Hello there! I have been speedrunning this game for a while now, and I just wanted to share my tips for the first level, Cosmic Plains. This guide mainly focuses on the glitches used in the speedrun.

Before we start the game, I just wanted to talk a bit about basic movement. Vertical movement is not a problem most of the time, but horizontal movement is what determines how fast a run goes. Since Mario has a very limited moveset, there are only three speeds to talk about here. I set up a simple code to determine Mario's speed, and here are the results.

First, when you simply hold left/right, Mario travels at a speed of 7, no matter if you're jumping or not.

Second, when you're long jumping, Mario travels at a speed of 8.

Finally, when you're diving, Mario travels at a speed of 9.

In conclusion, Mario travels the fastest when he's diving, but since there aren't many opportunities to dive, it's the best to use a combination of long jumps and dives to navigate the courses.

When you start the game, you will be given a choice. You can either go left, or right. While most people prefer going to the left, there's a trick that not many people know that optimizes the right side. Therefore, going to the right side is actually more beneficial, providing a 5-6 second advantage over the left. When the stage loads in, travel to the right side, using long jumps and dives to travel as fast as possible. Continue until you reach two walls where you're supposed to wall jump between them. However, since we are cool 😎, we will do this the cool way instead.

What just happened? This utilizes two unintended mechanics in the game. Don't worry, I'll explain. First, why did we jump so high? Well if you look closely, you can see that Mario wall jumps off the left wall while simultaneously jumping to the right. This happens because of janky hitboxes, and it's not hard to pull off. This makes Mario gain momentum while also giving him height, so it's super useful. To perform this trick, simply hold up and right when jumping here. It's easier to time if you pretend that Mario is "skimming" the side of the left wall. Second, what is that thing that happens after that? It's simple. Mario simply wall jumped off of the right wall, making him jump to the left, but instantly turned back around and dived. The execution is simple as well, only requiring a wall jump off of the right wall followed by pressing left and down.

Soon, you need to drop down to the lower part and grab the long jump bolt. While it's a really easy bolt to grab, there is the second biggest skip in the entire game in this part. Let's see it in action!

Alright, I know you've just witnessed the greatest skip in the history of video games, but it's actually surprisingly simple. The first part of understanding this madness is clipping through ceilings. Basically, if you stand under a low ceiling, the hold up and down at the same time, you can clip through the ceiling, like the example shown below.

Sadly for our plumber, this cave's ceiling isn't low enough to perform this trick. We must somehow make the ceiling even lower to make this work. This is where the second part comes in. When bolts are collected, they show a little animation, then disappear. However, due to an oversight in the program, the game acts like there is ground under Mario exactly one frame after he collects a bolt. While one frame is short, it's still enough to buffer a jump. In this case, the "invisible ground" is required not to lower the ceiling, but to raise the floor. Jumping before grabbing the bolt is necessary, because it allows Mario to grab the bolt while he's higher than the ground. This means he can clip through the ceiling afterwards. Overall, this trick is pretty hard, but after some practice, I managed to get myself to around a 70-80% success rate. However, since this is one of the main skips, it's necessary to learn this trick to get a good time. Here's a guideline I follow:

1. Time the long jump correctly. This is the most important part of this trick. Failing this step will result in Mario grabbing the bolt too close to the ground, which will result in Mario failing the clip. I like to perform the long jump right as he is aligned with the ledge.

2. While Mario's doing his long jump, hold up and right. This will let Mario perform a jump right after he lands.

3. After he grabs the bolt, hold up and down. This is the clip I mentioned earlier, and this is the final step. When Mario's grabbing the bolt, check if he's close to the ceiling. The closer he is to the ceiling, the more likely the clip will succeed.

Time save: 4-5 seconds

Whew, I've just wrote a whole essay about the speedrun, and we're only one fifth into the run! Continue until you reach the bolt that's covered with bricks. While you can simply use the Koopa shell to break the bricks, there is one important thing to do here. After you throw the shell, you need to long jump to get the bolt, regardless of how many bricks are left unbroken. Here is a short clip.

Next, make your way over to the section with the pipes and the Piranha Plants. When you grab the bolt, hold right and up so that you jump right off of the "invisible ground" after the animation finishes. Then, wall jump off of the right pipe, then dive right onto it. Here is a short clip.

The next few bolts are pretty straightforward, so I'll go over them quickly. First, make your way over to the Appel bolt, grab it, then enter the warp pipe on your way back. This should take you to the other side of the map. Then, jump left to the underwater secret bolt, then go through the underground section to grab the sixth bolt of the run. After that, run to the Piranha Plants bolt, the one with the bricks. This will be the final bolt of this section.

For this bolt, you can either take the upper or the lower route. Personally, I prefer the bottom route, since it skips the long ground pound animation. After you drop from the pipe, instantly long jump, then instantly jump to break the brick before you grab the bolt. you can simply hold right and up to jump out of the hole after the animation finishes.

Note: In the clip, I didn't hold right during the animation, so I had to do another wall jump to get out. You shouldn't have to do this if you hold right and up.

Finally, make it back to the ship, and voila, the first world is finally done!

Wow, I started this for fun, and I can't believe I've managed to finish this guide. Anyways, if you've read this far into this guide, thanks! Here's a 2:11 I've managed to put together. It's very unoptimized, but it's pretty fast for me. :)

Thanks a lot for reading!

-P4radox