 1992.
It fits pretty well with Mario Circuit's and Donut Plains' tileset.
B1-X.SCR.BAK
An early backup of the track shown above contains another early battle track. Dated Oct 23, 1991. Interestingly, there aren't that many walls, instead there are some small blockages filled with grass. A checkered line goes across the middle of the track and two small streaks of dirt can be seen on the top and bottom, acting as goals. It's layout suggests that a possible Rocket League style mode was planned.
B4-X.SCR
Early Choco Island themed battle track containing various jumps. Dated Jun 8, 1992.
B4-X.SCR.BAK
Another version of the Choco Island battle map. This time, it contains some big chocolate puddles and extra jumps. Also dated Jun 8, 1992.
TITLE3.SCR
A strange piece of an early Choco Island track. Dated Nov 20, 1991.
Interestingly, it uses only one single tile for the walls. This is possibly what the unused, multicoloured block was used for.
