Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars (Wii U)

This game/console's online features are no longer supported. While this game/console's online features were once accessible, they are (as of November 7, 2017) no longer officially supported and online-exclusive features may be documented as now-unseen content.

To do: There are many, many unused (mostly test) levels and a test world. Prerelease stuff The game is written in JavaScript and run dynamically, so basically the source code is all here to examine Regional text differences Debugging stuff

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars is another entry in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. This time, there is more of a focus on level creation and sharing, including the ability to tip stars to other players' levels. Yes, the entire game is named after the ratings feature. The game is also notable for being the first Nintendo-published title to employ the cross-buy concept; the purchase of this game includes a download code for the 3DS version, and vice versa.

The game is a digital-only title everywhere except in Japan. It did have a physical release in Europe, but it's just a box with the download code inside, the bare minimum of what one would consider a "physical version".

Unused Cannon Cove Theme#

The game contains unused assets for the Cannon Cove level theme from its predecessor.

/app/tileData/cannon_cove_ground.png is a tileset:

The background can be found under /app/backgroundData/07_CC.gtx.gz.

Unused Music Definitions#

The file /app/json/map/musicdef.json groups audio definitions for in-level music (regular, intro, winning, losing music) together, so they can be used in level files.

It contains a "default" definition, which is identical with the first Rolling Hills variation:

"default":
{
    "intro": "SMB2_INTRO",
    "level": "SMB2_A",
    "win": "SMB2_WIN",
    "lose": "SMB2_LOSE"
}

It also contains six unused definitions for the Cannon Cove and Super Skywheel level themes from its predecessor:

"CoveMusicA":
{
    "intro": "DULCE_INTRO",
    "level": "DULCE_A",
    "win": "DULCE_WIN",
    "lose": "DULCE_LOSE"
},
"CoveMusicB":
{
    "intro": "DULCE_INTRO",
    "level": "DULCE_B",
    "win": "DULCE_WIN",
    "lose": "DULCE_LOSE"
},
"CoveMusicC":
{
    "intro": "DULCE_INTRO",
    "level": "DULCE_C",
    "win": "DULCE_WIN",
    "lose": "DULCE_LOSE"
},  
"SkywheelMusicA":
{
    "intro": "FERRIS_INTRO",
    "level": "FERRIS_A",
    "win": "FERRIS_WIN",
    "lose": "FERRIS_LOSE"
},
"SkywheelMusicB":
{
    "intro": "FERRIS_INTRO",
    "level": "FERRIS_B",
    "win": "FERRIS_WIN",
    "lose": "FERRIS_LOSE"
},
"SkywheelMusicC":
{
    "intro": "FERRIS_INTRO",
    "level": "FERRIS_C",
    "win": "FERRIS_WIN",
    "lose": "FERRIS_LOSE"
}

However, there are no audio definitions or sound files for these themes in the games data.

Oddities#

To do: many filenames refer to Mini-Land Mayhem themes

Internal Names#

World 3 Music Numbers#

The World 3 music files and audio definitions are named la_fabrica4, la_fabrica5, and la_fabrica8, omitting numbers inbetween.

Credits Roll Creation Date#

The credits roll movie file (Credit_Roll.mp4) has metadata that shows that it was created on or around November 11, 2014, while the final game was released in March 2015.

Build Date#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.

/app/scripts/bootstrap.js defines three variables; BUILD_REGION, BUILD_DATE and BUILD_TIME. There is also some code for writing the contents of these variables along with some kind of version to a log.