[Mario yawning]
Often times while on the hunt for other mysteries,
sometimes you’ll discover something you
weren’t really looking for.
Perhaps you’re reviewing an area for a
specific object, but something else catches
your eye.
Or you’re so fixated on what you may have
just discovered that when something else pops
up on your radar, you’re torn on what you
should focus on.
This is exactly what happened with Dusty Dune
Galaxy for me.
In a previous video I covered a lost launch
star that was present in the level, with no
real way to reach it.
However, during the research and discovery
process for this video, something else muddied
the water.
After a previous video highlighting extremely
difficult 1-up mushrooms, I had people reach
out to talk about how there was a pair of
eyes beneath the sand in Dusty Dune Galaxy.
Now this was really strange to me simply because
I spent a ton of time exploring that galaxy
already, but it’s always possible that things
can be overlooked.
It’s happened before, and I had just found
this launch star that I was already writing
about, so I sort of adopted this as a side
quest so to speak.
Now, when I received these messages and comments,
they were mainly sourced around the idea that
you could see the eyes on a website called
noclip.
Noclip is a website that lets you explore
certain areas in video games through a 3D
viewer.
It’s certainly helped out a lot this year
for me in terms of getting footage for some
cinematic shots - as prior to no clip, some
games were difficult.
So I ended up booting up no clip and swinging
on over to Dusty Dune Galaxy to take a gander
myself…
And lo and behold, a set of eyes were staring
back at me just beneath the surface of the
planet.
They were just creepily staring out into the
void between three overlapping outer boundaries
of the level.
The exact location of these eyes were positioned
between the underground pipe area, and the
final interior section for the secret star
Treasure of the Pyramid.
As a quick side note, underground areas in
Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are usually stored
out of bounds on the same map.
This is what those dimensional pipes look
like from a different angle, and this is that
final area I was talking about.
The eyes are just offset between these two
objects.
Now, the way things work in this game, are
that certain objects are tied to specific
scenarios.
In order for this underground section to appear,
and also the eyes, the scenario for Blasting
through the Sand needs to be loaded - because
the secret star branches off of that normal
scenario.
Knowing this, I booted up the game and enabled
my flying mod.
In order to get below this giant sandy planet
without dying, I pretty much had to fly to
the edges of the map to where the collision
ended for sinking in the sand.
Once you’re past that point, you can glide
under the planet.
However, once I looped around to the underground
areas…
Something was off.
The eyes I expected to find there weren’t
there.
The underground regions were, but not what
I was looking for.
So I thought on a whim that perhaps maybe
they were loaded into the wrong scenario.
But no matter what stars I tried, the eyes
wouldn’t appear there.
At this point, I was scratching my head.
I decided to open up the level file itself
to see if the eyes existed on the scenario
by actually cycling through the in-game files.
All the scenarios are written in japanese,
but using objects and also the similar character
set I saw on no clip, I tried to find a match.
And once again this was a no go.
There was an object in the area where the
eyes seemed to be, but it was labeled as DemoGroup.
And I had a strong feeling that wasn’t what
I was looking for.
So the only thing I could think of was that
the online reference that people were showing
me was off in some regards - so I reached
out to Jasper who runs noclip to bounce the
question off him.
So first and foremost, the most important
thing was to determine what the name of the
object actually was.
Despite playing the game plenty of times,
for some reason it was slipping my mind.
I know I had seen it before, but I wasn’t
sure where.
And even if I had seen it before, it still
didn’t explain why it was placed extremely
far out of bounds.
A random set of eyes askew in the depths of
a sandy planet.
Because no clip was the only reference point
we had at the moment, it was what we had to
utilize to determine the object name.
I looked through a separate fan-made level
editor named Whitehole, but couldn't find
the object in there.
So with Jasper's help, we sifted through 566
objects and toggled the visibility of each
one to narrow it down.
The final result?
An object called EyeBeamer.
Knowing the object name helped out a ton,
because that allowed for me to search for
it elsewhere and recall it.
So EyeBeamers are most notably from Dreadnaught
Galaxy, or at least to me they are, because
they’re all over the place trying to zap
you.
Seeing the eye beamers of out context in the
void threw me for a loop in Dusty Dune Galaxy.
At this point, Jasper had sent over a screenshot
of the level loaded up in an editor, but this
time, specifically set to the zone they were
in.
This once again was confusing, because the
eyes had seemingly switched places.
Knowing they were bound to this planet though
helped jumpstart my memory, because now I
had an absolute reference point.
I finally was able to find them in my editor,
but again, they were in a completely different
position.
As to why the objects are in different places
in the game, in Whitehole, and in noclip?
Well, it's because the fans haven't quite
cracked the code to figure out how some objects
are loaded and placed, so the tools aren't
always accurate, even amongst each other.
However, upon traveling to this planet in
this level, that’s when I realized there
are indeed two EyeBeamers that patrol this
planet.
They just graze the top of the camera range
though, so I didn’t think of them as EyeBeamers
initially.
However, in terms of how these objects are
loaded, there’s still an interesting problem.
The EyeBeamers on my end were positioned extremely
far away from the planet, whereas Jasper’s
were far away as well, except in a different
direction, and beneath the sand.
Upon loading though, they appear around the
planet - and traveling to their actual origins
via flying shows that they aren’t there.
But this is problematic because this is a
strange behavior.
This type of behavior isn’t uncommon, but
in the context of this object, normally it
retains its position.
In Dreadnaught Galaxy, the EyeBeamers are
set in place and then follow a specific path
rotating around the object they are set to
patrol.
So why is Dusty Dune’s EyeBeamers set so
far away, only to warp across the map?
No other objects are stored this way in the
level, so it’s bizarre.
This behavior does happen in games, but this
specific case is just a strange outlier.
It’s definitely perplexing.
However, I will say it was a lot of fun hunting
down this mystery and trying to solve it.
It kind of reminded me of the mysteries I’d
pursue as a kid, where something hypothetically
existed, but trying to find it was so thrilling.
Since these EyeBeamers kept eluding me, I
got that sense while trying to pursue them.
There were no resources online that had documented
the movement pattern, so it truly was a mystery
that lacked an answer.
Even if the end result still doesn’t explain
why these EyeBeamer locations are different
than others in the game, it was still a thrill
to document.
A big shoutout to Jasper for helping out with
this.
I highly recommend checking out his website
no clip for exploring all kinds of amazing
gaming environments.
It’s helped me out at on on this channel
this year by allowing me to snag specific
shots from games, so definitely check out
noclip.website if you have the time.
And with that…
Thanks for tuning in to this sandy search!
Want more Mario mysteries?
I have you covered.
Thanks for watching guys and gals, and until
my next video - cheers!
