A modder has restored what appears to be the official track editor for Super Mario Kart on the SNES.
MrL314 is the modder responsible for the find, which they documented on their Twitter account. In the video below, it shows that they were able to place certain blocks and obstacles, such as walls and question blocks.
I DID IT!! I RESTORED THE SFX-DOS FUNCTIONALITY BACK TO SUPER MARIO KART!! OH I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW. THIS THING WAS A MONSTER pic.twitter.com/kcqSsh2DbG
— MrL314
(The L-DISK) (@LF_MrL314) June 5, 2021
This was made possible after last year’s major leak of Nintendo early game prototypes. MrL314 used the leaked Super Mario Kart 1991 prototype during the project, which functions with the SFX-DOS (Super Famicom DOS). Nintendo used this operation system during the development of SNES games.
The modder made the original development operating system work with this prototype, and subsequently discovered the ability to edit tracks in-game. The SFX-DOS can interact with a SNES via a keyboard interface, memory disks and more. This can then bring up a text display of the code, as shown in mrL314’s tweet below.
MrL314 also told VGC that they plan on putting the prototype online in the next few weeks so anyone can try and use it.
They also said that the track editor in the video is not the only one they found: “There are two other editors though: one of them is designed for the AI control checkpoint data, and the other is for placing down those “3D” objects like Pipes, Monty Moles, Cheep Cheep, etc.”
Looks like the SFX-DOS has the ability to communicate over a keyboard interface, an RS232C port, memory disks, a printer interface, and emulate a text display. And all this code is just sitting there like no big deal in the back of Super Mario Kart. pic.twitter.com/NW1NVzG8X8
— MrL314
Debugging mode data related to everything MrL314 and a group of modders are doing can be found on a TCRF page. The SFX-DOS code was incomplete, so MrL314 filled in the gaps in an effort to get the editing tool working.
Once the editor is available online, MrL314 wants to challenge the Super Mario Kart hacking community to make tracks the same way the developers at Nintendo would have done.
In other modding news, a new Super Mario World emulation will finally let fans experience the classic Nintendo platformer in widescreen.
The 1990 SNES platformer Super Mario World is getting an upgrade thanks to emulation developer Vitor Vilela.
The post Modder restores original track editor to ‘Super Mario Kart’ appeared first on NME.
