

MARIO is a Super Mario World ROM hack pasta by SMW Central user Adam. The hack patch can be downloaded here. The patch itself is made by SMW Central user M A R I O, whose avatar is a SMW Mario without a face. He (she?) used to not to be seen as inactive (one month of no activity makes you inactive on SMW Central), as he (she?) posted mysterious and eerie things every now and then, just before he (she?) would turn inactive. As of recent, the SMW Central account has been disabled.

You can find the original thread here. *Note: You CAN download that link in the thread*

The story

(Note: This is a true story, and sums up what was going through my mind as I was playing this, and I had no idea I was about to be bullshitted the way I was when I played this and I can say it is by far the creepiest hack I've played. If you were on IRC you would have heard me talking about it as well, but anyways it's late at night, and I don't have a lot of time, and I need to get to sleep, so this is all I have time for...)


Naturally showed these hacks to the centralites currently on #smwc. We were laughing at how bad some of them were, but then I got to a hack called "MARIO". Just that, nothing more, nothing less. The description seemed quite odd, as if some Japanese hacker was trying to translate the original plot of Super Mario World into English and failing horribly. I showed this to Kieran and he started laughing at the description. It read as follows:



MARIO 00003

Title screen

Curiosity got the best of me. I decided to download the hack, not knowing what I was in for, since the single screenshot of the hack was the title screen with nothing but the letters "MARIO" from Super Mario World's title screen. I thought it was a little odd how there were no dates or anything either, as hackers usually place their names and dates on the titles to mark when the project was started.

So, when I opened the hack, I was greeted by 2 files. One called 3007014, a simple .txt file 27 KB in size, and the IPS file, simply named "MARIO". For some odd reason I wanted to see what the author of the hack had to say, but when I opened the hack in Notepad, there was nothing but indistinguishable symbols and letters and punctuation, sort of like how when you open a rom in a text editor like Notepad. Seems like the author just completely copied his ROM to .txt form, though I could be wrong. Taking a closer look, at the top of the .txt file mixed in with the gibberish I found the only thing that looked like English there. Here is a piece of what I found:


To be honest, I didn't know what to make of this, and I thought it was to simply waste some of my time by making me find some text in the gibberish file. That, I'm willing to bet, no one will ever be able to make sense of.

I decided that, because my interest was growing steadily, I would start looking through my horribly disorganized download folder for a copy of a clean ROM, which I had downloaded a great deal of time before the events of tonight unfolded, and an IPS patcher; of course my choice for the job was Lunar IPS.

MARIO 00001


So, I then proceeded to move the ROM and the IPS patcher to the folder with the hack. I patched the ROM, not knowing what to expect next, and I quickly hurried to drag it to ZSNES and play what I thought was to be terrible in the form of a ROM image. I noticed on boot up that the author had taken the time to change the header of his hack. Instead of the usual "super marioworld" you normally see when booting up a rom in ZSNES, it just had the letters "MARIO" there again. At this point I gained a little hope, because normally people who do horrible half-assed edits to the ROM generally don't know enough to change a header title. I thought I wasn't wasting my time with this, and my mood brightened slightly at the thought of seeing what the author had to offer in his interesting little hack.

So, the title screen loaded, exactly like it would with Super Mario World, except it had just "MARIO" on the title like I had mentioned earlier. Something else had grabbed my interest moreso than the unusual absence of layer 3 tiles on the title screen. Mario's normal bright colored and happy palette seemed, how can I put it... "dull". What was once violet-like red was now what seemed like grey with a slight red tint to it, and I'm fairly sure his pants were looking more grey than blue too... I thought this was strange, and I wondered why he had decided to give Mario such a dull palette... Regardless as to what his intentions were, I felt that something was... wrong. Not in the sense that the palette was slightly bad, but that the hack was empty, like something had happened. Upon pressing start and selecting a new file, like a lot of other countless Mario hacks I have played in the past, there was some sort of intro screen that basically described the entirety of the plot in a short paragraph just small enough to fit into a small black box. I began reading, and for the most part, the message stayed the same, but there was one key factor that made this interesting. Apparently the main antagonist of this hack wasn't Bowser at all... it was... Mario?!

The message read as follows:

MARIO 00000

Mario, the antagonist

What the...? "This wasn't the original message from Super Mario World", I thought to myself. Normally I wouldn't think anything of this, seeing as how, over my nearly 2 years at SMWCentral, I have played countless hacks and have seen many different intro messages, but this one really stuck out. At this point, I definitely knew there was something odd about this hack. Upon letting the intro level music play, I pressed the start button on my controller to finally get to the overworld and begin my journey into this unknown hack.

MARIO 00002



Binary cryptic

Binary cryptic

Apparently it says "notepad".

At this point, I was on IRC telling everyone about how the hack was starting to weird me out, which in itself yielded some sarcastic responses, but hey, I expected it. Anyways, after this my interest level in the hack skyrocketed, and along with it my paranoia. Oh, boy, was in in for a fun surprise. So, I decided to head left. Upon reaching what was before known as "YOSHI'S ISLAND 1", the level was now labelled "never come back". Now I thought things were going to be all kaizo death trap, because generally that is what people name their levels in kaizo hacks to make sure the player doesn't go there. To my surprise, it wasn't quite that way, though, I wish that it had been. Upon entering level 105 I was greeted by the insanely loud clown car sound that Bowser's flying vehicle makes right before Peach falls out. Of course, with my headphones being moderately high, the sound scared the living shit out of me, which wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been so nervous beforehand. I decided at this time it would be best if I turned the volume on my headphones down, as to not get anymore unpleasant surprises such as that one.

MARIO 00004

Dragon Coin

When I entered the level, other than the music, everything seemed to be the same, except for the fact that the little Koopa that slides on the ledges wasn't there anymore, nor was the Banzai Bill. The Dragon Coin was still there; however, for some odd reason, I wasn't able to collect it, or rather any Dragon Coins at all. The author made certain of that. I also noticed that there was a brown used block near the spot where the Banzai Bill normally shows up. I can only assume this was a revisit to the level after I had beaten it like I heard in some half-assed creepy stories in other Mario games. Now I was wondering why things were like this, making me wonder about the intro message. Had Mario done something previously to Dinosaur Land? Was this in Bowser's point of view? I quickly dismissed the latter option, because it seemed kind of stupid. So that left me thinking that Mario at one point in time in the author's story did something, but what?

What did Mario do? My mind was nothing but rushing thoughts at this point. However, I quickly dismissed them and ventured further into the level, only to find that all blocks had basically been hit, coins had been collected (save Dragon Coins, those were still there and unobtainable), that there were no enemies, and that I could no longer go down pipes. "What kind of bullshit am I playing here?", I kept thinking to myself. At this point, I felt uncomfortable. I decided to keep venturing. Eventually I came across a message box, which I wasn't surprised was still in the level. Being the idiot I am, I went and hit the box. Upon hitting it, I was greeted with the familiar black box once again. The message was edited, obviously. As I had figured that this was a given at this point. It reads as follows:

MARIO 00005

Point of advice


MARIO 00006


Upon reaching the end I saw a Fire Flower in the top block where the 4-way block intersection used to be, however it was too high for me to reach by normal means, so I just continued onward, like the blind, curious idiot I am would do. So I finally beat the level, and as usual the path to the Yellow Switch Palace was unlocked. I decided to head up the path that normally leads to the Yellow Switch Palace, and I found that when I entered the main overworld, every other landmass and decoration besides the ghosts from the Ghost Houses and Yoshi's island itself were gone. Nothing really changed at the Yellow Switch Palace except for the switch message. All that changed was that -SWITCH PALACE- was changed to -MARIO WORLD-. Boring. Anyways, just when I thought I was done with this abomination that calls itself a hack, I found that Yoshi's Island 2 has also been edited. "Oh, joy!", I thought to myself. <sarcasm/>

MARIO 00007

Trail of Koopas

Upon reaching Yoshi's Island 2, I found that it had been renamed to YOSHI'S HOUSE, the original name of level 104. I decided to enter and found that the palette of the level had been changed along with the background. They seemed to have been changed to the same palette as Yoshi's Island 3, you know, greenish tan and such, except the background was pushed down some and was now a rotting brown color, and that the vegetation on the FG was now no longer present. I decided to explore the level a bit and came across the trail of Koopas, that countless players have used a shell to rack free 1-Up's with. I decided to ignore them and go see if any more of the level was changed. I eventually came across the "?" that holds Yoshi and decided to free him. Upon freeing him, I got this message:

MARIO 00008

Mario trapped me

This had me wondering what kind of sick and twisted hack I was playing. I had thoughts of all possible scenarios of Mario attacking Dinosaur Land horribly and causing irreversible damage. The author had me hooked with his sick little game, and like any other idiot, I took the bait and kept coming back for more...


MARIO 00009



MARIO 00010

Selfish way out


MARIO 00011

Lifeless and barren


MARIO 0013



MARIO 00014



MARIO 00015

Enough trouble


MARIO 00016



MARIO 00017

Eyeballs were unable to be found

"What the fuck is wrong with this guy?", I said as I read the disturbing message. I mean, it was a hack, but still. Who the hell was this victim? Why were her eyeballs gouged out, and just what could have made those unidentifiable fingerprints that were found on her body? Was this Mario's doing? Is this what the author was trying to tell me? And furthermore, was the girl Princess Toadstool? It took me a while to see if I read the message correctly, then I proceeded outwards, though I was wondering what happened next, since the main map was completely gone and there was no trace of it anywhere. To my surprise, it still showed the path marked for Donut Plains, the event tiles still being there, marking the path to the lone level on the giant map that was once the main world. It was still called Donut Plains 1. I thought we were finally done once more, but when I entered the level I could see that like the previous times, I was once again wrong. Upon entering I saw 2 message boxes. They said as follows:

MARIO 00018

Fly away

MARIO 00019


MARIO 00020


MARIO 00021


I found it quite strange that both message boxes were contradicting each other. One was telling me that there was no way out of this accursed hell, and the other was telling me that, if I could fly away, I could be free, though I saw no feather or enemies to grab one with. Was this telling me that I could either rise up and go to heaven, or stay in hell forever, wallowing in despair? Did I need a cape to proceed? And what happens after this? Is the whole game like this? I began to create more thoughts in my head trying to figure the message boxes out, but to no avail. I proceeded to walk to the right. I made a jump, but I found that I was stuck in the area, there was an invisible wall, and I had thought I hit a dead end. When I landed I tried moving right again to see if there was any way to go on. All of a sudden I heard the pipe sound, and I was making the pipe animation, except, there was no pipe present, so it looked quite odd.

I was then taken to a level with a black background, stone blocks for ground, and a small door. I was immediately given a mushroom to prevent me from entering it, So I proceed further to see if there is anything else in the level. I found that the room was nothing but a long stretch of concrete blocks and doors that were too small for me to enter because of the mushroom I got. It's obvious that the author didn't want me going through any of them, or I wouldn't have gotten the mushroom in the first place. As I proceeded, I found myself at a dead end. Since there was nothing left for me to look at, I tried to go right again. It worked, I went through the brick wall. It acted like a pipe, and I did a pipe animation that looked like I was going into the darkness.


After playing, I think I finally understand what was happening. I believe Mario was atoning for his actions, eventually being plummeted into a hell that looked exactly like yoshi's island, where, he was lost to the grip of death, forever...

I was finally done playing and quite relieved at that. The nightmare was over, activity on the irc seemed to be back up again, I quickly shared my tales with the rest of #smwc, and typed this documentation of it.

If you feel daring enough, you too can witness my tale, first-hand.

Remember, guys, it's only a hack, it can't hurt you... Or can it?

The aftermath

This hack, being the first of its kind to hit SMW Central, of course gained a lot of attention, even the site's founder and Administrator Kieran (currently Kieran Menor), who then immediately recognized the .txt file, that Adam mistook for the .smc (ROM image) converted into .txt, as a .jpg file, due to its header.

He tried manually converting it back into .jpg, but the result was barely viewable, the only recognizable part was the very top. He then continued searching Google for images with his attempt's resolution (327x277) and the second result struck him as relevant.


The .txt file, converted back into .jpg.The "find me" string is included.

You can find Kieran's post here , his original attempt only displays a broken image now.

This hack's novelty on SMW Central wore off however, and it was removed from the hack database after being accepted for being the first of its kind; a creepypasta hack. May be linked to: [1]

Another post was by Wizard The Wizzisential who posted the same day 2 hours later. He unscrambled the corrupted image for about a hour and found the most disturbing image yet. He explained that It was a humans face except without a nose. It had two breathing holes. It's pupils were just vertical slits, like a snake. The eye however was morphed into a look of rage. The eyebrows slanting down. It had the most evil smile I've ever seen. It curved up it's face almost up to the eyes. It had a mouth of very thin razor sharp teeth and had no hair. His picture autosaved and turned the resolution into 666x666 pixels, and saved into being his desktop. He noticed he was biting his nails for quiet a while and his right hand was covered in blood. The end of the post had very messy text, meaning he possibly passed out soon. You can read the original post here:
