[Luigi yelling.]
What if Mario could warp from one side of
the universe to the other in a matter of seconds?
Well for one, he’d be lost in space - but
that concept is exactly what we’re going
to be talking about today.
In my previous video on Super Mario Galaxy
discoveries, I left off on the thought about
how I stumbled upon wormhole travel within
the games.
Now to my knowledge I haven’t been able
to find anyone else mention this online, so
in this video I’m going to walk you through
what I know about the process.
It might be a tad confusing, but stick with
me to the end if you can.
To kick it off, this is what we’re going
to be breaking down.
The moment that camera twitched, Mario was
warped about 15 minutes worth of travel time
outside of the level.
But why?
Well hold on, we got a lot of ground to cover.
I hope you’re ready to talk about wormholes,
space travel, and a whole lot more.
I even got my galaxy cat shirt ready for the
special occasion.
Now if you don’t know what a wormhole is,
let me hit you with a definition real fast.
According to space.com, a wormhole is a theoretical
passage through space-time that could create
shortcuts for long journeys across the universe.
Wormholes are predicted by the theory of general
relativity.
But be wary: wormholes bring with them the
dangers of sudden collapse, high radiation
and dangerous contact with exotic matter.
You’ve probably seen those diagrams online
that basically show space sort of folding
upon itself.
If point a and point b were like three lightyears
apart, obviously it takes three years for
light to travel between the two spots.
However, if wormholes were involved, we’d
be able to seemingly warp from one point to
another making the distance and time needed
to travel much less.
That’s of course super laymans terms and
any science buffs in the comment sections
can give you a more thorough answer, but I
wanted to get that out of the way to set the
stage for the video.
Now that we have that out of the way, we need
to rule out something.
This wormhole travel I’m going to be talking
about isn’t suitable for speed runs.
It involves mechanics in the game that cannot
normally be accessed through typical play,
so for those of you looking to harness the
power of this speedy warp, I’m sorry to
burst your bubble.
But for those of you who are super nerdy like
me, which I assume you are since you’re
watching a video about video game mechanics,
you’re still in luck for some deep game
analysis.
Now Super Mario Galaxy has a lot of interesting
physics in the game.
The main one of course is gravity that is
unique to each planet.
Some planets are assigned gravity that acts
like a typical 3D mario game.
Mario or Luigi gets pulled to the flat ground,
and if they fall off it, they fall to their
death.
This is usually because the world we’re
on is floating above a much larger planet
which has it’s own overarching gravity field.
On the flip side, sometimes planets carry
their own gravity.
This is an orb around a planet that makes
it so Mario or Luigi can walk around the planet
without falling.
However, sometimes if they jump too high,
they’ll break gravity and then drift off
into space and die…
Which obviously sucks.
So basically we have what I dub universal
gravity, and then local gravity.
Universal being the outer level, and local
being created by the objects within the level.
Understanding that is important for how warping
is triggered.
So, my definition of wormhole traveling in
Super Mario Galaxy involves Mario in a flying
state being whisked across the galaxy in about
a second.
So let’s talk about how it is done.
The first step is Mario needs to be in a flying
state.
A flying state is not what occurs when Mario
leaves a launch star.
Flying is normally something that can only
be done towards the end of the game in the
Comet Observatory in Super Mario Galaxy.
It gives Mario and Luigi the ability of free-flight
around the area, but it is normally only available
in that area.
However, you can get this ability elsewhere
in the games - yes, even in Super Mario Galaxy
2, by enabling it with a cheat.
This is why I said this isn’t viable for
speed runs.
However, the mechanics exist in the games
and the only thing stopping it is accessibility
of this powerup…
Because in order to achieve a warp, we need
different fields of gravity.
Allow me to explain.
The first time I ever experienced worm hole
traveling was actually within Bowser’s Star
Reactor.
I was flying around checking out the various
warships and objects in the area.
Obviously I documented a lot of things like
this on my second channel, and this was just
my way of checking out the weird things about
this stage.
While flying out in space, I decided to turn
and go back to the starting area when bam!
The area that I was just in was now insanely
far away…
So I set Luigi, or rather the skeleton of
Luigi to fly back to this area…
And it took around 15 minutes to do so!
At this time I had no idea what happened and
no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t recreate
this…
So I wrote it down as a weird fluke and carried
on.
Fast forward about six months and I’m flying
around Grandmaster Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy
2.
In the second or third area, I decide to pivot
and change my direction…
And what do you know, everything I once knew
was now super far away despite me being right
in front of it just a moment ago…
So what gives?
This is when I realized what was happening
wasn’t just a one time thing…
There was a specific combination of events
that allowed my character to essentially wormhole
travel from one local location to extremely
far out of bounds.
But before getting to that, I need to explain
some things real fast.
1.
Those who are familiar with any sort of game
engines know that warping a character from
one position to another with cheats isn’t
too difficult if someone knows what they’re
doing.
Basically, your character’s x, y, and z
values are just changed in an instant and
your character warps.
This can be done in a lot of games including
Super Mario Galaxy…
But this isn’t what happened with what I
just explained.
No value reassigning took place at all through
cheat devices.
The only thing changed was flying to be enabled
on all maps.
2.
Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2’s worlds pretty
much go on forever, or at least in theory.
Mario can move as far out as he wants and
yet he’ll never reach the skybox.
The skybox is essentially what contains the
world, and it is in a fixed position that
doesn’t respond to movement in the game.
So even if I spent 20 minutes trying to reach
the edges of the room in Toy Time Galaxy,
it isn’t going to happen.
The only way we can reach the skybox is if
the skybox is literally modified and moved
to overlap the level.
It’s an object like everything else, but
even then it’s going to stay a fixed distance
away from us.
Regardless of how far out Mario warps, nothing
about this will change - or at least according
to my current understanding.
So let’s go back to wormholes.
What I’m about to explain is merely a theory
about how these things occur, because in all
my time spent playing the game, I’ve only
had them occur twice.
So in many ways it’s like that illusive
tick tock clock warp in Super Mario 64…
No one actually knows how it is done.
I do know the ingredients though for triggering
the warp.
In both instances of it happening, I was in
the process of starting and stopping flight.
When you hold down the fly button, or whatever
the start and stop button it is, Mario puts
on the air breaks, and upon release, he twirls
and resumes flight.
At the precise moment, I know Mario has to
be initiating flight from his static position.
I know this because in both of the times it
has happened to me, I had just finished breaking
and restarted flight.
However, I didn’t pause super long and then
fly again.
It was more like a stuttered stop.
With this in mind, I’m like 99% certain
that the second ingredient has to do with
overlapping fields of gravity.
Like I explained earlier, there are points
in a level where universal gravity and local
gravity transition.
When flying through these areas, or even jumping
from local to local, Mario will be pulled
in a different direction.
When you’re free-flying and break away from
local gravity, Mario will realign himself
to the universal gravity of the level.
The moment this happens is the point of entry
for a wormhole…
But unfortunately, it requires pretty much
frame perfect execution combined with conditional
movement that even I haven’t been able to
replicate very often.
Mario must have put on the air breaks before
the gravity switches, and while still moving
slightly because he didn’t stop fully, he
must regain forward flight while pivoting
with a turn while the gravity is being reassigned.
If done correctly, you’ll teleport to the
far sides of the universe.
Why this happens I have no idea…
It reminds me a lot of how one can build up
speed to basically warp in Super Mario 64.
But I imagine it has something to do with
Mario’s momentum being exponentially multiplied
because of the transition process of gravity
within the game.
Moving from one field of gravity to another
screws up this process and increases Mario’s
output flight momentum way too much, and thus
he travels almost 10,000 times the distance
he normally would from this starting action.
And the result…
Is a wormhole-like warp which makes navigating
the stars a breeze…
Kinda fitting for a game all about space exploration,
no?
But anyways, that’s wormhole 101 for Super
Mario Galaxy 1 and 2.
If you have your own personal theories about
why this occurs, let me know in the comments
below.
And with that…
Thanks for tuning in to this space voyage!
I think you’ll enjoy one of these videos,
so why not give them a gander if you liked
this one?
Thanks for watching guys and gals, and until
my next video - cheers!
