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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
Contents
Early Sprites
Car.cgx
Possibly the earliest graphics that were created for Super Mario Kart.
An unnamed guy who mildly resembles Mach Rider in a "car" with a helmet. The car's design is already very similar to those of Super Mario Karts. No palette can be found, but it fits pretty well with the driver palettes from the final game (Mario's palette is used here) with the exception of some colors.
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 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.
MARIO-CAR.CGX.BAK
A sketch of rear and front views of the drivers. Some look quite similar to their final sprites, while others 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 a slightly earlier Mario and an even earlier Koopa sprite with a different face.
More Early Drivers
Many sketchpads with lots of early frames of the drivers can be found. While they mostly differs from some small pixel adjustments, they also contain some early designs. It seems that early in development, the drivers had two frames for steering instead of one.
Mario
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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 |
For some odd reason, the earliest sketchpad of Mario contains a steering animation for him while further away in the distance but none for the ordinary close-view, possibly a mistake. There is also a slightly later sketchpad which uses the final color for his seat, with his steering sprite differing slightly.
Luigi
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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Yoshi
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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Donkey Kong Jr.
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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His fists were different.
Koopa
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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His head received minor tweaks.
Tires
Some stacked tires, possibly a hazard that was later replaced by the pipe. This obstacle would later show up in future Mario Kart installments.
Podoboo
The fire bubble, possibly planned for the Bowser Castle tracks. It most likely jumped out of the lava similar to the Monty 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 were originaly supposed to be standing on the track rather than laying flat.
Early Lakitu Graphics
Early flags and every number for the lap counter. There is also an extra graphic of a scrapped flag that is diagonally divided black-and-white (which means "driving unsportsmanlike" in real races). The scrapped flag got overwritten with the animated coin graphics, while the needless numbers were replaced with the small numbers for the lives counter in the final.
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
 |
The yellow reverse flag was missing the X and some pixels were moved.
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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The edge of the flag was changed slightly.
HUD
Early Item Icons
Sketches with different designs for the item storage and 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 a 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 |
|---|---|
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Early Choose
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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Early Congratulations Text
Sketchpads of the Japanese and the English "Congratulations" text from the award sequence.
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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Early Backgrounds
Mario Circuit Trees
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
 |
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The trees were more round.
Donut Plains Background
| Early | 
|
|---|---|
| Final | 
|
The clouds were originally part of the foreground layer. Some mountains used a lost fourth color palette which got overritten with the cloud color.
Note that the color palette used by the foreground cloud still exist in the final, albeit unused.
Choco Island Background
| Early | 
|
|---|---|
| Final | 
|
The choco mountains looked pretty different.
Bowser's Castle Background
| Early | 
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|---|---|
| Final | 
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The mountains had some different shapes.
Fiery Flames
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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Found in Ghost Valley 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 being scrapped.
Early Boo
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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|
An early backup of Ghost Valley's background graphic contains, besides the flame shown above, an earlier boo graphic. It was a bit larger and brighter, more closely resembling the boos from Super Mario World.
Early Track Graphics
Item Fields
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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The item fields were originally more round, like the ones from Super Mario World. It can be found in various track tilesets.
Coins
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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A larger coin that fills up the entire tile as well as a normal-sized coin, both with different shading. A slightly different coin can 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's tileset are several early designs for the bushes, including one that looks nothing like what was used in-game.
Early Donut Plains Bushes
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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More early bushes from Donut Plains. It can also be found towards the bottom of its tileset.
Early Vanilla Lake Ice Block
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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The breakable ice hazard looked more like the multicolored blocks early on. A frame of its destroying animation was different.
Early Ghost Valley Palette
| Early | Final |
|---|---|
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It was brighter.
ZE2.CGX
A very early track tileset. It also contains graphics from Pilotwings, namely the ship and helipad.
It has two different palette files, C.COL (shown left) and C1.COL (shown right).
C1.COL contains the palettes 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 July 11, 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-colored line.
Strangely, it has a timestamp of March 18, 1994, long after the release of Super Mario Kart.
B1-X.SCR
| Mario Circuit | Donut Plains |
|---|---|
 |
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A very early battle track that is more reminiscent of a labyrinth, dated February 26, 1992. It fits pretty well with Mario Circuit's and Donut Plains' tilesets.
B1-X.SCR.BAK
An early backup of the track shown above contains another early battle track, dated October 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. Its layout suggests that a possible Rocket League-style mode was planned.
B4-X.SCR
Early Choco Island-themed battle track containing various jumps. Dated June 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 June 8, 1992.
TITLE3.SCR
A strange piece of an early Choco Island track, dated November 20, 1991.
Interestingly, it uses only one single tile for the walls. This is possibly what the unused multicolored block was used for.
