Star World

Super Mario World was one of my favorite games as a child, so I decided to revisit it. I played through various levels of the game, and they brought back the memories of when I first got my SNES. Once I had only three lives left, I went to the Top Secret Area and jumped onto the 2 blocks on the left side of the screen. I must have accidentally pressed down, because I started going downwards and the pipe sound effect played. I assumed this was a glitch, and I was interested to find out where I would be taken. However, I was shown a black screen for a few seconds, and I had thought that the game crashed.

I regained interest when the screen faded into the Star World, and I was surprised that the level names were in Japanese. The levels translated to "Work In Progress", "Test", "Special Stage 1" "Incomplete", and "Do not enter yet" Once I was done with Google Translate, the names of these levels excited me. I thought, "Awesome, some beta things that the developers never finished!" Expecting something worth telling my friends about, I headed into "Test." It was a flat, gray level, with no enemies. There were only 2 pits, and the goal was on screen from the start. To my disappointment, no new levels opened when I cleared the level, so I tried "Work In Progress". This looked like an early version of "Star World 3", but only half the level was complete. The rest was a pit. I was forced to jump into it to leave the level.

"Special Stage 1" was nearly identical to the final version of "Star World 1", the only things I noticed off was that the enemies would sometimes flip upside down in this stage, and the music was completely different, if I could even call it music. It more or less was mumbled garbage in the background.

In "Incomplete", all the colors were red and white, except for the enemies, which were green and blue. Really broken level; I died a few times out of nowhere when I landed on certain spots on the level. As a result, I never made it to the goal, although I didn't expect the end of the level glitch-free either. When the other levels didn't reach my expectations, I went to "Do not enter yet", and that's when everything started flipping out. I'll give you a rundown how I remembered the level:

At first, the level looked similar to Stage 1-1; the music was the same, but the terrain was different, and the level took place at nighttime. However, right when I moved Mario, the colors switched to some strange blend of orange and red, and the music - oh, how do I explain it? Don't get me wrong, it certainly wasn't loud, but I sorta wish it was. It was a slow, chilling tune that was just loud enough for me to hear it, and it gave me this feeling that something was...going to get me. I know that sounds absurd, but it just made me paranoid, and I couldn't help checking over my shoulder from time to time to see if anything was in the room.

Anyway, the game clearly wasn't functioning properly; Mario was flipping from side to side, enemies would stutter back and forth, etc. I managed to progress through the level until I finally encountered a new Yoshi in a ? block. The text was gibberish, and when I pressed A, I did not expect what followed:

The baby Yoshi vanished, and a Banzai Bill came from the right side of the screen. As I was running away from it, I kept thinking, "Oh, shit!" I was near the beginning of the level when another Bullet Bill came from the left, trapping me. As I died, I got up and yelled "Bullshit!" I thought the game over would knock me straight out of the glitch-world, but didn't; I was put outside of the level, with 0 lives. I was bewildered by this, but I assumed it must have been a glitch, considering the levels themselves were broken.

I thought I heard a *thud* in my room, but I didn't feel the need to check. I thought it was just my head playing tricks on me, so I continued back into the level. This time, I avoided the ? block, and ran straight for the goal. As I was pixels from the goal...Banzai Bill comes straight from the right. "Fuck this" I said.

I heard a louder thud. This time, I got up and looked under my bed. What I found terrified me: a pocket knife was laying there, and I would have never kept something like that in my room. Who would have put that there? I pulled it out from there, and when I looked at my screen, I saw that the names of the levels changed. They translated to "I leAve Must HidE" "Right Escape fiNd", "gO RUn", "No tIme", "Now Go". Yeah, it didn't make any sense to me. I tried out each one: they were all levels of Mario stuck automatically running, continuously through a flat, never ending level. I couldn't control him, so I waited for the timers to run out. After I checked all five, I noticed that the capital letters in the title spelled out: "I AM HERE NO RUNNING." It freaked the shit out of me, so as I ran out of my apartment, I heard footsteps behind me. I got as far as the door and I didn't see what hit me on the head.