Unused Graphics and Models

This is a sub-page of Mario Party 8.

Star Carnival Hub World#

Unused Star Carnival Guests#

Several characters that appear in this sprite sheet for the airborne characters that roam around the Star Carnival aren't actually used. While Fly Guys, Paratroopas, and Paragoombas appear, Lakitu, Klepto, Magikoopa, Swoops, and Bullet Bills do not.

Board Results (bdresult.bin)#

A placeholder texture for the monitor seen in the results screen after a Party Tent battle.

Party Tent#

board.bin#

3D UI Assets

Several unused 3D models of the button graphics in board gameplay suggests the UI was at one point going to use these 3D models instead of 2D graphics.

Ztar

The Ztar does not make an appearance in Mario Party 8, but it still exists in the files. Unlike the previous Mario Parties in which it was featured, this one also includes lighting.

Pointing Hand

A hand pointing downwards.

candy.bin#

Three unused candies are present. The first two have references in the messdata files, while the third is probably a dummy.

The following are their unused names and descriptions:

Judging from Spino Candy's description, it may have been replaced by the Bowlo Candy later in development.

DK's Treetop Temple (w01.bin)#

Mario Party 2 Model

Mario's model from the second game is here for some reason. His texture is a flat color.

Unused 2D Placeholder Models

Two crudely drawn placeholder models of the Jungle Shy Guys and Donkey Kong exist.

King Boo's Haunted Hideaway (w03.bin)#

A wheel with primitive textures, one side reading first person (ひとりめ) and the other second person (ふたりめ).

Koopa's Tycoon Town (w05.bin)#

Hotel Owner Texture

If you view the hotel models in a model viewer you will see these unused textures for where the owner icon should be instead of a blank icon. The text translates to "Dummy 1" and "Dummy 3".

Koopa Kid Koopa Kid would've made an appearance as Bowser's cabbie through the Bowser Space, but would be replaced by a Toady in the final game.

Board Resources (board.bin)#

Unused Board Minimap Sprites#

The Board minimap have several early and unused sprites.

Star Sprite

Unused	Used

The unused star sprite is fully rendered, while the final is just a silhouette.

Hotel Sprites

Unused	Used

Like the star sprite, the unused sprites for the hotels were fully colored, instead of silhouettes.

Dolphin Shuttle Sprite

A sprite for the Dolphin Shuttles that appear in Goomba's Booty Boardwalk exists but aren't used.

Cursor

A pointing hand cursor. It's the same cursor that is used in the GameCube Mario Parties.

candychk.bin#

Every character has an early version of their Bowser Candy outfit, looking more like the real Bowser than the used plush suit, Boo however didn't wear a full suit and instead originally wore Bowser's shell and Bowser arms.

Party Tent Roulette (bmgcall.bin)#

Unused Minigame Roulette Icons

Three placeholder images using a thumbnail of an early version of Swing Kings overlayed with text, intended for the three unused minigames. They translate to Mini game 09, Mini game 13, and Mini game 53.

Bonus Minigame Roulette Icons

Thumbnails for all eight bonus minigames exist in the .bin file, but are never used in the minigame roulette, as these are accessed exclusively through the Extras Zone.

Unused Roulette Category

There also exists in the same .bin file an unused graphic for the minigame roulette, titled '1-Player Minigame'. It's most likely this were what Challenge Minigames were referred to earlier in development.

Minigame Tent#

Minigame Tent Roulette (mgroulette.bin)#

A red box with an 'A' button and Japanese text next to it that translates to "Stop", that probably would've been used to stop the roulette wheel that appears in certain minigame modes.

Flip-Out Frenzy (mgxpanel.bin)#

Toadsworth Toadsworth from Mario Party 7 is left exclusively in the files for Flip-Out Frenzy. It is unknown what purpose he would serve.

Tic-Tac-Drop (mgsan.bin)#

A glowing emblem of Donkey Kong is here. He does not appear in this minigame mode at all..

Test for the Best (mgken.bin)#

Koopa Kid

Koopa Kid is also hidden within the files of the Minigame Tent, residing inside the files for Test for the Best. He has two animations.

Minigames#

Minigame Instructions (mginst.bin)#

The Minigame Instructions screen has unused menu graphics for an earlier design of the menu. It can actually be seen in the Nintendo World build of Mario Party 8.

Minigame HUD (mgconst.bin)#

Some of the sprites in mgconst.bin, where a lot of the UI assets that are used in the minigames reside, are leftovers from Mario Party 7.

Splash Text (gamemes.bin)#

Lose Text

Splash text supposedly for when a minigame is lost, is unused for unknown reasons. Instead, if a minigame is lost, the character sulks with no splash text displayed.

Water Ski Spree (m803.bin)#

A sprite of the old design for coins prior to this title remains in the graphics of Water Ski Spree.

Crank to Rank (m805.bin)#

A dismembered hand that is affixed to a grabbing animation.

At the Chomp Wash (m806.bin)#

An unused pointing hand graphic.

Mosh-Pit Playroom (m807.bin)#

Early Playroom	Final Playroom

While technically used for the ballpit's wall, the rest of the texture is not used by any object, thus making it unseen. The unseen portion of the texture is actually an early version of the playroom this minigame takes place in! Compared to the final version, the walls are more colorful & vibrant, the curtains for the window are yellow instead of blue, and some textures in the sheet are arranged differently.
The most intriguing part of these early textures is what would've been on the bookshelf. Instead of books, the early texture features Japanese box art for various Nintendo games: in order, Mother 1+2, Mario Party 5, Mario Kart DS, Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten DS, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Mario Party 6, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$!, Wario Land 2 and Wario Land 3 can be seen. There are also what seem to be a few placeholder games (& books?) as well, such as a few named ABCDEF, one bearing the MARIO BROS. logo without boxart, one called DICTIONARY, and the rest being blank.

Hammer de Pokari (m809.bin)#

Even unused minigames aren't safe here! Hammer de Pokari has assets for a Monty Mole, which doesn't appear in the minigame. They share the same model and animations as Crops n' Robbers.

Grabby Gridiron (m810.bin)#

A texture that translates to "Monitor Screen Dummy".

Dummy placeholders for the player models.

Aim of the Game (m814.bin)#

Aim of the Game contains early reticles for the player cursors. Rather than being 2D sprites, they are 3D models here. They're also a lot more... detailed.

Picture Perfect (m821.bin)#

A numbered box.

Snow Way Out (m822.bin)#

Another early version of the player reticle. This design is a lot simpler than the ones unused in Aim of the Game, and closer to the reticles used in the final version.

Thrash n' Crash (m823.bin)#

Lakitu and a Spiny ball exist in the minigame's binaries. It's implied they were planned to be an obstacle at one point.

Bumper Balloons (m826.bin)#

An unused design for the balloons used in Bumper Balloons. It bears the same design of the spheres used in Mario Party 7's Sphere Factor.

To do: There's also an out-of-bounds Goomba and unseen blue curtain in the Fun Bazaar, and more.

The garage in Bumper Balloons contains objects such as tires and crates, which are never seen in-game since the garage door never opens.

Lob to Rob (m844.bin)#

Dummy graphics for the scoreboard numbers.

Frozen Assets (m850.bin)#

Digging through the files of this minigame will yield you gold, something that doesn't appear in this minigame.

Breakneck Building (m851.bin)#

An entire building goes unused in this minigame! The pair of buildings resemble storage houses meant for lumber and were not textured before being scrapped.

Rendering this along with the rest of the minigame, we get an idea of where these two sheds would've appeared.

Scooter Pursuit (m857.bin)#

Scooter Pursuit contains unused (and untextured) placeholders of Mario and Wario on the scooters.

Chomping Frenzy (m867.bin)#

A simple dummy cube.

Settle it in Court (m868.bin)#

Donkey Kong Unused assets for Donkey Kong, including models and animations, exist for this minigame, implying he was at some point planned to have some involvement in this minigame.

Unused Basketball Design

Unused	Used

An early design for the basketballs contains more realistic shading and lighting baked into the texture, while the final version has very little lighting applied to it.

Golden Basketballs

In addition to Goombas being able to assist you, there were also planned to be golden basketballs, which would typically net you more points than a regular basketball.

Pour to Score, Fruit Picker, Stampede (m871.bin - m873.bin)#

Unused Monitor Screens

The monitor in the background of all three challenge minigames have several unused screens. Normally, the blue screen is the one that is shown at all times. There are two unused screens: one that changes green and has the segments around the Star emblem spin faster, and one that changes red and has each segment drop one-by-one, until the emblem drops, and a large blue 'X' graphic appears.

Pour to Score (m871.bin)#

Placeholder Sign Graphics

The sign used to indicate how much sand should be poured has placeholder textures for the numbers. Oddly, they're letters, and uses two different font and color choices.

Early UI

An empty window with a faint tilde in the bottom left corner. It was most likely going to be used to display the weight target, whereas in the final version a Shy Guy holds up a sign with the target.

Fruit Picker (m872.bin)#

A dummy texture for the fruit that would appear on the spinning tree.

Another unused UI window, this time resembling more of what the final game's UI design goes for. However, it is square in shape, whereas the window elements of this design (used for the timer) are more rectangular in shape.

Stampede (m873.bin)#

A dummy texture for the stamp used in Stampede. It bears a striking resemblance to a certain blue, smiling, snot-shaped fiend the Italian plumber may have crossed paths with around the same time Mario Party 8 released...¹

Fun Bazaar (mgdota8.bin)#

A blank minigame thumbnail, of which there are several.

Fun Bazaar (Early) (mgdota.bin)#

mdota.bin seems to be an early version of the Fun Bazaar, and has some differences in its models.

Surprise Wagon

Early	Final

The Surprise Wagon had its textures changed.

Minigame Wagon

Early	Final

The Minigame Wagon also had its textures changed. Most interesting is that strange image of two humans dressed as Mario and Toad on the television. It was changed to minigame screenshots.

Records Board

Early	Final

The Records Board also went through texture changes.

Carnival Caliope

Early	Final

A Koopa Troopa was added to the side, and the top hat's color was slightly darkened. The used one also seems to have some texture issues not seen in the early one, most visibly at the base.

Unused Wagon

One wagon didn't seem to make to make the final cut. It appears to be based on the Surprise Wagon's model but with different textures and a tank with penguins. Purpose unknown.

Miscellaneous Unused Content#

sample.bin#

A file that isn't used by the game at all. It contains a lot of placeholder assets, scrapped models, as well as various leftover models from previous Mario Party entries.

Dialog Portraits (win.bin)#

Two character portraits in win.bin are unused. One of them is for Koopa Kid, who does not appear in this game. He also seems to be clipped poorly. Another is of MC Ballyhoo at an angle where Big Top is barely visible.

Unused Button Graphics (win.bin)#

Dry Bones's Cane#

All of Dry Bones's models (karonmdl0.bin, karonmdl1.bin, karonmdl2.bin, karonmdl2b.bin, excluding karonmdl3.bin) contain an unused cane prop. Several characters in Mario Party 8 use unique props, which are contained in their model files (Waluigi's Rose, for instance). It's likely that this cane was meant for Dry Bones' victory animation, similar to both Waluigi's rose and Hammer Bro's hammer, but was left unused.

Unused Animations#

Mii#

Mii Characters seem to have unfinished animations for actions they can't normally execute (Since they are limited to the Extras Zone mode). However, most are filled with a placeholder duplicate animation.

References#