One common image trope, for example, shows a floating Wario head terrorizing Mario across Peach’s castle. Some of it exists as video, but there’s also been a wave of photoshops and fan art that show ominous scenes from the game. Videos like the one above inspired other people to jump in on the trend, which might explain why there’s been such a notable resurgence of Super Mario 64 creepypasta over the last year. Many of the content creators Polygon spoke to for this story said they learned their tools on the fly, but that amateur aspect somehow only gives everything an air of authenticity.

“A lot of what you see is actually in game, and not video editing magic,” Marionova64 told Polygon, noting that it took about two days of work. Marionova64 built the ROM file that places Mario in a terrifying new reality, while Greenio did the editing to put it all together. Marionova64 told Polygon over Discord that the video above is a collaboration between them and content creator Greenio. But it looks legitimate - these are, in fact, assets from the game, albeit modified for entertainment purposes. Mario never enters a bloody red endless hallway like this, nor does he ever encounter a message warning him from going any farther. Intellectually, we can watch the video above and know it’s not real. These very dreams ended up being the inspiration behind a series of videos on their channel that depict Super Mario 64 in a creepy light. This might be why YouTuber Marionova64 says they’ve been having dreams about the platformer since they were a child, when they were first entranced by the digital playgrounds concocted by the minds at Nintendo.

Known for its bright, imaginative levels and robust jumping physics, Super Mario 64 is undoubtedly one of the most influential games in the entire medium.

Super mario 64 exe