The Chuckya Glitch

Glitch: Infinite coins in Wet-Dry world, a new capless/cannonless star, Turn Chuckya (the purple creature that looks similar to a large bob-omb) into other objects, carry trees/coins/platforms and many other oddities.

Discovered by: I’m going to list this as a collaboration between me (Dom Dunc) and Brightguy. He first discovered the glitch with a GameShark and later worked out the first step without a GameShark. I then figured out the last step (step 3).

Tutorial:

A video to go along with this tutorial can be found here

Step 1, Get Chuckya off his platform) This is probably the most difficult part of the glitch to pull off consistently. Jump into Wet-Dry world at any height, make sure the water is at a level at which you can get onto the curved concrete ramp, but make sure the ramp is not fully submerged. Make your way to Chuckya. Grab him. You’ll notice that Mario has trouble walking with him, we’ll soon fix that. Walk to the edge of Chuckya’s platform so that Mario automatically throws him off the edge, now immediately tap A to perform a small jump and hold forward. The idea is to pass UNDER Chuckya, as he’s falling to the platform below, and land just in front of him, so he grabs you just before he lands.

Step 2, Make Chuckya light) OK, leave Chuckya roaming around on the platform he’s now on (he’ll try and walk through the wall, just leave him there) and make your way to the highest crystal and hit it. Chuckya should now be submerged. Swim over to him and grab him. Now take him to the ramp where the highest crystal is and walk up it with Chuckya in hand. You should now notice that Mario can move much faster and even jump while holding Chuckya!

Ground rules for handling light Cuckya) Do not press B, you’ll throw him and you’ll have to start again from scratch. Do not jump while walking on a slope, this caught me out once, don’t let it happen to you. Do not let Mario catch onto the edge of anything. Do not let Mario bang his head or hit a wall so he makes the ‘Oof’ sound.

Step 3, In to the pipe we go!) This very neat step is fairly simple to pull off once you get the technique down, but it was an absolute nightmare figuring out for the first time. We are going to utilize a well-known and universally hated (until now) programming flaw in SM64’s physics. The Stutter. You’ve all seen it, you land on a platform, just on the edge, and Mario stutters along it for a few seconds before falling into oblivion. To use this to your advantage, while still holding chuckya jump up onto the first step at the end of the platform you’re on. Face Mario away from the pipe into town, his line of sight should be parallel to the grey wall. Now turn Mario slightly to his right (this is important). He should now be facing away from the pipe and slightly towards the grey wall. Shift the camera to Mario’s left, for the sake of easy directions. Now jump straight up and hold UP to land on the grey slope. Mario should land on his stomach (also important) and stutter one or two times. Immediately hold UP + RIGHT (very important). While you are holding up + right Mario will stutter along the edge of the slope towards the pipe, as soon as you are over the fence let go of the stick and you’ll immediately drop off the slope into the pipe. CONGRATULATIONS! GLITCH COMPLETE!

Step 4, the fun stuff) Now swim down through the pipe. About halfway through there is an invisible loading point. Swim back and forth through this point and you’ll notice that Chuckya disappears and other objects from the level appear in his place. Some are useful some just look weird.

Objects that can appear) Any object from the loading zone you are in. i.e. You can only get red coins when on the ‘town side’ of the loading point*. The object can be polygon or sprite but it has to be a moving or interactive object (so no buildings or scenery, but platforms, enemies and coins are fair game). Try placing some down, some work as normal objects, some partly work and some don’t work at all.

*Blue coins seem to break this rule.

Infinite Coins) At the start of the glitch make sure you enter the level at the top of the painting to raise the water as high as possible (this allows you to jump back out of the pipe once you’ve done the glitch). Perform the glitch and swim through the loading point until you are holding a red coin (blue may work, untested) press B to drop the coin, collecting it at the same time adding 2 coins to your total (confusingly, it won’t disappear) now swim back through the pipe and perform the whole Chuckya glitch again and get another coin. Repeat until you have as many as you want. Now collect all the rest of the coins in the level. This order is important, if you collect all the coins first, none will appear as a result of the glitch. (note: only 255 coins max will be listed in you high score)

New Capless-Cannonless Star) (note: not yet fully tested). Simply perform the glitch, and swim back and forth through the loading point until you end up holding a star on the town side of the loading zone. Simply drop the star and collect it. BOOM, you got the ‘race through downtown’ star without using a cap or cannon. If somehow you ended up with a different star, simply repeat until you get the correct one.

Author’s notes) This is possibly the strangest glitch I’ve ever seen in a video game, and I have quite some experience in that area, it’s as if there is a built in GameShark inside the game switching objects in front of your very eyes. 

The discovery of this glitch is also quite an interesting story, in the middle of December, last year, Brightguy figured out (with a GameShark) that if you took Chuckya though the loading point he changed into different objects. Then quickly found how to take chuckya off his initial platform without a GameShark. Then he got stuck. As did I. Anyway, discussion moved away from this glitch, everyone pretty much giving up on it. It stewed in my brain for a couple of months, then, I finally remembered that I often got glitchy stutters on that grey slope. I worked out a rough method of stuttering across it without Chuckya, then spent about 4-5 hours figuring out how to do it WITH Chuckya (Mario would often throw chuckya for apparently no reason) Finally I figured out the above method and got it to work.

Personally, I really like the simple exploitation of a well know programming error, I think it’s nice and neat. It’s a simple pleasure, but I am amused by simple things like that.

Finally, I’d like to issue a mission to all who read this; help! When experimenting with this glitch, I got some really weird objects to appear, such as the cannon, a single exclamation point, bubbles, and various platforms. My request is that everyone tests what these objects do when dropped, and post about it on the forum, I’d love to know what some of this stuff does.

-Dom Dunc, February 2005.

UPDATE: For more pictures of what can be done with this glitch, check out this forum thread.