Development:Super Mario Kart/February 13, 1992 Proto

This is a sub-page of Development: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.

To do: Article has just been started; A lot is missing Credits to the repairers and further information about possible assets

This prototype is dated February 13, 1992. The ROM was discovered in the July 24th, 2020 gigaleak. Like the November 29, 1991 and the Alpha 91 prototypes, it is found as a precompiled Intel Hex file and features additionally its source code in the same directoy. As such, no assets (sprites, BG layouts, etc.) can be found within it.

Title Menu Options

"View Records" Option	"Items On/Off" Options

• Several new options are here:
  • View Records (Unfunctional): This is supposed to load up another screen displaying the players best 5 records. The screen file for this is still in the source, named REGI.SCR, and name.SCR.
  • Items On/Items Off: The ability to turn items on or off during Grand Prix or Match Race. This was brought up by Hideki Konno in a 1992 developer interview from the Japanese Super Mario Kart strategy guide:

I think we struck a good balance. If you’re in the lead, you can’t get lazy, or you’re going to get it! The items introduce an element of luck into Mario Kart. No doubt, for some people who played F-ZERO really seriously, the whole idea of “luck” in a racer would be anathema, so originally we had an option to turn items on/off for the Grand Prix mode. That was our quick fix for that problem. But I think that as you play with the items, you come to realize they’re implemented in a balanced way: they give some hope when you’ve fallen behind, and allow for the thrill of an upset victory. So on further consideration, we opted for a flow similar to Dr. Mario, and ultimately took the “No Item” option out.

• The title menu options are scrambled around.

General Differences

To do: There's a lot more

There is no award ceremony cutscene; after finishing the last track of a cup, it advances to the next cup.

• The game crashes after the last track of the last cup

Like the early precompiled builds, it's not possible to move the cursor with Select yet.

Controls

• Steering and drifting works very similarly to the later April 13 build, with no hopping and automatic drifting implemented.
• You spin out sooner when drifting for too long.
• It's possible to turn your kart slowly while not moving.

In Race

• There is no camera intro animation in Grand Prix mode. It just simply fades into the main view like in other modes.
• In 2 Player Grand Prix mode, the game displays the live position tracker at all times like the earlier Nov'91 Proto.

• After finishing a race, the computer doesn't take control of the racer, and the player can still drive around.
• 2 Player VS mode does not feature a coin counter yet.
• The VS game over screen is handled differently:
  • Amount of wins and loses missing.
  • Shows the lap times after the winner finishes, unlike later builds.
• Lakitu doesn't appear when going the wrong direction even though he did in the earlier Nov'91 proto. He also doesn't appear when he rescues you.
• Hitting an item and spinning out doesn't kill your momentum, but locks your direction, often sending you offroad or into the void.
• The CPU opponents tends to lay bananas more frequently, unlike the later mkart build where they usually wait until lap 2 and lay them once a lap.
• When quitting or losing a race, the screen doesn't darken as much.
• Lakitu doesn't come to rescue the player if they jump out of bounds, allowing free exploration outside the track.
• Bowser's Castle still has the Lava Bubbles instead of Thwomps.
• Like the final, the player starts the next race in the position they placed in the previous race, even though in the later April 13, build, the player always starts the next race in last place.

Audio

Though all of the game's music during this point in development is both missing and unknown, the sound.bin from 1/21/92 seems to fit into place, and gives insight as to how the game's was most likely handled at this point, though many sounds are either missing or don't correspond correctly.

• The game's sound code is based off of SimCity's sound code.
• There is only two music tracks that play during specific courses.
• Sub-music tracks like the Star theme, jingles, and character leitmotifs did not exist yet.
• The menu theme doesn't continue during screen transitions, as it fades out and restarts when the next screen is loaded.
• Sometimes hitting a wall causes some samples in the music to change, or even hang on loop until the player pauses.
• The audio sometimes doesn't play at all when some tracks or menus are loaded.

Modes

Battle Modes

Quite a lot has been changed since the Nov'91 build, featuring a total of 5 battle modes.

In the source code, the modes are called:

0 test
1 3obj & gun
2 gate rase
3 train
4

Gate Mode

• Starting positions fit the early maze-like b1 map, suggesting that this was most likely the mode's used track. The starting positions are still left over in the April build's Battle Course 2.

Debug Mode

Edit 2

The game had a more vast set of overlay objects early on, before eventually getting replaced by the coin groups:

• MIZU: water overlay
• KUSA: grass overlay

They only seem to correspond best with Donut Plains' tileset.

(Source: MrL314, Sirgren, Catador)