The events
of Super Mario 64: CLASSIFIED, sorted into chronological order.
Due to the nature of the series's events, all spoilers will be unmarked.
Pre-activation
- April 3rd, 1995: One of the main programmers, named Jim, for a project called Ultra 64 MARIO Brothers convinces the higher ups at Nintendo to allow for the recording of a development log for the game for archival purposes. The gameplay showcased is rather linear and straight-forward with some mild platforming elements, with the current build being practically barren. Jim doesn't expect the game to be developed much further, as a separate handheld console is in development at the same time, with Jim expressing more of an interest in that than this game. However, despite a steady development process on the game, the higher ups are insistent on the game being finished by Christmas, something Jim doubts is even possible without the use of "miracle tech".
- May 9th, 1995: In the 32nd development log, Jim reveals (to his annoyance) that the game is now undergoing a massive retool as to be more open-world, to allow the player more freedom in how they play (something Jim feels is disorienting and lacks intuition); in short, "[t]his is about half a year's worth of progress down the drain". The only aspect of the "linear" version of the game to remain is the King Koopa boss levels, as Jim has no idea what else to do with them. The new development course shown is of a large grass plane with some scattered coins and Goombas; in showing this off, Jim reveals they are now expected to make upwards of 50 levels for the game in this new style, but with the Christmas deadline still enforced. The recording is interrupted by a fellow employee, Bill, who comes to Jim of implementing, of all things, a giant Wario head into the game in some fashion, an idea Jim doesn't see any feasibility in, nor has any idea how to actually implement it.
- June 20th, 1995: With the game now officially called Super Mario 64, Jim uses the 64th development log to show off both the new hub world for the game (an early version of Peach's Castle that can only be accessed by a sewer pipe), and the new controller for the upcoming console (the infamous three-pronged Nintendo 64 controller). However, once again the recording is interrupted by the abrupt appearance of Bill, who arrives with bad news: The higher up feel that the game's engine runs too slow, and so the game needs to be completely reoptimized from the ground up. Jim is less than pleased to receive this information, as he's the only one who is doing the brunt of the coding, and the game is too far along at this point for such a reoptimzation. "Half this garbage is hard-coded in now, we can't alter it or else the whole thing falls apart!" However, to assuage Jim's mounting anger, Bill lets some information slip: Some of the development team are in the process of crafting an "automatic enhancer" for the game that supposedly will make the game's development more manageable...
- July 29th, 1995: After re-coding all of a near-final build of Super Mario 64 for 39 days straight at the expense of his mental health, Jim is given a build of the game with the enhancer added to playtest, as it's now meant to be a part of the game's interactivity rather than a passive additionnote ; not helping his burn-out is the fact that there is a heatwave going on, severe enough to have broken half of the building's AC units. Eventually, Jim enters an underground cavern in the hub world and makes his way to a yellow button, which when pressed will activate the AI in-game. Upon doing so, however, the game undergoes a memory leak, causing a strobe-like texture glitch that causes Jim to experience a seizure; it takes Bill almost 3 and a half hours to find him on the floor, all the while the monitor showing the game announcing the enhancer being online is ignored. Unbeknownst to anyone at this time, the AI starts to take form, using a textureless version of Mario's in-game model for a body.
- After July 29th, 1995: Immediately upon the discovery of his body, Jim is hospitalized. Jim would be mentally impaired from both the stress and the seizure, eventually developing Fake Memories of what happened on this day: Namely that, instead of being the one to (unknowingly) activate the Personalization AI, he was the playtester that ventured into the game and destroyed the core element keeping it active. Regardless, after recovering and returning back to work, Jim soon finds himself wanting to know exactly how the AI really works...
Post-activation
- November 15th, 1995: Jim works on two scripts: one for a Nintendo Power promotional tape for Super Mario 64, the other for a commercial. It is around this time that the game's development team is informed that the game is finally being delayed, to sometime in Spring of 1996. Despite the game's delay, Jim continues to send in scripts regardless, finally being cut off when trying to write a segment about the AI. The AI itself soon interferes, deciding it wants out and orders someone to enter the fourth floor and kill it.
- November 22-24th, 1995: During Spaceworld 1995, one of the demonstration cartridges is accidentally swapped out for a US-based cartridge. When a public showcase is ran on this cartridge, the demonstrator for the game at the event finds themselves sending Mario into an underground village resembling the one from Wet-Dry World full of Bob-ombs. At the request of the only friendly Bob-omb, the demonstrator attempts to direct Mario to a yellow switch and activate it to unleash a flood (potentially drowning all of the inhabitants and turning the place into Wet-Dry World's village), only for the game to crash. A still image of the AI's avatar as the Textureless Mario Anomaly is seen during said crash.
- December 1995:
- Prior to December 20th, 1995: Bill and Steve attempt to record a voiceover for a commercial for Super Mario 64. After numerous failures and repeated rewinding of the tape with the video footage, they discover that Jim's logs and several bits and pieces of the AI's influence have been recorded to the same tape as well. Upon attempting to investigate, the AI takes control, warning the two that it is being used by someone in a deranged quest for infinite knowledge. It loses coherence in a fit of pain, but is able to transmit one final message: a single frame of a distorted Mario saying "my name is" and a controller input sequence that can be transcribed as a Baconian cipher. Combining the two reveals that the AI has given itself a name: Stanley.
- December 20th, 1995: A copy of the commercial Bill and Steve had recorded audio for is mistakenly aired on TV during a commercial break on Cartoon Network. This version of the commercial contains an instance of the infamous Wario Apparition, and (due in part to it not being intended to air) is intentionally cut off by a test of the Emergency Broadcast System; it is implied Jim had recorded the incident as it happened.
- Prior to New Years' Eve, 1995: A different employee (Steve) records himself navigating through a precursor to Shifting Sand Land called "Chroma Tundra." He mentions Jim's ailing mental state shortly before Bill informs him that a development cartridge had been stolen, and suspects Jim to be the culprit responsible.
- After the pair search the building and fail to discover anything, writing Jim off as a suspect, Steve resumes his video log (sans microphone audio) and inspects a beta version of the Metal Cave, only to be allured by a deeper cavern past the green switch. The fully-awakened AI as the TMA is waiting on the other side in a castle corridor dug out by it, and promptly scolds him for his snooping around (as it has mistaken Steve for Jim). Steve is then abruptly dumped into an alternate version of the hub map (one that is missing the bridge in front of Peach's Castle). Upon finding an alternate way inside, he tries to retrace his steps, only to be forced into an altered basement and given two options: either give up now and branded a coward, or accept an offer to go deeper and learn the truth behind the castle. We learn nothing more about this development in the story.
- Prior to January 22nd, 1996: While Jim continues to develop promotional material for Super Mario 64, including the pilot for a SGI-based news series called Nintendo Mania, he uses his own efforts as an excuse to keep picking up development builds of the game to experiment with, each containing instances of the AI.
- January 22nd, 1996: Unbeknownst to either Bill or Steve, Jim has been the one to steal the cartridge, one meant for E3 1996. He records himself entering what appears to be a cut level, but is actually a creation of the AI taking the form of an inverted castle and is horribly glitched as a result. Despite its pleas to leave the area, Jim continues playing in order to explore the areas created by the AI until his controller suddenly disconnects and Mario drowns in the castle lake.
- February 1996: The Nintendo Mania pilot gets rejected over the stilted animation and dry sense of humor. Meanwhile, the AI somehow infiltrates the show's production, causing the first episode's visuals to glitch out and depict an accident wherein Luigi drowns to death exploring the castle. Shortly after this, Luigi is mysteriously erased from the game; not only is Jim's copy affected, but all of the workstations in the building are affected as a result. It is also implied the AI chose to memorialize Luigi's "death" by adding the Eternal Star statue to the courtyard behind Peach's Castle.
- Prior to May 13th, 1996:
- Jim is given another chance to create a Nintendo Mania pilot; however, budget cuts are enforced on the animation as to improve the writing. Like before, the AI winds up affecting the animated portions of the program; this time, it's heavily implied Mario is still harboring trauma over seeing Luigi drown to death, as he tries to continue the show despite there being no audience. Eventually, after one last conversation with "Luigi", Mario decides that it's time to "go home"; this may or may not tie into the gameplay from January 22nd, 1996, where the AI forced Mario to drown himself.
- Meanwhile, Jim records himself playing through two levels: Tall, Tall Treetops and Jolly Roger Coastline. However, upon collecting the latter's star, the AI begins to glitch out the game, forcing Jim back in to the hub castle, which has now fallen into ruin. The AI openly states Jim is hurting it by refusing to leave it alone, and continuing to play the game. Jim continues to explore the ruined castle in spite of this, eventually reentering the corrupted hub world he encountered back in January, discovering the other Mario's corpse in the water. Further exploration winds up causing the game to stabilize. After exploring down a hallway, whereupon Jim encounters, then ignores, an instance of the "core", Mario is then taken outside, to a giant windmill. Entering the windmill takes Jim to a white void, where the AI has one final conversation with him: Giving up all pretense, the AI admits it no longer knows what to do to make Jim stop hurting it. It knows it negatively impacted Jim's life, and it knows Jim hates it, but it doesn't know what to do to fix it. All it can do is plea for Jim to delete it outright, saying it's no longer having fun. Following this conversation, Jim is convinced to delete the automatic enhancer from the building's main workstation; this causes the deletion of the AI, at the cost of purging half of the game's 30 levels. However, prior to doing so, Jim grabs one final development copy that contains an instance of the AI, wishing to continue experimenting regardless of what was asked of him.
- May 13th, 1996: Word breaks among the development staff of the deletion of the automatic enhancer. Although there are enough assets to salvage Super Mario 64 and complete it in time for E3, several employees are distraught over losing half the game; Bill and Steve in particular decide to go uncredited in the game's credits.
- September 14th, 1996: As Jim continues to experiment with his cartridge, the results he gets with the AI appear to get more simplistic. In one particular incident, seemingly brought about from him punching the cartridge to make it work, Mario abruptly falls onto the roof of Peach's Castle, and encounters Yoshi. Shortly after the meeting (where Yoshi breaks from his script and talks about others not being as patient as himself), he jumps off the roof; Mario walks to the edge and looks down, discovering Yoshi's corpse. This triggers a failsafe that bricks the cartridge by forcing a region lock. Unable to fix it, Jim leaves the room, unknowingly leaving his camera running. As such, it records the AI delivering a rant to Jim (unaware he had left), stating it was brought to life and forced to linger, and all it wants is to die.
- May 30th, 1997: By this point, Jim has been openly damaging the cartridge's board in order to explore the limits of the AI itself, all the while the AI is in a state of limbo (neither dead or alive, just creating disturbing images). In this recorded instance, Jim evokes the remnants of an alternate ending. Though fraught with severe glitching (that ends up taking Mario to the desired points anyway), Mario finds himself at the Endless Staircase. Attempting to BJP up the stairs, however, abruptly causes Mario's death at the top of the stairs. However, Mario is then dropped into one of the Bower boss fights; but, rather than face Mario head-on, Bowser suddenly stops and makes an honest plea for him to "wake up." Mario is then sent to a tiny chamber based on the original Bowser Room and crushed to death, after which the game glitches out one last time. The last image seen on the recording is an ominous still of Mario diving into the light on "Wing Cap in the Sky" as a drone-like music track starts to play; the track increases in pitch as the image fades to white.
- September 2nd, 1997: Having all but wrecked his copy of the game, Jim finds himself unable to access any of the stars in Bob-omb Battlefield before abruptly glitching into Wet-Dry World. There, he is met with a series of subliminal messages and a distorted model of Luigi, before the game abruptly crashes due to the fact it was being forced to pull from assets that haven't existed for more than a year. The game is then forced into an ending title card showcasing a crying child being tormented by what appears to be the Wario Apparition, before the game starts giving out as the AI screams in agony.
- September 3rd, 1997: The following day after his final experiment, Jim locks his copy of the game away, before recording a confession admiting to having deleted the AI, having helped create the AI, and having effectively tortured it for the better part of two years. Acknowledging he became obsessed, Jim admits he doesn't know what he was trying to do anymore with his experiments with the AI, but ultimately concludes he got his intended end result. "This all ends here. For good."
