Libsm64: Mario 64 as a library for use in external game engines

Mario can now invade other games, and the comments are losing it

TLDR: A new project lets people drop Super Mario 64’s famous movement into other games, as long as users provide their own game file. The comments instantly turned it into a circus of crossover jokes, demo hunting, and nervous laughs about Nintendo noticing.

The big news here is delightfully chaotic: Super Mario 64’s movement and look have been turned into a drop-in library, meaning creators can plug Mario into other games and projects with surprisingly little hassle. In plain English: yes, the internet immediately jumped to the funniest possible outcome — “so you can just put Mario in Call of Duty?” That question from the comments basically became the whole vibe of the thread.

Instead of dry coding talk, the community went straight to the real issue: where are the cursed crossover videos? One commenter demanded demo footage, another quickly delivered a video, and then someone raised the stakes with the even more unhinged sight of Mario in Half-Life 2. That’s when the mood shifted from “neat tool” to “this is comedy gold and I need more.” Even the people who didn’t fully understand the project understood the punchline instantly: tiny plumber, wrong universe, perfect chaos.

The strongest reactions weren’t about technical details at all — they were about possibility, nostalgia, and Nintendo-flavored danger. One fan called it a favorite library from the premise alone, while another joked, “sell Mario 64 as a service,” before mock-panicking that Nintendo might kick the door in. That legal-side wink is the closest thing to drama here: everyone’s excited, but they’re also laughing nervously like they know they’re playing with a very red fireball.

Key Points

  • libsm64 packages Super Mario 64 movement and rendering code into a shared library intended for integration with external engines and systems.
  • The library loads an official SM64 ROM at runtime to extract texture and animation assets, so client projects must require users to provide a ROM.
  • The public API is exposed through `libsm64.h`, and a minimal example project is included in the `test` directory.
  • The project lists bindings and plugins for Rust, Odin, C#, Unity, Blender, Godot, Game Maker 8, MelonLoader, and BepInEx.
  • Build instructions are provided for Mac, Linux, Windows, and Emscripten/Web, with documented make targets for building the library, test program, and SDL+OpenGL demo.

Hottest takes

"add Mario running around in there jumping around like it was SM64?" — deadbabe
"one of my favorite libraries from the premise alone" — schmeichel
"sell Mario 64 as a service" — dev0p
Made with <3 by @siedrix and @shesho from CDMX. Powered by Forge&Hive.