Games
What could make Super Mario 64 even better? How about 24 players all competing at the same time? We speak to the brains behind 2017's most epic hack.
Widely considered to be one of the most influential video games of all time, Super Mario 64 is surely on Nintendo's shortlist of potential HD remasters for Switch, but a 21-year-old maths student from Germany has perhaps stolen some of the Japanese giant's thunder.
The enigmatic Kaze Emanuar recently released Super Mario 64 Online, a Windows-based modification of the original game which allows up to 24 different people to romp through the main game via the wonders of the internet. It's one of the most interesting mods we've seen in years, and we recently got the chance to speak to the person behind it.
"I've been playing games since I could think," explains Emanuar. "Currently I put all my free time into getting good at Super Smash Bros. Melee, while doing Super Mario 64 modding as a 'job'. Games occupy my entire life, I guess – not that I'd want to change that!"
Long-time Mario fans may assume that the concept for Super Mario 64 Online was influenced by Nintendo's own tentative steps into this area, such as the four-player battle mode in Super Mario 64 DS and the insanely fun co-op mode in Super Mario 3D World on Wii U. However, Emanuar insists that it evolved organically.
"It just seemed natural," he says. "I started off adding a two player mode, but then noticed I could easily turn it into eight player – then I thought 'Oh, but they need different skins.' Then I added different skins and realized 'Hey, they are different Mario characters, so they should have their own special behaviours' and it went from there."
Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, Wario and even Waluigi – they're all here, and Emanuar has ensured that each one plays very differently. Yoshi can scrabble through the air, for instance. "Making the new physics for each character took about three hours," he explains. "I had a lot of it done beforehand for some of my other mods, so I could just copy most of my old code and change a few addresses. Each one has the qualities you'd expect, based on their portrayals in the currently-released Mario games."
As proud as Emanuar is of his work, he's quick to point out that this isn't a solo effort. "MelonSpeedruns and marshivolt were involved in this, too," he says. "Melon did the basic program that would allow sending bytes from each emulator to a server and marshi worked on getting 3D models ready to be implemented into the online mode. I've done the Mario 64 hex editing and assembly coding. I've done all the coding in my live stream. I think it was about seven streams, three hours each. The real work is actually finding out all these addresses and reverse-engineering Super Mario 64 beforehand, which is something I've done for five years now, so I already had all the necessary addresses memorised."
With such a vast knowledge of the game's inner code, Emanuar insists that loading in all these additional players didn't result in anything game-breaking. "There were no unexpected quirks," he assures us. "After five years of modding the same game, you don't really get unexpected surprises anymore. I worked most things out beforehand."
While Emanuar has spent countless hours learning what makes Super Mario 64 tick so he can mod the living daylights out of it, ironically he has spent very little time testing his latest creation. "I've honestly barely playtested this," he admits. "There are probably people that have spent more time playing this than I have during the entire development period."
Taking this into account, it should come as no surprise to learn that it's perfectly possible to cheat during play. "You can actually just use stock Super Mario 64 cheat codes to mess around. I didn't expect people to play with random strangers, so I didn't think this would be a problem." He's also amazed at how players are creating their own custom games during each session. "The only thing I played around with was racing down slides. I've seen people play tag, too."
What's really taken Emanuar by surprise is how popular Super Mario 64 Online has been since launch. "I can't see the download counter, but since it's already at 600,000 views, I expect it's pretty high," he says. "When I had only one link, people crashed the link by clicking on it too much." Despite the very recent release, the game is already improving and evolving – sometimes without Emanuar's direct involvement. "Someone else made a chat client using a prototype of a chat engine I wrote into the assembly code," he continues. "We've updated the official version to have a chat client, too."
Looking to the future, there are plans to include special modes within Super Mario 64 Online which leverage the unique games people have been playing in each level; the end result could be something which is very different from the original 1996 game. "There are many modes planned – a third person shooter, boss rush mode, tag mode, Mario Party mode, hide and seek mode and a tower defence mode. It'll take time to get them down though, and I'm taking a small break from working on Super Mario 64 Online – like a week, maybe!"
Of course, all of these plans will be moot if Nintendo decide to step in and slap the game with a takedown request – something the Japanese company has done with other fan projects in the past. At the moment however, Emanuar insists that he is flying under Nintendo's radar, and thinks the threat of such action killing his game is exaggerated.
"Nintendo hasn't contacted me," he reveals. "This whole 'DMCA meme' needs to stop. Even if they did, there are already thousands of alternate download links. Some people get irrationally mad at other people for sharing Nintendo fan games, because they think they're going to get DMCA'd due to the publicity. There's nothing that can stop this fan project now, though.”
Beyond Super Mario 64 Online, Emanuar has more than enough ideas to keep himself busy – and given his intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Mario's 64-bit debut, it's unsurprising that they all focus on that game. "The next project on the horizon is a Mario 64 x Ocarina of Time crossover with all the dungeons and about 20 new items and abilities for Mario to unlock. Other ideas I had are Mario 64 x Paper Mario, Super Mario 64 60FPS edition or an Super Mario 64 Roguelike where you'd try to get through endless, randomly-generated levels and find some of the new power-ups I've coded for Super Mario 64: Last Impact."
Could we see the brains behind these amazing mods eventually turn his talents to other Nintendo series – such as Metroid, F-Zero, Zelda, Mario Kart and more? "I only hack Super Mario 64 right now and I don't really feel like investing all the hours into understanding a different game that well," Emanuar explains. "However, since I do commissions, someone might commission me to work on a different games and then I'll look into it – but don't expect anything big for different games yet. Reverse-engineering takes time."
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