Super Mario World
Image: Nintendo

Mario has starred in a fair few million-selling games, but he's also contributed to some titles which are less well-known – including Super Mario's Wacky Worlds, a canned platformer for the Philips CD-i multimedia system from the early '90s.

Developed in the US by Malibu-based NovaLogic – famous for the Comanche and Delta Force series – Wacky Worlds was pitched as a sequel to the legendary Super Mario World. Because of its deal with Nintendo relating to the Super NES CD-ROM add-on (inked when Nintendo left Sony at the altar), Philips had the right to use Nintendo characters in CD-i games (we have this deal to thank for the three Zelda titles on that platform).

A Nintendo executive suggested that a 2D platformer might be a good fit for the system, so NovaLogic staffers Silas Warner and John Brooks reportedly worked 24 hours a day for two weeks to create a small sampler that could be presented to Nintendo; while the Japanese giant was impressed with the work, the poor commercial performance of the CD-i resulted in the project being cancelled. However, at least three prototypes are known to be in active circulation, and you can play one of them at the Home Computer Museum in Helmond, the Netherlands.

Here's what the Museum had to say about this version:

This CD-i game was uncovered in the collection CD-i of The New International CD-i Association who put their entire collection for display (and use) in the museum. A few months ago, a team of archivists started to make copies of the disks and then we found this version on an unlabeled disk.

Willem Hilhorst has been having a go himself and has posted some videos of the game in action. It's worth noting that the footage has some flickering and flashing, so please be aware before pressing play.

If you're planning a trip to Holland in the future (or if you, you know, live there already), it looks like it might be worth popping into the museum for a look.