This hack and its article contain the following sensitive content:
► Suicidal thoughts/behaviours
► Death and/or dying
sm64.z64 is a hack created and published by Jefftasticgames (AKA Jefftastic) in 2022.
This hack has one course and a unique mechanic of altering itself everytime the player collects a Power Star. This hack has achieved noteriety for its uniquely unsettling atmosphere, as well as its highly unnerving messages and encounters.
The Five Acts[]
There are 5 Acts in total, with each Act moving onto the next after each crash. The 4th Act is the last Act in which Mario can still have some semblance of free will; the final Act is not playable. Each Act ends with Mario collecting the only Power Star available; collecting the Star
Act 1[]
This is the first version of the game. Upon booting up the game, the player will be greeted by a beta-style title screen, and the music that would normally play- but only the percussion instruments. There is no File Select screen; clicking Start will drop Mario straight into the Castle Grounds without the opening cutscene, nor Lakitu's cutscene. The Castle Grounds are nearly identical to their vanilla SM64 equivalent, but it is lacking in any trees, and missing the cannon.
Upon entering the Castle, Mario will find a lobby that has only one central door in it, which leads to a small room containing the Bob-omb Battlefield painting. There is nothing else of note aside from the emptiness of the Castle.
Bob-omb Battlefield is largely unchanged from its vanilla-equivalent. However, there are no enemies or Bob-omb Buddies to be found. Some of the interactable objects are still present, such as the tilting bridge, but the only thing for Mario to do here is collect the Power Star at the top of the mountain. After doing so, the screen will fade to black. Depending on which emulator (or console) it is being played on, a crash screen should occur, though it may not appear and simply stay black.
Act 2[]
The Castle Grounds appear to be unchanged, aside from the waterfall no longer being present. The inside of the Castle seems... mostly the same. The most visible difference is with the Bob-omb Battlefield painting, which is now missing one of its three Bob-omb's.
Upon entering the painting...
Act 3[]
Along with the previous changes, Peach's portrait has disappeared from the front of the Castle, as has the fence that normally lines the moat.
Upon entering the painting, Mario is given the following dialogue box:
Objective
The world is much darker now, and the music has been distorted down to a lower pitch with a slower tempo. The number of arrow signs pointing away from the mountain has increased exponentially. More features have disappeared from the world, including the cage-wall at the base of the mountain. Interestingly, the flower patch with arrows pointing down into it is now floating a little off the ground. Once again, after collecting the Star at the top of the mountain, the game will crash.
Act 4[]
The moat has dried up, the sky is blank, and the surrounding hills are grey and lifeless. The birds are silent, and there's no longer any sign that Peach's portrait was ever on the front of the Castle. Even the rocks in the lake are gone.
Upon entering the Castle, Mario will find that the room containing the painting is longer than ever. The painting itself is now empty, and only depicts a cloudy sky. Entering the painting will have Mario greeted with the following message:
Objective
Leave
There is no music playing while Mario runs through the blindingly dark fields, now missing any features they once held. Approximately twenty seconds after entering the level, or possibly when an invisible checkpoint is activated, the fanfare that marks the Start of a race is heard. A timer appears in the top right corner of the UI and begins counting down from thirty seconds. As the timer begins to run out, the darkness around Mario begins to close in and become more and more oppressive; a red hue stains what little Mario can see of the world.
When the timer finally reaches zero, the darkness that had been closing in recedes back to its original state, and the red light dissapates. The timer remains on zero, but the clock icon has been replaced by a flashing warning sign. Unbeknownst to Mario, the timer had been counting down to the moment when something else would enter the level.
Whatever it is, it's shaped like Mario. It has no animation and drifts through the air without moving a limb. Its face is wildly distorted out of proportion, and at the centre of its "face" is only a glitched-out, incomprehensible mess. It moves disturbingly fast, and always knows where Mario is. Occasionally it pauses for a moment, but it will hunt Mario down no matter what. The closer it gets, the louder the sound of static and the more violently the screen shakes. Upon reaching him, Mario himself will let out a wail and the game will once again crash.
Act 5 (Final)[]
The title screen no longer has Mario's name, nor any writing whatsoever. Pressing the Start button will bring forth the same familiar view of the Castle Grounds, this time, looking more like its usual self. The waterfall is still dried up, but the trees have returned, as has the colour in the hills.
Pressing any control is fruitless (except for emulator controls, of course) as Mario has simply disappeared. After a while of watching the butterflies flit about, an eerie slow song begins to play. Not long after, the game speaks for itself.
The only control the player has left is to press A to acknowledge the message.
There's little left to subtlety; Everything is better off without you. Eventually, the music will finish, but the birds will continue singing, the butterflies will still flit about. Without you.Theories[]
The ending to sm64.z64 has been speculated about significantly, particularly in regards to whether or not the bad ending can be avoided. There are supposed red herrings throughout the hack, with the most obvious one being the arrow signs pointing into a flower patch halfway up the mountain during the last 3 playable Acts. Some have speculated that Mario can hide from the anomalous being in the flowers, however this doesn't seem to work.
Given that the only instruction Mario recieves after collecting Stars is to leave, and given the many arrows that urgently point away from the mountain, some users have speculated that the only way to achieve a 'good ending' is to simply quit the hack before the anomalous entity finds Mario in the 5th Act. This means that the crash cannot occur, and Mario will not fall prey to the anomalous being.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In Act 4, it is possible for the anomalous entity to get stuck on the geometry of the landscape.
- The entity's speed is roughly the same as Mario's speed when continuously longjumping, so it is possible to keep the chase going for quite a long time.
- This hack was used as inspiration for a number of levels in B3313 that had similar names, including lobby.z64, lobby.z64 (beta), mt.z64, bob.z64 and wf.z64. An easter egg was also added into the time loop, in which the flower patch with arrows pointing down into it were added as a visual feature and indicator of a warp.