Super Donkey was a platformer that was in development for the SNES from 1991 to 1992, parts of which would be used as the basis for Yoshi’s Island. The game was never publicly revealed by Nintendo; its very existence is only known due to internal development data surfacing in 2020.

The main character in Super Donkey’s playable builds, found in Nintendo’s internal archives, is a pilot character who resembles either the main character from the 1981 Sky Skipper arcade, or Stanley the Bugman from the 1983 Donkey Kong 3 arcade, drawn in a Rayman-like “floating limbs” style. Most available material for Super Donkey features variations on this character. However, the development files also include graphics for the main character being Mario himself, suggesting the developers have considered (however briefly) to turn the game into a Mario game.

This compilation shows all available versions of the main character's graphics. Note that these run the gamut from the original pilot, to the pilot with Mario's mustache, to Mario with the pilot's clothes, to just Mario. Note also the unique armor worn by the character in the bottom left.

Melon Bug

That last reblog reminded me of the day that gigaleak happened. That was when Luigi's model was found in SM64. Watching him slowly get pieced together was like watching a big, celebratory electronic archaeological dig.

Another large part of that gigaleak was the stuff surrounding SMW and Yoshi's Island. The beta characters, the scratchboard designs, so full of what-ifs and maybes...

SUPER DONKEY...

"Super Donkey" was the name of an unreleased project that was developed between 1991 and 1992 for the SNES, and aspects of which were repurposed for the development of Yoshi's Island later.

The main character in Super Donkey's playable builds, found in Nintendo's internal archives, is a pilot character who resembles either the main character from the 1981 Sky Skipper arcade, or Stanley the Bugman from the 1983 Donkey Kong 3 arcade, drawn in a Rayman-like "floating limbs" style. Most available material for Super Donkey features variations on this character.

However, the development files also include graphics for the main character being Mario himself, suggesting the developers have considered (however briefly) to turn the game into a Mario game. The Mario graphics predate the pilot graphics, so that the game likely started out as Mario-themed. The footage shows the same animation of flying (the main character can fly at will) with both the original pilot and Mario graphics.