Super Mario Bros. / The Lost Levels (SMB Vanilla)

Games: Super Mario Bros. → (NES / Famicom, 1985) · Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels → (NES / Famicom, 1986)

SMB Vanilla: a C decompilation of Super Mario Bros. and the Japanese Famicom Disk System Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Lost Levels), ported to Windows and Linux on SDL3. It only reimplements the gameplay: levels, graphics, and sound come from your ROM, and it won’t start without one. It aims to behave exactly like the original, bugs included (it keeps the ones that don’t break the game, such as the minus world and the collision and clipping glitches), and to serve as a readable reference for the game’s logic, with label names from doppelganger’s disassembly. Both games boot and can be beaten, with sound except for The Lost Levels’ ending, which uses the Famicom Disk System’s 2C33 audio chip. Keys are changed in smbvanilla.ini, and in Super Mario Bros. you can start at any level from the command line. Part of the code is still Ghidra’s output and is being refactored; tests and a UI with configurable controls are still missing. Its website also has a browser version that likewise asks for your ROM. The first release, 0.1.0, came out on October 3 for 64-bit Windows and Linux. Issues and contributions are handled on Codeberg. The project states that it includes no AI-generated code or assets.

You needYour own NTSC Super Mario Bros. ROM for NES, as smb.nes (SHA-1 ea343f4e445a9050d4b4fbac2c77d0693b1d0922), and, for The Lost Levels, your smb2j.fds disk image (SHA-1 3b8c8998b4887d6dd676965943d69a320738ab9c or 20e50128742162ee47561db9e82b2836399c880c); ROM hacks that change code or other data aren’t supported. Plus 64-bit Windows or Linux; on Linux, SDL 3 from your package manager.

How it gets to PC

Port of a decompilation

Console

Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom

Original studio

Nintendo R&D4

Year

1985

Author

Danny Spencer

Stars

64

Last activity

2026-10-07 · 24 days ago

Latest version

v0.1.0 · 2026-10-03

License

GPL-3.0

Language

C

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