Super Mario Kart/Beta elements

This article pertains to the beta elements of Super Mario Kart.

Unused Graphics and Tiles[]

Exclusive Tracks[]


Image	Course/Track	Description
	N/A	An unused font, which can be found among the graphics for the Item Storage and the Race Time numbers. This was used for several debugging purposes while the game was still in development.
	N/A	An alternate version of the big Exclamation Mark, having more detail than the one used in the final game. It was used in the Japanese version for the Match Race and Battle Mode results screen, but goes unused in the international versions.
	Mario Circuit	A colored block, which can be found in the tileset from the Mario Circuit courses. It can be driven on, not acting like a normal block, if placed on a course with the game's editor.
	Mario Circuit	A smaller treetop which was meant for the background of the Mario Circuit tracks.
	Donut Plains	Unused corner tiles that were meant for the edge of the grass in the track. In the final game, only the tile with the corner (being on the down right) was used.
	Ghost Valley	Unused edge pieces meant for the diagonal planks, which were used in the prototype version of the game.
	Choco Island	A different looking dirt tile, which can be found in any course of Choco Island. Unlike the other used dirt tiles in the final game, this one acts like the snow from Vanilla Lake aside it having a different sound and doesn't make the player too slow when driving over it.
	Choco Island 2	An unused piece of a bumper, which was meant to extend the diagonal bumper that runs from the top right to the bottom left. In the final version of the game, only the small variant of it is used. It was even in the prototype of the game for both Choco Island 2 and (the scrapped race track) Choco Island 3.
	Vanilla Lake	A road tile with a single pixel, a narrow piece of the lake and a duplicate water tile that doesn't animate when placed on the track.
	Rainbow Road	An alternate version of the coin meant for Rainbow Road, which acts as road and not like a normal coin. It can also be found in the source files, where it was originally placed in the coin graphic of the early tilesets for the object. This is found at the beginning of the tileset among the main track's graphics (while the objects such as item fields, jump bars and the normal coin itself are always at the end of the tileset) suggesting that it may be something different and was part of the main track (such as a star decoration for example), or it was left there by mistake that the developers forgot to remove.

Any Track[]


Image	Object Name	Description
	Oil Slick	Oil Slick graphics are loaded within every track theme. However, in the final game, they are only used in the Mario Circuit tracks. Its palette is altered for each track theme to fit each one of them (except Rainbow Road). The Choco Island oil slick can be seen in the prototype version of the game, where it's placed in Choco Island 2 and (the unused track) Choco Island 3.
	Zipper	Just like the Oil Slick, the Zipper has a unique palette to fit every track theme (including Rainbow Road). However, some tracks don't use Zippers at all, so its palette's color goes unused. The tracks are these do use these objects, for the final game, are Mario Circuit, Ghost Valley, and Bowser Castle.

Unused Object[]


Image	Description
	An unused object, which consists a 4 colored block. This was used in the prototype version of the game to block the middle lane path in Bowser Castle 3. According to the debug menus, which is used in various prototypes of the game, this object is called "KABE" which is the Japanese word for "WALL".

Unused Track Tile Types[]

Each track tile has an ID that determines how the tile will act (Road, Block, Lava, etc.). Besides some of the unused duplicates, there are some more new and unused variants that can be found as well.


ID Number	Description
04	Road, but the player sinks one pixel in when driving over it.
2E	Same as 04, but it stops the player's drift with items leaving item box when it comes in contact with them.
32	A strange deep water tile. Once the player sinks into it, the character will jump out immediately, leading to a permanent in and out jumping.
2A, 3A	A jumpbar variant where items disappear from the player's item box and comes in contact with with the character.
2C, 3C	The Choco Island bumper variant, where items disappear from the player's item box when it comes in contact with the character.
88	A variant of the destroyable ice/falling frail blocks. However, this makes the normal wall crash sound when touched.

Unused Color Pallets[]

Tracks[]


Image (Used)	Course/Track	Description
	Ghost Valley	Features many unused colors, including duplicates and brighter colors for the wood planks and the frail blocks, being more of a brighter tan-like color. In the final game, only the starting line uses two colors of this palette and leaves the rest go unused.
N/A	Koopa Beach	The first palette of Koopa Beach, which features 12 unused colors with only 4 colors going used (being one sand tile and the deep water tile). This seems to be an early copy of the mainly used second palette and overides the animated waterwave colors with these ones when used and was possibly used by the track designers to place the animated tiles correctly.
	Koopa Beach	Early colors for the bushes where they were more of an aquamarine color instead of green.
	Rainbow Road	A bunch of unused colors for the colorful tiles, which were meant to be used for Rainbow Road. Each tile only uses 2 colors but there are 3 for each one.

Background[]


Image (Unused)	Image (Used)	Course/Track	Description
		Mario Circuit	Not only the unused variant has if brighter green, the final variant also has another set of trees instead of just one.
		Ghost Valley	Blue and orange variants of the Boos exist in the game's files, which were possibly once used as extra color pallets for the scrapped Hitodama background.
		Bowser's Castle	In the final game, only one palette was used having these three other variants never added. The red variant is interesting as it looks somewhat like a lava platform. It's possible a lava animation was planned for this platform before ending up being scrapped in the final game.
		Choco Island	Only one palette was used for the choco mountains. The slightly lighter-like brown variant (on the far left) looks nearly identical to the one used in the final game.
		Vanilla Lake	A slightly darker palette of the mountains, which could have given it some more contrast. The third and fourth palettes are the same as the unused variants of the Mario Circuit palette, which are most likely leftovers from early development.
		Koopa Beach	For some reason, the clouds would've also had a green colored variant before being scrapped in the final game.

Unseen/Hidden Background Parts[]

The background layers are made of tilemaps with a height of 32 pixels. However, in the final game game, they are only visible up to 21 pixels of it's height with the highest piece of the backgrounds never being seen by the player (excluding Rainbow Road). Some have only an empty tile at the unseen space while others have hidden details, such as full gradients and unseen clouds. The background layers, with their full size, are shown below.

External links[]

Super Mario Kart on The Cutting Room Floor.