One of the Super Mario 64The game’s few remaining mysteries have been solved thanks to one player who figured out how to open a previously ‘unopenable’ door from the 1996 Nintendo 64 classic. We can thank a nearly four-hour YouTube video that describes in detail how invisible walls work Super Mario 64and the gaming community’s tenacity for the new discovery.
That previously inaccessible door is in the Cool, Cool Mountain world, where Mario memorably meets a mother-baby penguin duo – and also races a giant penguin in the Big Penguin Race mission. (This serves as a funny reminder that penguins are known as “penguins” in the Mario universe.)
According to a new video from YouTube content creator and Super Mario 64 expert Scott Buchanan (aka Pancake2012), the person who ultimately solved the game’s locked door mystery Alexpalix1, an experienced speedrunner who has developed dozens of runs with tools. Alex took advantage of the hitbox of Cool, Cool World’s mother penguin, to push Mario through an invisible barrier, but added a quick turnaround to perform a frame-perfect maneuver that allowed Mario to open that door — and not plunged to his death.
Intriguingly, Alex was reportedly inspired by Buchanan’s earlier video op Super Mario 64‘s use of invisible walls. The three-hour and 45-minute video offers a technical deep dive into how Nintendo designed the 3D platformer to prevent players from accessing certain parts of the game.
Buchanan offers a very quick summary of how invisible walls work Super Mario 64 and how Nintendo deliberately used them to prevent players from gaining access to the non-public door in question. But his nearly four-hour video is on Super Mario 64‘s Invisible Walls is also a fun and informative watch, if you have the time.
But for now, you can just enjoy a community of video game players who are once again doing what was previously thought impossible.