Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 18 (Patreon)

Welcome, everyone, to the 18th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone.  

Today, I will showcase a large number of unused objects found in the data of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

Root Node Round-Up

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a game with many different locations. Each of the game's 8 different chapters takes place in a different spot around the main hub, Rogueport, and leads Mario through a wide variety of locales, some fantastical like the serene Boggly Woods with its monochromatic foliage and rainbow floor, some uncharacteristically mundane like the backstage of the Glitz Pit arena with fluorescent lights and office decor.

There is a resource on the Internet that allows visitors to access maps from various 3D games (mostly by Nintendo, but also some by other companies) and move the camera around freely: noclip.website, developed by JasperRLZ. I am immensely grateful for his work on the site, and it has been one of the most helpful resources I have used in my search for obscure Mario material. Over the last year, I have made dozens of posts across my various blogs that either used screenshots directly from the site, or were based on information I could not have uncovered without it. 

Today's post consists entirely out of screenshots of noclip.website's Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door maps, due to one feature that was programmed into it that is not available when emulating the game normally: the ability to view unused objects in the game's rooms. The website calls it "root nodes" in accordance with game development terminology; a root node is the highest order of hierarchy for 3D models and can consist either of one object, or most commonly, the entirety of the 3D geometry in a room grouped together. Unused root nodes are objects that exist in the code for the room, and have shape, textures, and even a set position within the room, but which are never actually called by the code to be rendered.

With the ability to see all of these unused objects, I have gone through the entirety of the game, taking pictures. Note that these are only the objects that I believe present any interest; most unused objects are completely mundane such as copies of already used geometry in the room, located outside the playing area. These were likely leftovers from the level design process and do not by themselves present any new information. Only unique objects or objects that would not be expected in a room under normal circumstances are featured here.

Starting with the beginning of the game, there is an unused wall going across the right side of the Rogueport Plaza:

A close-up of the wall:

This was likely a leftover from a very early stage in the design process, possibly a mock-up stage for an engine demo, due to how much more primitive this wall is compared to the ones used in the final game.

Behind the Excess Express is an unused billboard:

It is textured correctly with wood, but the frame is empty. This could have been either an advertisement or a timetable.

Chet Rippo's room in the Rogueport Underground contains some unique objects outside of the playing area:

While the clothesline and box appear in other places in Rogueport, the TV is unique in that it has a power cord that is connected to a socket. There is a similar TV in the Rogueport Harbor, but that one is connected to a satellite dish instead of a socket.

Onward to Chapter 1:

The bushes around Mayor Kroop's house normally dispense Turtley Leaves, but there are unused bushes located in front of the Turtley Leaf ones that obscure them with flowers, possibly to make it more of a puzzle to find the leaves.

In Hooktail Castle, there are these three white cubes under the bridge:

Granted, completely untextured geometrical shapes with no discernable purpose appear in other rooms as well, but these ones seem to suggest they were used as preliminary graphics for the stepping stones that can be seen overlapping them. Note that the blocks are in slightly different places, so that Mario would have had an easier time jumping between them.

This is what Hooktail's room on the top of the castle looks like normally:

Turning on the unused nodes, we can see textures showing signs of wear on the bottom of the walls that were removed for some reason:

In Chapter 2, the long pathway in Boggly Woods where the Shadow Sirens are fought contains an unused star-shaped flower patch:

The ones actually used are all circle- or ring-shaped.

There is a black object that is untextured on all sides except the front floating above one of the Puni pedestals within the Great Tree:

It brings to mind the Monolith from the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey". The front texture is a distorted version of the normal Puni pedestal; while normally, this could be written off as another orphaned geometric object, the fact that the game does contain a fake Puni pedestal elsewhere suggests this may have been another object related to that.

Speaking of fake Puni pedestals:

The room with the fake pedestal used in-game has a very intriguing unused object on the right, overlapping the pipe: a doorway. It seems that at some point in development, there was a doorway leading out of the room to the right instead, before being replaced by the pipe. The additional bushes around the cage are also unused.

The room with the water puzzle in the Great Tree has an instance of an early layout still present in the room:

Here, the two versions are displayed at once. The ones making a straight path from left to right are used, while the ones making a more winding path are unused (and also slightly deformed).

Continuing with Chapter 3, the cutscene of the Cheep Blimp approaching Glitzville has what appear to be remnants of an older design for the town:

Note that the columns and the pagoda-like building are larger than the town and the blimp, making them extremely massive. The pagoda seems to be a very simplistic version of the entire town, with the two buildings with the green roofs being the souvenir shop and juice bar, and the grey structure on the bottom being the rocket engines. The pillars seem to be older versions of the pillars around the Glitz Pit entrance.

Interestingly, there is one remnant of this design, including one of the four pillar textures, in-game, although it is so small and hidden it is nearly impossible to see:

A miniature version of this Glitz Pit design is in the window of the souvenir shop, behind the phone booth. The phone booth obscures it almost entirely, and it is too small to see the details in-game.

There are two boxes on the ground behind some of the billboards in Glitzville, just outside the playing area:

Inside the Glitz Pit, two potted plants are far outside the lobby to the left, likely intended to be used as decoration in the lobby:

A close-up of the plants:

These are not used anywhere else in the game.

The minor-league room that is only entered once in Chapter 3 when Mario must make his way to the ring after being locked in by Rawk Hawk has this gigantic unused TV in the middle:

It is a copy of the TV that is actually used in the side room, but the sheer size of it is completely unique among unused copies of objects.

In Chapter 4, Twilight Town has a variety of unused objects on the east side:

The most interesting one is the fence to the left of the shop entrance in the middle of the screen. The used version only has the portion closest to the building, the unused one goes all the way around the tree, as well.

There are unused fences near the shack at the beginning of Twilight Trail, too:

These have unique 2D textures not used anywhere else.

The Hyper Goomba portion of Twilight Trail has a very interesting remnant:

What seems to be the entire room, in an old design reminiscent of the Gusty Gulch passages from the first Paper Mario game, is present in the data. This geometry would have made for a slightly more interesting visual but was likely simplified due to the Goomba enemies' interactions with the ledges and slopes.

A few rooms later on the Twilight Trail, there is a large tree that must be entered. An even larger unused tree is found to the right of it:

Note how much more detailed the unused tree is compared to the used one, due to not being shadowed.

In Chapter 5, the Pirate's Grotto has several rooms that contain many copies of objects outside the playing area. Here is one example:

These either suggest that the areas at some point had a wildly different layout or were remnants of a particularly hasty design process.

The room to the right of the sluice gate has this unique unused suspended platform:

What is interesting is that suspended platforms exist in another room of the grotto, but use a different design with chains instead of ropes.

The room leading up to the black chest looks like this in-game:

Turning on the unused nodes gives us a more visually busy earlier design:

It is unclear why this wasn't used, as it seems to be more elaborate than the finished version.

In the room where Mario rescues the shipwrecked Toads, the swaying ship in the background has this graphic in-game:

Note the signs of damage on the hull and sail. An unused early version exists that looks much less damaged:

On to Chapter 6. This object completely mystifies me personally. On the floor of the dining car in the Excess Express is this:

It appears to me to resemble a flotation ring, but interestingly, the only flotation rings in-game are on the ship Mario takes to and from Rogueport (even though one would reasonably expect the nautical Chapter 5 to contain some as decoration), which do not have this model. Even if it is a flotation ring, what this object is doing inside a train is baffling.

Here is what Riverside Station looks like in-game:

Turning on the unused root nodes shows it was at one point intended to be more obviously abandoned, with dust on the walls and grates over the windows:

In Poshley Heights, there is one unused signpost:

The ones used are all golden (like the one on the left of the unused one). However, the blue one has more colorful shine textures.

Next to the entrance to the square outside the Poshley Sanctum are these completely unused decorative flower barrels:

Going to Chapter 7, there are substantial remnants of the old background of the Fahr Outpost area:

There is even an unused copy of the Twilight Trail background. This would have made sense due to the trees in this area being the same shape; but at some point in development, it was decided not to reuse the background.

Here is another instance of the old mountain design, with even more layers:

On the Moon, the entrance to the X-Naut Fortress reveals something about how the location was intended to be accessed early in development:

Note the elevator to the left of the door. In-game, Mario simply walks up to the outer door of the dome containing the fortress and enters it; the existence of the elevator implies the fortress was at some point intended to be higher up off the ground (or, possibly, underground).

The first room of the fortress has unused shutters for the windows:

My personal hypothesis is that this would have played a role somewhere in an early draft of the story with the shutters going up and revealing the location as the Moon; however, in the finished game, Peach's story does not include this location and Mario knows he is on the Moon long before entering this room.

There is a wealth of unused content in the room where Peach is able to take a shower:

It was likely more important to the story at some point (in the finished game, while Peach can take a shower several times, it is never required). Zooming in on the table and slippers:

Zooming in on the shelves:

Finally, TEC's room has another unused feature that I believe might have been relevant for the story:

In addition to some extra computer panels, there are unique surveillance cameras in the top left and top right corners. There are also the same camera models, all unused, in a few other rooms in the fortress, including Peach's locker room. As TEC is shown switching through camera feeds once in Peach's first interlude, it is likely these would have been used to justify more camera feed views later.

In the final chapter, there are some extra columns in the first "outdoor" hallway in the Palace of Shadow: 

The ones supporting the bridge are used, the ones going all the way up are not. These would have created a feeling of further bridges or structures being supported above, making the palace appear even larger.

The Riddle Tower's various rooms have some of the most intriguing unused objects in the game:

These all exist completely outside of the playing areas of the rooms. While this seems to be a copy of Frankly's house, it is actually a unique set of models. It seems that the early version of the Riddle Tower was much more elaborate.

In other rooms, there are copies of these devices seemingly related to alchemy. Whether these would have been decorative or part of a puzzle is unknown.

The final hallway leading to the Shadow Queen's crypt looks like this in-game:

It is supported by simple pillars. However, the unused nodes show much more elaborate arches:

And these are not even the most detailed form of this model, as one of them looks like this:

These arches were likely not used due to being at an oblique angle to the screen so that the player would not be able to see the ornaments.

After beating the game, Rogueport is seen from outside again at dusk, but there is an unused object here, as well:

The S. S. Flavion is present in the harbor. This is of course not possible due to the game's events, where the ship is wrecked in Chapter 5, so the model was removed.

Finally, outside the story, there is an unused early version of the steps in the Tube Game of the Pianta Parlor:

The rainbow ones are used, the red and yellow ones are not. Note how much more shallow the used steps are due to Tube Mario's low jumping ability; it is possible that in the early version, Tube Mario could jump higher than regular Mario, making the red and yellow steps scalable.

I hope this showcase was able to present some interesting information. If you have any ideas regarding the striped round object on the dining car floor, please do not hesitate to comment!

This concludes today's issue. Thank you very much for reading.