Official Release! Beta Levels for Mario Kart 64!

[@Zachruff]

glad to see these finallz in game, i remember the hype around the discoveries

[@OverKart64]

Took longer than I would have liked but happy to have them all available now!

[@StickFiguresMaster]

@OverKart64 Hey I’m only in 3 out of 4 courses, I wondered if you did that to enhance gameplay, time trials won’t save and the cameras a bit off, will you update the rom? Is there any more unused maps you’ll be adding back btw? :D

[@OverKart64]

@@StickFiguresMaster The camera starts off zoomed out - You can zoom back in with C-Up. The Time Trial Records do not save for Custom Courses as there's a limited amount of space available for save data. I've searched thoroughly, but have found no other unused maps or geometries with any differences.

[@Giganto001]

I love this era of primitive 3D games, they have a special charm in my eyes that i don't find in modern games and it's nice seeing those beta courses back even if some look obviously like test maps, it gives a view as to how the games we love got created, thank you for those restorations

[@OverKart64]

I know Nintendo got cold feet on 3D after seeing their competitors, and Star Fox 2 got shelved. I wonder how many other titles we might have gotten if things had gone differently.

[@JacobKrone-y5p]

Yknow, I do recall seeing promo art of everybody in a stage that looks like LINK with the Kalimari desert train.

[@jlewwis1995]

With a proper texturing and lighting pass the final two tracks could look pretty decent i think. The road in RACE2 is a bit wide but obviously it was just an early prototype track and wasnt made for the final versions physics and speeds and whatnot so it makes sense that the proportions would be a bit off

[@OverKart64]

I really love the bridge in LINK, it reminds me of Virtua Racing. The levels RACE and LINK did have to be scaled a bit to try to match the size of Mario Kart 64, RACE2 actually fit well enough as it was and was kept the same size; perhaps it should have been sized down a slight bit too :)

[@jlewwis1995]

@@OverKart64 the prototype maps are better than some mario kart wii custom tracks I've seen 😂 So they at least have that going for them

[@MarioKartSuperCircuit]

​@@jlewwis1995Looks better than mushroom peaks lol

[@jlewwis1995]

@@MarioKartSuperCircuit that's exactly what I was thinking when I said that 😂

[@NIMPAK1]

Ironically "Link" almost reminds me of Hyrule Field. Also the way it was built is interesting and makes me wonder if they were ever planning on having a track editor.

[@OverKart64]

If I had left the random humanoids called "hito" in the level, it might feel even more fitting as a Zelda world! But there was already so many triangles on the map that it was an easy choice to take them out. There were also 3D models of an Formula-1 Type racing car in these which was used as the player's character, so definitely a racer game! A track editor would be very interesting! I wanted to make a "Tarmac Jr." at one point using this same concept, but never could dedicate the time

[@nonix33x]

I thought that as well! Wonder where OoT was in development when that map was created...

[@TheFallenGuitaritst]

Are you able to dedicate it? 😃🙏

[@yotsubamic5760]

the first tech demo track looks like something from virtua racing

[@OverKart64]

I think the same of the LINK course's bridge! Very similar feel to that early era of primitive 3D

[@joechristo2]

Inb4 people think that Kart, Race, Race2, and Link are or rather were mario kart 64 levels just because you added them to the pack, causing news sources to mix it up and thus cause more confusion

[@OverKart64]

I hope not! I try to be as clear as possible where I source things from, as I'm not fond of fake content being passed off in illegitimate ways.

[@weatherton]

Awesome to see you releasing this set, Banshee could be interesting to see top players navigate. Link looks cool. Any plans to imagine what car park would be like based on the textures and interview?

[@Litronom]

"Garage" by Robichu seems like a fitting interpretation of the level, using the original leaked textures even!

[@weatherton]

@@Litronom Ah, hadn't seen that. That does see pretty accurate. Though I had always hoped it was more like the Parkade battle level from Beetle Adventure Racing! I feel like that could be a decently fun course. What do you think?

[@JustRememberWhoYoureWorkingFor]

This is awesome!! I have always loved mk64 but I never knew any of the secrets behind its development. Wish I could have been part of the dev team!

[@OverKart64]

Just to listen in to the conversations would have been a joy...assuming you could understand japanese :)

[@robertwalpole5376]

Great work! Out of curiosity, where did the music used for TOWN come from? Was it found in the collection as well?

[@robertwalpole5376]

The last three being there, and the notion of a Mario Kart Super FX is really interesting. If those maps were, if not considered, then at least briefly used, then it could have been for a tech demo whilst building the Mario Kart 64 engine? But if not, then that definitely has implications for wider development. I presume the transition to the N64 would've had to be fairly early if the only tracks used were extant tech demos.

[@Litronom]

The music for TOWN is called Bass Drive, one of the SGI samples they've used for the footage of Super Mario Kart R. The version in this mod has been modified in order to play with the standard Mario Kart 64 instrumentation.

[@OverKart64]

@@robertwalpole5376 I'm definitely theory-crafting when it comes to the FX Mario Kart idea. They were playing around with 3D models and racing games, and had at least one sample with the SMK sprites being used as the players. I think on how Star Fox 2 was cancelled despite being completed, because Nintendo was concerned about competing against "True" 3D games, and wonder if SMK2 might have been a similar idea. It's just as likely, if not more, that this was just a few developers learning how 3D modelling worked on these new super-computer workstations.

[@RealSDM2]

It was beta mariokart title theme

[@somuchstonk_archive]

Wow this game looks cool, can’t wait for it to come out!

[@OverKart64]

It's out now! You can download it from the link in the description and apply it to your own copy of Mario Kart 64's USA ROM.

[@neonXG]

YOOO this is insane!!

[@MelloMathTeacher]

3:28 Looking at the type of road, surrounding landscape, and the sequence of curves following the straight (and the uphill straight toward the end of the clip), it looks strangely like the track layout DS Shroom Ridge without the traffic or decoration. It seems to me like they eventually repurposed this track layout for that very track.

[@GuerreiroAventureiro]

Lets hope nintendo bring town,kart and race,race 2,link as official in MK9. They shouldnt have cut from the game

[@OverKart64]

While I would love to see any kind of official acknowledgement of TOWN, I don't know if the others are quite up to quality for a modern racer :)

[@jlewwis1995]

@@OverKart64 well the beginning of RACE2 kind of reminds me of mushroom gorge (a long start finish straight with a mountain on the left and a cliff on the right)

[@mk8-mkwil117]

@@OverKart64true but the track looks like it got be a battle track then a race track in my opinion I think this would have be way to confusing plus it’s hard to make some turn giving how narrow the tracks is the only thing I know the has town in it is DS Delfino square which in the file for DS it’s town course with the name town in the files.

[@betterthanbrooklyn5806]

Smoking crack if you think there’s even a 1% chance

[@wellshitigotanotherstrike]

mk9 is mario kart tour lmao

[@dinkindane]

RACE2 looks oddly similar to the course the characters are driving on in the box art

[@OverKart64]

I had wondered the same at some points, it has very similar cliffs.

[@Leaked_Footage_79]

I believe the last ones are credits tracks

[@joechristo2]

cool stereo version of the songs

[@OverKart64]

I believe these would have come from the Audio CD soundtrack.

[@As44Batatas]

Fact: In Banshee Boardwalk, There is a little opening on the left of the first Wall, In my pov, It was supposed to be a Feather shortcut, same if the Feather was scrapped, that shortcut was not deleted.

[@OverKart64]

We've wondered the same thing! It definitely could have been a feather gap area if more of those were intended.

[@SuperNickid]

The city track was probebly originally plan for Mario kart 64 but since it would require to replace the Jumper memory pack with the extended Memory pack sold seperately and some other game does it, if you want to play the full game but since they do not want to force people to buy expension memory for mario kart 64 to experience the full game it got scrap, and probebly meant for Mario kart 64 DD, would not be a sequel for the N64 Disc, it would just be the original game but does missing race could have been added to the disk version as DLC. But the N64 Disc system fail because when they test it out with Super mario 64 they could not get it to not crash in one specific Boss fight and since only one Boss fight got an issue, doing Super mario 64 2 and Mario kart 64 Disk system would just cause more problems so that is why it got scrap, but the city that never got used for mario kart 64 got re-work in Mario kart double dash as the night time city track

[@TheFallenGuitaritst]

Ok? 🤷

[@StickFiguresMaster]

I couldn't help but love Mario Kart 64 more then SM64 cause before it was Christmas my dad and I saw no copies left in Toys R' Us and Wario's Stadium was like as dark as my birth states lighting was XD!

[@LCeclerc95]

I'm looking forward to seeing these in Mario Kart Wii.

[@doktorvons.8538]

Town looks better than Dokan_Course ever did. I wonder if Delfino Square was based on it?

[@tulpenbambus]

Thanks a lot OverKart64 ❤❤❤❤

[@ricthething]

Link looks like would have been used in a late-70's CGI demo

[@OverKart64]

I love the retro vibe. Feels like an 80's music video.

[@TangoStar]

LINK's primary colors look very similar to Link's colors in the original Legend of Zelda

[@ItsAubreeyy]

Race2 kinda looks like royal raceway

[@OverKart64]

The roadway and side grass definitely is reminiscent!

[@ages_dot_mp4]

The auto drive option is only available for players 2-4 and the freecamera is a bit broken since the character dissappears whenever triggering it

[@OverKart64]

I'll try to tidy these up for future releases, can definitely be improved.

[@emugamerseyer]

*me gusta esre exelente trabajo ❤❤❤❤*

[@alieneer4044]

Is town missing proper lighting for the stage?

[@OverKart64]

Yes! The level originally would have had some type of dynamic lighting and we do have the vertex normals (They could be calulated anyway). We could guess at or find the original lighting values, but we don't currently have any implementation for lighting the custom courses with lights.

[@EduardoFerreira-yi4qc]

i thought of cool official names for town and link: town: toadstool town link: koopa forest

[@TheFallenGuitaritst]

Great names 👏👏👏

[@teh_supar_hackr]

I'm imagining the "link" level being made into a Zelda themed course. Yes this is because of a mediocre pun lol

[@SuperBloxTube]

Is it just me or does Race 2 kinda look like Shroom Ridge?

[@OverKart64]

I've heard Royal Raceway as well!

[@SuperBloxTube]

@@OverKart64now that I look at it, it does kinda look like Royal Raceway a bit.

[@LandonEmma]

Hmm where did you get most of the beta stuff from, like could you site sources on it?

[@OverKart64]

All of the beta levels were recovered from an archived "ZIP" file found in leaked source code. The tech demos were recovered from a series of code files in a leak of SNES and SGI code from Nintendo.

[@hoppingiconcentral826]

Any word on the parking garage stage that got cut?

[@OverKart64]

We have a handful of textures that you can see on "The Cutting Room Floors" site, but there was no model data and nothing else to make use of. new.tcrf.net/Development:Mario_Kart_64#Garage

[@RicardoPratt04]

A 2D Mario Kart could work

[@OverKart64]

Ha well both Super Mario Kart and Super Circuit were 2D in a sense. I think the straight on aspect could be interesting; an on-rails racer?

[@gamecomparisons]

Is there a particular ROM version this .bps needs to be applied to? I applied it to the standard (U) ROM and it black screens when the Custom 1 tracks are loaded on an Everdrive 64.

[@ruperbljman46]

Project R is back?

[@BluelightAmelia]

what version of the game is the patch for?

[@OverKart64]

It's for the USA version of Mario Kart 64

[@noble8dx564]

@@OverKart64 how can i patch it? it doesnt works

[@OverKart64]

@@noble8dx564 You can use this website www.marcrobledo.com/RomPatcher.js/ If you get a CRC error you must have the wrong ROM. Be sure to select the correct HLE/LLE mode on the menu screen on first boot, or in the options menu later. N64 Consoles and ParaLLE need LLE mode. Project64 or GlideN64 need HLE mode.

[@DanielRodrigues-mb9qs]

E para emulador android ?

[@HYPERSPEED609]

They look kinda Liminal

[@inesnobre2703]

Specialy banshee and town2

[@enriquealejandroboadasdiaz593]

Mario kart 64 no hazards mode literally

[@heitorsant1759]

Too bad the booster course is done

[@stevenvgs]

Hey dev team, for some reason, I can't get this to work on my everdrive. I'm able to boot the title screen and menu just fine, but when I select one of the beta coursesand try to load it up, it freezes on a black screen. It doesn't load any of the beta courses, but it's able to boot up the vanilla courses just fine. Only having this issue on my Everdrive x7, but on emulators, it works fine. Is there a version of this patch with the beta courses that works on real hardware, or is this not compatible on real hardware at all at the moment? Otherwise awesome work! Update: Disregard that. Forgot to switch it to LLE mode. For anyone that has the same trouble getting this to work on console, select LLE mode on the title screen during your first bootup, or change it in the options menu at any time afterwards.

[@OverKart64]

A description of this should be included with the download to help prevent this issue, glad you got it figured out!

[@stevenvgs]

@@OverKart64 Thanks again! Love these pieces of 90's Nintendo and Silicon Graphics history!