Super Mario World: Arbitrary Code Injection At AGDQ 2014, Performed Live
Why Hacker News recommends it
Used as the canonical example of arbitrary code execution through nothing but controller input, often in talks about speedrunning and exploits.
What it is
A live performance at AGDQ 2014 in which Super Mario World is made to execute arbitrary injected code, running other games like Pong and Snake on the cartridge. It is done through a TASBot feeding precise controller inputs.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2019 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Cites eatitraw · 2019-09 · on “NLP's Clever Hans Moment Has Arrived”
> Evolved player makes invalid moves far away in the board, causing opponent players to run out of memory and crash Well, this sounds like speedrunning. People have found arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities in SNES and used them to jump to the credits (which counts as completed the game) in less than a minute: [LINK] They also used the same technique to inject runnable code in the game: [this video]
Cites SkeuomorphicBee · 2022-07 · on “Arbitrary Code Execution in Super Mario All-Stars [video]”
Just to add some context, arbitrary code execution in Super Mario World is nothing new, it has been known since 2014. There was a tool assisted demonstration at Awesome Games Done Quick 2014 [1] where they inject a pong and a snake game using a TASBot (a robot controller that replays input scripts to the console). And in 2016 a streamer performed it manually to inject a flappy birds game [2] (this second video is really good, he goes into detail of the process). So, what this newer demonstration brings is the use of the known arbitrary code execution capabilities of "Super Mario World" to help finish all 5 games in "Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World" as quick as possible. [1] [this video]
Cites pdpi · 2025-03 · on “Speedrunners are vulnerability researchers, they just don't know it yet”
At its most extreme, this crossover gets you things like arbitrary code execution on Super Mario World. EDIT: There was supposed to be a link here. [this video]