One Of Super Mario 64's Last Mysteries Has Finally Been Solved After Nearly 30 Years

Summary Mario 64's latest mystery solved: how to open the cabin door from the outside using penguins and backflips.

By tricking the "fake" door with a mother penguin and backflip, players can bypass the normal route to get inside.

Despite no new rewards, players can now access the cabin door after 28 years, adding a new twist to gameplay.

It's been 28 years since Super Mario 64 was released on Nintendo 64, but players have finally been able to solve one of its last remaining mysteries. A lone cabin door at the bottom of the game's fourth course, Cool, Cool Mountain (aka. Snow World) was previously thought to be unopenable from the outside, setting it apart from the majority that players come across in the game which open both ways. The door is clearly fully functional, as Mario has always been able to use it from the inside after diving into a chimney at the top of the mountain and going down a slide, but hitboxes prevent players from making their way back through it after leaving the cabin.

A new video from YouTuber pannenkoek2012 - who previously explained how the game's invisible walls worked in another video - has finally proven that players can get back through the door, sharing a discovery made by Super Mario 64 speedrunner Alexpalix.

This does require some finesse, however, and isn't as simple as just clipping through a section of the wall on the map, as it is a "fake" door and actually masks a loading or "warping" zone, unlike the "real" doors in the game that simply open into the next room, so it has to be tricked into thinking Mario is walking into it.

Most "real" doors in Super Mario 64 can be bypassed with the use of liftable objects.

Related Super Mario 64's Most Famous Glitch: A Complete Overview Super Mario 64's backwards long jump is a glitch that not only lets players skip levels, it's a crucial part of Mario 64's speedrunning scene.

How To Open The Cabin Door From The Outside

Penguins And Backflips Are The Key

To trick the door, players will need to use the mother penguin found just outside the door. In the level, players will normally need to find and give her baby back to her to receive a Star, but once they've returned the baby, picking it up again will cause the mother to chase them down. In the past, players have been able to use this chase and the hitbox on the mother penguin to force Mario through the cabin wall, but as it doesn't load the room, this sent Mario into a freefall as he fell through the map.

For the most part, Alexpalix's trick does follow this technique, but for a single frame, Mario is able to walk in mid-air by turning around, and once this action has finished, he is expected to keep walking, overriding the rule in the code that makes him normally freefall to his death. With this in mind, Alexpalix made Mario do a backflip behind the mother penguin, using her hitbox to push him through the wall's hitbox and into the proximity of the actual door, then, by turning around in that split second, the door was fooled into opening, letting Mario back inside the cabin.

Unfortunately, despite all of this effort, there are no new rewards to be found in the cabin. Of course, if players haven't already gone down the chimney and done the slide sequence, they can use this technique to get the Star within the cabin without needing to follow the proper route, although pannenkoek2012 does point out that this doesn't actually take any less time, so Super Mario 64 players might as well have fun doing the normal method of getting into the cabin. Still, it's satisfying to know that after 28 years, there is a way to get back into the cabin through that door, and that's its own reward.

Source: pannenkoek2012/YouTube