B3313

B3313 or Build 3313 (also called SM64 Internal Plexus) is a ROM hack of Super Mario 64 developed by ChrisRLillo and his dev team. It is the largest beta-based SM64 hack to date in terms of the number of accessible areas and star count, as well as various other aspects. B3313 is also the most-downloaded hack on Romhacking.com, with 100K+ downloads to date.

History[]

Development[]

Chris began development on B3313 in late 2020. The first public build, v0.4, was released on April 26, 2021. The next big move was made on July 29 when v0.6.1, a major update, was released. The release date was a subtle reference to the "07/29/1995 build" meme, a mythical beta version of Super Mario 64 said to be haunted by a "personalization AI" which "personalized" every copy of the game and gave each player a unique experience.

On the 26th anniversary of Shoshinkai 1995 (November 22, 2021), Chris released v0.7, another major update. He also announced that he would be taking a hiatus from developing B3313 to devote more time to his other personal projects. Around the same time, Jefftastic, another game developer with a history in SM64 hacking, began working on converting B3313 into decomp, a more versatile hacking method. Jefftastic considered eventually adding new content to B3313 as well, as a way of shifting the hack towards a v1.0 release.

Disappointed by the sluggish progress on the decomp port, Chris resumed work on B3313 in January, 2022. He later uploaded an hour-long preview video (now private) of v0.8 which showcased more than 10 new areas, revamped sound effects, new music, and other changes.

Over the course of the following few months, v0.8 was rebranded to v1.0 due to a plethora of new features being added: areas, stars, music, enemies, and even a fully functional "AI" able to personalize the player's experience based on variables derived from their gameplay style (all within the limits of keeping a 100% completion of the hack possible). Chris teased several of the new features on his "Friday Jamz" music streams and some standalone videos.

On July 30, 2022, B3313 was featured on the F3 2022 expo organized by Kaze Emanuar. An extended version of the F3 trailer was uploaded to Chris' YouTube channel on August 5, along with a demo of v1.0 (also called B13) which included several upcoming areas, along with some intentional and unintentional Easter eggs.

Since the demo's release, v1.0's development continued with screenshots of new areas and other features often getting posted to Chris's Discord server. After several delays due to various issues and changes of plans, the full version was projected to be released in early 2023.

On January 13, 2023, a new v1.0 demo was released on romhacking.com with an accompanying trailer (now private), under the title Motos Factory. It featured the titular area, along with several hidden areas and collectibles. Two weeks later, on January 28, the release date of v1.0 was confirmed, as Chris stated that he would "stop hacking" on March 13 and focus on other projects instead. He later retracted this date, stating that B3313 was not yet in a releasable state despite the team's best efforts.

On March 20, 2023, Chris announced that B3313's development would enter an indefinite hiatus, mainly due to his recurring health problems. Production seemingly resumed in April, with several in-game screenshots posted in Chris's Discord server. Multiple developers projected the hack's release in the summer of 2023.

On May 29, 2023, Chris unofficially "leaked" an unfinished build of v1.0 (later dubbed v0.9), announcing his plan to shelve the project indefinitely. This build was allegedly quite close to completion, only missing some bugfixes, proper star IDs, an "ending," a few beta asset implementations, and a small amount of additional content. Conservative estimates projected v1.0 to contain over 300 areas and 400 stars.

On June 12, 2023, Chris released a video titled "B3313 ANNOUNCEMENT (yeah...another one)," (now unlisted) that only consisted of the text "READ DESCRIPTION." In the description, Chris announced that B3313 wasn't being abandoned, but that he would be stepping down from romhacking and instead contributing with creative decisions on the hack. He also announced that the team was planning a 2.0 version, based on the Super Mario 64 Decompilation Project, which may be playable on Nintendo 64 consoles on fin the future.

On July 31th, 2023, the Unabandoned (UA) version was initially released, as an unofficial attempt to remedy 0.9's problems. On August 28th, 2023, a patch that supposedly fixed most of the bugs present in the initial release was also posted. On December 10, 2023, UA received a second update titled "Starstruck" (also known as A2) which was primarily developed by Floralys and Emax64, Floralys had experience working on the ex-coop port of B3313 v0.7 prior to making A2, whereas Emax64 was a newcomer.

At one time, the UA team was reportedly working on a new decomp project, which while keeping the B3313 atmosphere, was to be a fresh new unique experience with all content built up from scratch. Development was expected to take over a year, and eventually, the decomp project was postponed indefinitely and possibly cancelled. Instead, the developers involved with Unabandoned A1 and A2 are now working together on an A3 version.

On February 2, 2024, it was confirmed within a charity stream shoutout video that Chris and his remaining team were close to finishing B3313's v1.0 with fixed Star IDs and a handful of new areas. It was featured on the aforementioned charity stream hosted by SimpleFlips that same day. In the stream's chat, Chris claimed that this version would be out in "a couple of days."

On February 4, 2024, a release trailer with download link for the official v1.0 release was posted on YouTube by NewSupKaizo55 and later reposted on the Mario's Palace channel. After several hotfixes to correct errors in v1.0, v1.0.1 was released on April 18, 2024, followed by v1.0.2 on May 8. Three hotfixes were made to v1.0.2, with the last on May 11. Chris has stated that there will not be any further B3313 releases, leaving v1.0.2 Hotfix 3 as the final official version of the hack. Later in early 2025 he started working on v1.0.3, which was supposed to mainly consist of community submissions. It is currently considered cancelled after Chris' falling out with a few of his area designers.

On December 24, 2024, a release trailer for the A2 Anniversary Edition was uploaded to commemorate 1 year since Unabandoned A2 had released. It's a version of A2 that takes various changes applied to A3 during its development to give a sneak peek for A3 in a subtle way.

Star count[]

As of the final official version, v1.0.2, B3313 has a total star count of 460: 433 yellow stars, 13 red stars, 13 green stars, and 1 Jumbo Red Star.

However, the star count of many earlier versions of the hack was uncertain due to the large number of areas and the occasional duplicate star IDs.

On December 13, 2021, Primarina was the first person to acquire 144 stars on a v0.7-only save file, with the usage of the newly found credits glitch, which allows access to an extra star in Tall, Tall Mountain. On December 15, 2021, she acquired another star on v0.7 for a total of 145, being the first one to discover the presence of MIPS in Wing Cap by the Rainbow Highway. This is also the 151st star with previous versions allowed.

On February 23, 2023, EK_Gras achieved a 153 star save file after playing through v0.7, v0.4, and v0.6.3 on a single save file. The 153rd star she collected was the "Scale the Mountain" star in Tall, Tall Mountain on v0.6.3, though it is unclear if this star had not previously been discovered due to the lack of documentation for pre-0.7 stars.

v0.9, known for having a plethora of duplicate Star IDs due to it being released ahead of time, provided a brand-new challenge for star hunters. A video released on June 30, 2023, by veteran video game YouTuber BikdipOnABus, a close friend of Chris, claims that there are 178 unique stars in v0.9 (or 183 stars with the Yellow Cap Switch). He also posted a spreadsheet in the video's description with a list of all obtainable stars, which confirms this claim.

The trailer of the Unabandoned version claims a star count of at least 415, highlighting the HUD in one of the clips included. The first known player to get over 400 stars was Wixo on August 6, 2023, barely scraping by with a star count of 401. This was soon surpassed by GoldYosh, who got 410 stars.

On August 20, 2023, the last star was found in UA, when it was discovered that the Toads in the daytime and nighttime variants of the Vanilla Lobby were accidentally given different, unique star IDs. Thus, the total star count was raised to 422 (427 with the Yellow Switch).

Before the hotfix's release, it was known that the star count would be expanded to 430, as the release fixed 8 duplicate star IDs and added an extra star (the silver star mission in Grassy Highlands). In fact, a 430-star count had already been achieved on August 16 by katze789, who volunteered to be a playtester for the hotfix during his Twitch playthrough. The hotfix also prevents the Yellow Switch from increasing the star count beyond the intended number, thus making it no longer a necessity for a 100% save file.

According to the romhacking.com description at the time of its release, the official v1.0 has 450 stars: 424 yellow, 13 red, and 13 green stars. 8 red stars do not add to the total in-game counter, but 5 do. All green stars add to the counter. This total was first reached on stream by RobbyMac64 on February 7, 2024, three days after release.

Speedrunning Achievements[]

CK Laboratories was the first one to perform a 0 star speedrun, marking the first full run of the game with a time of 4:25 on August 23. As v0.6.9 patched the 0-star exploit, ShadySmet returned to an older version to beat this time with a 4:16, exactly 2 months later on October 23. Weeg got the first sub-4-minute run, 3:59, on December 31. Since then, he has improved his record down to a 3:38, set on July 5, 2022.

30 stars has been the lowest intended requirement to reach the ending of the hack ever since the release of v0.6.1. Several runners have attempted to do 30 star runs, but the only successful one in this period was CK Laboratories, getting a time of 27:58 on August 26, 2021, and a 27:34 on September 2, unfortunately with no video footage. The idea of a 30-star run was then shelved until after the release of v0.7, in which player HalfHalf was the first one to do a 30-star run on December 13, clocking in at 54:23. He later beat this time with a 45:51 on December 15. However, these runs start with a save state and are now considered invalid. Not too soon afterwards, Weeg started grinding the category with some routing involved, ending up with a time of 27:36 on December 26. Weeg, capitalizing on some new route changes, claimed the WR with an unrecorded 22:11, then a recorded 21:08 on January 2, 2022. Making up his own strategies on the go, he managed to snatch a sub-20 on June 18, 2022, with a 19:55, beating Cavin856's previous WR of 20:29.

KableNStuff was the first to complete a "100%" or 144 star run in 3:13:39 on January 2, 2022. It has since been decided that only 144 stars would be considered 100%, rendering previous 140-star runs invalid and making VeloxusGaming's 4:48:35 the first 100% run. On July 25, 2022, Weeg finished his second ever 144 Star, clocking in at 3:06:43.

The first 100% run of v1.0, A.K.A. 450 Star, was performed on February 29, 2024, by RobbyMac64, clocking in at 11 hours and 47 minutes. He later improved his record by an hour before Majora_AG achieved the first sub-10 hour run on March 10, 2024, and also improved the record to 8 hours and 17 minutes on April 29, 2024. Additionally, the restructured speedrun.com page introduced two shorter categories for v1.0: 33 Star (32 yellow and 1 red stars, utilizing the RNG warp to Eternal Fort (beta)) and 35 Star (22 yellow and 13 red stars), pioneered by SuperSimplicity.

The first 100% run of v1.0.2, A.K.A. 460 Star, was performed on August 13, 2024, by yoku_yukihime, clocking in at 19 hours and 47 minutes. Later on August 24, 2024, Majora_AG performed the run, clocking in at 8 hours and 18 minutes.

The first 100% run of Unabandoned, AKA 471 Star, was performed on March 4, 2024 by KingToad64, clocking in at 13 hours and 38 minutes. Additionally, the restructured speedrun.com page introduced two shorter categories for Unabandoned: 34 Star (33 yellow and 1 red stars, utilizing the RNG warp to Eternal Fort (beta)) and 46 Star (33 yellow and 13 red stars). Both categories were first run by soccerman611 on September 2, 2023, and February 9, 2024, respectively. On May 16, 2024, the first run of 233 Star was performed by SuperSimplicity, clocking in at 5 hours and 6 minutes before Katze789 finished the run on October 31, 2024, clocking in at 3 hours and 22 minutes.

Gameplay[]

on the at the start of a new game. — Luigi on the Castle Grounds at the start of a new game.

Main Features[]

For the most part, B3313 plays like the vanilla Super Mario 64, where the player collects stars while venturing through different areas connected to the hub world of Princess Peach's castle. However, the central element of the B3313 hack is the myth of the "internal plexus" within the castle, a key motif in many urban legends that describe so-called "personalized" copies of SM64. As such, B3313's warps (doors, pipes, teleports, etc.) can lead to completely unexpected areas, contributing to the eerie atmosphere of the hack.

From v0.6.1 onward, the player can play as either Mario or Luigi. A few quality-of-life adjustments have also been made since earlier versions, including fast travel between hub areas (which also allows the player to exit a course while the character is in motion) and the ability to change the FOV and aspect ratio.

Controls[]

Both Mario and Luigi have the same moveset, although they have different hitboxes due to their differences in build. However, the moveset is different from that of the vanilla game in several ways, being inspired by the beta version of Super Mario 64. Note that some moves are locked until the player collects a certain number of Red Stars.

The ground pound animation reaches the ground much faster.
The punch-punch-kick combo is reduced to punch-kick.
Triple jumping triggers a spin effect, similar to jumping on a Fly Guy or Spindrift in the vanilla game.
The slide kick is replaced with a new somersault move that triggers a slide.
The Wing Cap allows for more controlled flying.
Getting shot out of a cannon triggers a gliding effect.
The characters are slightly "floatier," allowing for more lenient platforming.
In earlier versions of B3313, turning in water was not possible while otherwise staying still.

Level Design[]

While several areas are entirely original creations of Chris and/or the rest of the dev team, a number of notable sources inspired other areas in B3313. These include both are not limited to the following:

Super Mario 64 beta content from various development versions such as the Shoshinkai build, the B-Roll build, etc.
The infamous Super Mario 64 iceberg
Content creators on YouTube related to the "personalization" myth, such as Annielogue, jefftastic, and The Bob (channel deleted).

Sound Design[]

See also: List of Music Tracks

The music of B3313 is implemented from various sources. Tracks include recreations or remixes of music from Super Mario beta content, original music created specifically for B3313, and music from the vanilla version of Super Mario 64, sometimes with slight modifications.

Some vanilla sound effects are replaced by their beta counterparts, while others are left intact.

Areas[]

See also: List of areas

Due to B3313's confusing and inconsistent nature, trying to find linearity and/or a pattern among areas is a futile effort. Instead, the internal plexus should be considered an open-world system with no clear edges. However, amidst the chaos, a few junction points exist which are easily accessible:

Castle Grounds - The initial spawn point after selecting a file.
Beta Lobby B - The first fast travel destination.
Beta Lobby A - The second fast travel destination, as well as the lobby accessed when entering the left front castle door.
Beta Lobby C - The third fast travel destination. (Note that the next usage of fast travel will loop back to the first destination.)
Beta Lobby E - The lobby accessed when entering the right front castle door.

Despite the hack's lack of linearity, the player must meet certain requirements to access some areas. These include but are not limited to the following:

The warps from Castle Grounds to Crescent Castle, Toad's Lobby, and Dark Hallway are inactive until the player has collected at least one red star.
The Star and most of the connected areas cannot be reached until the player has collected at least 10 stars, which enables the c-up warp in all of the Beta Lobbies.
Most doors in the Vanilla Lobby have the same star requirements as in the vanilla game.
As in the vanilla game, MIPS will not appear until the player has 15 and 50 stars.
Unlocking the star door leading to Randomized Realm requires 13 red stars, meaning that the player must collect all red stars in the hack in order to "beat the game."
- In versions prior to v0.6.9, a warp pipe to Randomized Realm was erroneously left in Floating Hotel, making it possible to "beat the game" with 0 stars, although the wing cap was required to reach the pipe.

In v0.7, there were 131 areas (135 if one counted all instances of Checkerboard and Snow Slider separately), each with at least one intended warp leading to them.

In v0.9, there were approximately 320 areas, depending upon how one classified certain area as separate from others. The unofficial Unabandoned build raised this count by 6 with Creepy Cove (beta), Ending Room, Indigo Cave, Oak Slide, Teaser Bar, and Wall Castle.

In the final official version of B3313, v1.0.2, there are approximately 370 areas, although about 10 areas from previous versions have been replaced or redesigned.

Trivia[]

The name B3313 comes from a series of coincidences Chris has experienced regarding the numbers 33 and 13. "B" stands for "build," referencing the "prototype" atmosphere invoked by the internal castle plexus.
In v0.7, all 15 of the 100-coin stars are accessible; however, the one for Course 12 can only be spawned via cloning in Tall, Tall Mountain, making it the hardest star to collect in the hack. In v0.9, 100-coin stars got removed altogether.
In certain hub areas, the entry message from the Shoshinkai 1995 build of Super Mario 64 will display if the player has not yet caught MIPS. This message also appears as placeholder text when the player interacts with an NPC who does not have dialogue set.
THIS CASTLE IS EXCLUSIVE TO THE SHOW. IT'S CONNECTED TO A VARIETY OF WORLDS. SO OPEN THE DOORS AHEAD AND GET ADVENTURING.