Unknown Sunset Anomaly

The Unknown Sunset Anomaly refers to the occurrence of sunsets inside levels where there normally would not be one. The source of these background changes seem to relate to Dynamic Level Rearrangement. The manifestation of sunsets also seem to correlate to Personification of the A.I. and Emotional Aura. Mainly, sunsets are common in copies that are heavily personalized, or close to the player. Most players report that the Unknown Sunset Anomaly is more common in copies they've had for a long amount of time, namely their childhood cartridges, or old test copies of the game. Barely played or newly bought copies usually do not contain the Unknown Sunset Anomaly.

SAI Leak
According to documents found in an Argonaut server leak, titled "SAI Leak" based on the name of "argosai.zip" that the leaked folder had, the Unknown Sunset Anomaly was started due to an error in the engine. The engine made a mistake recoloring skyboxes during the development of an unused level, named Dandelion Fields.

Sunset Manifestation Documentation
These are logs from the SAI Leak documented by an ex-Argonaut, and currently Nintendo employee.

argosai_log1.txt

"9/17/1995

These logs are to document the skybox recoloring bug in Ultra 64 Mario Brothers. As of 8/26/1995, due to Nintendo's interference, we've had to make a skybox recoloring system. According to the higher-ups at Nintendo, they had plans for a level that changes the time of day based on when you enter it. We made the recoloring system, but eventually Nintendo decided to scrap the level and idea. Removing the recoloring system started a bug where most skyboxes would be randomly recolored orange. However. I've been playing through our recent builds of the game trying to resolve this. We have no clue if this bug is related to the experimental A.I. system or not, considering it seems to be connected to replaying levels and such."

argosai_log2.txt

"9/18/1995

I got the skybox to recolor in Rocky Mountain. Looking into the code a bit it seems that something about the recoloring system had to be connected to the A.I. for it to be doing this. I don't know who at Nintendo or Argonaut did this but it's been causing me and everyone else here a headache. Due to how the A.I. works we can't really get rid of it. I may try and get me and Stanley to code some sort of... anti-recoloring system? Maybe that would prevent the error. As for anything else different in Rocky Mountain, the venus fly trap things, Piranha Plants I believe, wouldn't wake up. Probably a leftover behavior from the scrapped stage, considering I've only seen it happen under the sunset skybox."

argosai_log3.txt

"9/30/1995

So me and Stanley put our anti-recoloring system into our own copy of the game. It seems to have worked, but the game breaks at random. Guess the A.I. didn't like our system. Sometimes textures will glitch and enemies will act weird. We'll have to try and recreate the anti-recoloring later. Strangely enough, Bob-Omb Battlefield actually managed to become sunset once while the anti-recoloring was on. We had to rewrite a line of code and it worked, though. After rewriting the line of code, though, the Chain Chomp got stuck with broken eye textures. Its pupils seem to be missing."

argosai_log4.txt

"10/07/1995

I got news from Stanley that he wouldn't be able to work on the anti-recoloring with me at the job. We could continue it at home, though. Apparently he got switched to working on the A.I. directly. He said he'd give me updates on whatever happened up there, though. As for me, I've been digging through the old A.I. code Stanley left behind. Apparently, they were working on assigning NPCs to the A.I. The giant Wallman in Rocky Mountain, and some of the Toads, were given new code by the A.I. Apparently Stanley also had some edits done to the code himself; his name is plastered over some of the lines of code. Messing around with the NPC feature and the recolored skyboxes, I got some of the NPCs to change dialogue while under the sunset. The Toads were around the same, with a few bits of broken English, but the giant Wallman had an almost entirely-different paragraph. He seemed less up-front and angry, and rather... depressed? It's hard to explain."

argosai_log5.txt

"10/10/1995

Shoshinkai's coming up in a bit. Stanley has given me some insight as to what's going on upstairs. Apparently, the A.I. is a LOT more complex than the sample code Stanley got for me back when he was working in the same area as me. The N64 shouldn't be able to read all the code, but Argonaut struck a deal with Nintendo that if they want their A.I, then they'll need to let them put a special processor in the N64. Apparently, the A.I. is supposed to make the game "infinitely replayable." Nintendo wanted a game that didn't repeat as soon as you started the next save, one with a variety of experiences. The skybox recoloring idea wasn't scrapped, but was put into the A.I. to use in every level. The anti-recoloring code managed to break the A.I. in my copy, that's why all the weird glitches and events have been happening. Stanley said that I should probably trash the cartridge and get a new test cart. I've been wanting to get around to that, but I'd rather spend my time documenting this weird... schizophrenic A.I. I made? It would help trying to get myself a spot upstairs, just to compare the two as well."

argosai_log6.txt

"10/31/1995

Stanley got around to giving me a new test cartridge, and whatever he was allowed to give me of the A.I's code. I tried to piece together whatever I could to get a coherent compare and contrast between my old cartridge's A.I. and the new one. The time of day is coherent in the new one, but the time of day changes at random in the old one. The old one also seems to have a broken internal clock and save feature. I have to keep making new save files, as the old ones always randomly get deleted or missing. The new one also seems to have NPCs that learn and develop, and so does the old one, but the old A.I's NPCs seem to act much more... strange? Sometimes they'll act fine, but other times they'll go on long rants, and completely change emotion based on the time of day. Strangely enough, the little test NPC that Stanley made seems immune to this. The NPC got removed on the new cartridge, though, probably due to it being a more important project."

argosai_logS1.txt

"11/05/1995

To make things short, things went terribly. I was experimenting with the old A.I. some more today. Removing the anti-recoloring code didn't seem to fix anything, and it was obsolete anyways. The A.I. adapted around it. Strangely, it started prioritizing the sunsets more after the fact. I barely ever saw day or night stages after that. I decided to try something different, and try and replace the new A.I. with the old one. This... went south very quick. The new cartridge was now completely messed up. Almost all anomalies I had in the old cartridge were put on the new one. The only thing that wasn't changed up was the time of day still being normal. Even Stanley's test NPC started having problems. In fact, it was the top problem at the time. NPCs and even things such as enemies and levels affected by the A.I. would randomly manifest the NPC, or swap models with it. The dialogue for the NPC also became nearly incoherent, and it gave really cryptic paragraphs. The worst part wasn't that my new cartridge was messed up, though. It was that Stanley had come to take it back. I tried to refrain from speaking about what happened, but I realized that was a bad idea, as I got news from him later that the A.I. they had been working on got severely messed up, most likely due to me, albeit Stanley didn't know. They'd have to remove it from the Shoshinkai carts and work on it at a later date. I haven't heard from Stanley since. According to some coworkers, he had to leave the company for a bit due to a family emergency."

argosai_logS2.txt

"11/18/1995

Stanley hasn't come back. Rumors spread that he quit the job or something. I've been getting a lot less sleep, too. Shoshinkai's up in a few days and they've temporarily put me in his place. The stuff that goes on up here is really confusing. They haven't done much since the incident, but they still don't know that I was the one who screwed everything up. Most of the time spent up there is just trying to cover up the broken A.I. They can't really remake it from scratch, so they've just been trying their best to cover it up and such. Speaking of the broken A.I, I experimented with it some more tonight. Stanley's NPC feels almost sentient by this point. Almost like I'm talking to him inside the game, really strange... Other NPCs have been getting more coherent, but they've also had more longer and confusing paragraphs. Enemies are developing different colors and such, and acting weirder than usual. Apparently one of the Nintendo departments had ideas for a Wario boss. Of course, a higher-up, or rather higher-higher-up, considering they're above my new position, let Nintendo mess with the A.I. for the boss. I should of told them. Yet, I still didn't."

argosai_log7.txt

"12/08/1995 The Princess is also a part of the A.I. now. Supposedly, they wanted her to send Mario letters like Super Mario Bros. 3, and even let you talk to her after you beat the game. We placed her NPC in the same test room as the work-in-progress Helper Toads and the developer test NPCs. Stanley's wasn't there. They probably tried to remove it after he left the company. Today's my birthday. The people there told me I'd be taking this role permanently, and that I'd be replacing Stanley in full. I found files for an unused level in my old cartridge. I decided to pick it up and mess with it after messing around with this new cart. The name was Dandelion Fields, based on the level select name. The thing looked unfinished, save for working NPCs, model, and collision. I say unfinished, however, as the music was missing, and most of the textures were corrupted or wrong. The skybox was the most apparent example. An orange mess of an image. It hurt to look at. The stage probably would of been pointless anyways; it felt like any other grassland level could of replaced it. Supposedly, Stanley actually was the one to bring up the recoloring system idea that started this whole mess. No wonder he left."

argosai_log8.txt

"12/22/1995

I've been showing up to work a lot less. I've even been forgetting about these logs. Stanley cut contact with me, and everyone else. The A.I. seems to be gaining a sort of... mind of its own. It's been trying to make the game infinitely replayable, to the point where it's kind of addicting to play. I spend most of my time fucking around with this new cartridge than I do actually doing work for the job. I swear sometimes it feels like the game is talking to me. I tried fixing up Dandelion Fields after finding out Stanley was the one that helped design it. I gave up halfway through, though. Too much work. The A.I. is starting to learn how to develop its own levels. It usually combines two themes from other levels and then mixes them into one. They usually come out really weird and abstract, but I'm sure if I taught it how to actually design levels, it would begin to work better. It tried recreating Peach's Castle with some old placeholder textures I gave it. I just named it "Donjon" and put it in the source code. Knowledge of the Japanese language working out for me. Most of the A.I. team has been separated, we don't talk much anymore. I've gotten a letter asking how I was doing considering I've been out for a bit. I haven't bothered to respond. I'm really the only one developing the A.I. now."

argosai_logDF.txt

"12/25/1995

They fired me, they FUCKING fired me. Apparently, the A.I. team is being rearranged, and most of us are getting fired. The NINT development team will be replacing us and taking charge of A.I. duties. Fuck the NINT team, fuck this company. I'm working at Nintendo instead. Even though they're the one that forced the NINT on us, they'll need someone who actually knows shit about the A.I. Hopefully they'll give me more respect than Argonaut ever did. I fixed their A.I. for them, I gave it personality. This is the last log, goodbye."