Development:Super Mario Kart/Tracks and Tilesets

This is a sub-page of Development:Super Mario Kart.

To do:
*Early backup of the scrapped Choco Island 3 track.

Mario Circuit Tileset with a unique grasstile in the place of the unused multicolor block

Early Track Graphics

Item Fields

Early	Final

The item fields were originally more round, like the blocks from Super Mario World. 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. 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 Chocolate Puddles

What appears to be an unfinished piece of a chocolate puddle. It can be found next to the final oil slick graphics.

Early	Final

The chocolate puddles from Choco Island were originally dark chocolate.

Early Chocolate Offroad

An early sketch of Choco Island's border that was possibly intended to be layered on top of the road surface graphic.

It looks darker in comparison to the final borders, when layered on:

Early	Final

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

More early bushes from Donut Plains. It can also be found towards the bottom of its tileset.

Early Vanilla Lake Ice Block

Early	Final

The breakable ice hazard, that drivers have to jump against to keep the speed, looked more like the multicolored blocks early on. A frame of its destroying animation was different.

Early Ghost Valley Palette

Early	Final

It was brighter. Some of the colors remain in the final game unused.

Bowser's Castle Horizontal STOP

Found in the tileset for Bowser's Castle are graphics for the horizontal STOP that was used in the April 13, 1992 prototype, in Bowser's Castles 2 and 3. It also features different tiles for the arrows as well.

ZE2.CGX

ZE2.CGX	Final

A very early track tileset. It also contains graphics from Pilotwings, namely the ship and helipad. Notably there are also unique water tiles along with a starting line and water buoys.

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

Early	Final

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.

Aside from having none of the colored wallblocks yet, there is some decoration which loosely resembles the “Circuito de Jerez” raceway in Spain (the track on which Mario Circuit 3 is based). A comparison of both track can be seen here.

GRASS.MAP

Contains very early versions of the Donut Plains tracks. Dated October 7, 1991. The tracks don't have walls in the inside, and the outer wall uses a single tile that was overwritten with the grass tile. This is possibly what the unused multicolored block was originally used for.

The track layouts themselves are reminiscent of that to their April 13 build versions.

Donut Plains 1

October 1991	April 13 Proto

The holes for the Monty Moles on the bottom portion of the track are in separate groups of two in the 1991 map, positioned on the outer edges of the road. The April proto scatters all the hole out.
The bridge is intact in the 1991 map. A small bit of it is broken in the April proto.

Donut Plains 2

October 1991	April 13 Proto

The bridge on the diverging path is intact in the 1991 map. A large bit of it is broken in the April proto.

Donut Plains 3

October 1991	April 13 Proto

There is a branching path on the final turn that was removed in the April proto. The size of the lake was made larger as a result.
The bridge is intact in the 1991 map. A large portion of it is broken in the April proto.
A few more holes for the Monty Moles were added later.

CASTLE.MAP

Contains early versions of the Bowser's Castle tracks. Dated October 7, 1991. There are no arrows present in these earlier versions.

Bowser's Castle 1

October 1991	April 13 Proto

There are no arrows present.

Bowser's Castle 2

October 1991	April 13 Proto

A couple lava pits at the top were removed.
The diverging turns were shifted slightly.
The vertical STOP was extended slightly later on

Bowser's Castle 3

October 1991	April 13 Proto

Many platforms after the first turn were removed and the small straight away before them was extended later on.
An extra STOP before the three paths was removed.

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.

It can be seen in action here.

B1-X.SCR

Mario Circuit	Donut Plains

A very early battle track that is more reminiscent of a maze, dated February 26, 1992. It fits pretty well with Mario Circuit's and Donut Plains' tilesets.

This track was possibly used for the scrapped "Gate" battle mode, and the starting points for the battle map in the Feb proto fit perfectly with this map.

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.

It can be seen in the Nov'91 prototype.

B4/battle4

April/May Builds	B4-X.SCR.BAK	B4-X.SCR

Unique battle course layout set in Choco Island, that went through several different revisions.

The earliest known version was used in the April and May prototype builds, and features 8 middle walls with jump bars connected to them.
The second version removes the middle walls and features multiple bumps and several mud puddles.
The final revision before being scrapped removes all the puddles as well as a few bumps.

Both later revisions are dated June 8, 1992.

B5-X.SCR.BAK

Early	Final

An early version of the final game's Battle Course 2. Dated March 30, 1992. The pools of water were originally deep so the player couldn't stay in it for too long.

battle5battle5-0.SCR

Mario Circuit	Donut Plains

A piece of an early battle track containing square blockages. Dated Feb 13, 1992. The other 3 pieces of the track are sadly missing in the leak. It seems to fit well with both Mario Circuit and Donut Plains tilesets. Below is a mockup of what the track may have looked like with the other three pieces.

Mario Circuit	Donut Plains

B6-X.SCR.BAK

Early	Final

An early version of Battle Course 1 with a grass pit in the center rather than wet dirt like in the retail map. (Coincidentally, this makes it resemble the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe version of Battle Course 1.) The small blockage at the bottom was also changed slightly.

W1-2.SCR.BAK

Early (W1-2.SCR.BAK)	Final (W1-2.SCR)

The bottom-left corner of Vanilla Lake 2. There are two split groups of ice instead of three. This backup was last modified June 17, 1992.

W1-3.SCR.BAK

Early (W1-3.SCR.BAK)	Final (W1-3.SCR)

The bottom-right corner of Vanilla Lake 2. A few extra ice blocks are present. This backup was last modified June 17, 1992.

W2-3.SCR.BAK

Early (W2-3.SCR.BAK)	Final (W2-3.SCR)

The bottom-right corner of Vanilla Lake 1. The pack of ice blocks after the small lake is slightly more denser, which seems to match the amount seen in an earlier revision of the map from the unreleased prototype. This backup was last modified June 17, 1992.

TITLE3.SCR

A strange piece of an early Choco Island track, dated November 20, 1991. The drive-data file from Feb 13, 1992 reveals that this piece is from an earlier version of the scrapped Choco Island 3 track, as the placement of the zones match the shape of the twist.

Interestingly, it uses only one single tile for the walls. This is possibly what the unused multicolored block was used for.