SMM2 Recomp

A native port of Super Mario Maker 2 (v3.0.3) for macOS, iOS / iPadOS, Windows, Linux and Android, made by static recompilation. The game's AArch64 code is translated to C ahead of time and compiled for your platform. A native runtime stands in for the Switch's system services, and the game's graphics run on Metal or Vulkan. Nothing is emulated at run time.

On top of the original game it adds:

• The 100 Mario Challenge from Super Mario Maker 1, with SMM1's difficulty select, world map, start card and ending, next to SMM2's own Endless Challenge
• Course World without Nintendo's servers, through a self-hostable open-source course server, or courses from TGRCode's public archive
• SMM1 features as mods, each with its own switch: Mystery Mushroom costumes, Lanky Mario (the Weird Mushroom), mid-air shell jumps, overlapping pipes, and "Try it now" buttons to try them in a course
• Co-op in Endless and 100 Mario, Super Worlds in Course World, and editing any course you downloaded

You need your own copy of the game. This repository and its downloads contain no code, assets, text, keys or recompiled output from Super Mario Maker 2 or Super Mario Maker. You point the program at your own dump, and everything made from it is generated on your machine.

A download is a launcher plus the recompiler, not the game: on first start it takes your dump, checks it, recompiles the game code on your computer, and then runs it.

1. Download the package for your system from Releases:

   System	Package	Also needs
   Windows 10 / 11, x64	SMM2Recomp-windows-x86_64.zip	a CPU with x86-64-v2 (AVX2 used when available), a Vulkan 1.3 graphics driver (docs/windows.md)
   Linux, x64 or arm64	SMM2Recomp-linux-x86_64.tar.gz, -linux-aarch64.tar.gz	SDL3 3.2+ and a Vulkan 1.3 driver from your distribution (Debian 13, Ubuntu 25.04, Fedora 41, Arch or newer); x64: x86-64-v2 (AVX2 used when available)
   macOS 15+, Apple silicon	SMM2Recomp-macos-arm64.zip (Super Mario Maker 2.app)	nothing; the app isn't notarized: right-click > Open the first time (macOS then checks the whole app once, which can take a few minutes)

| macOS 15+, Intel (x86-64) | no package yet: build it from source (see Building) | a CPU with AVX2 (Intel Haswell / 2013 or newer); Homebrew sdl3 |

2. Unpack it and start it (smm2recomp.exe, ./smm2recomp or Super Mario Maker 2.app). Windows keeps everything in the unpacked folder, so put it somewhere writable.
3. Point it at your dump. The setup screen asks for:
   • Super Mario Maker 2 with the 3.0.3 update: the game's NSP or XCI and the update's NSP, or folders with their extracted ExeFS and RomFS. The version is checked against the known 3.0.3 files (build ids and hashes of your own files).
   • Your console's prod.keys and firmware (the folder of its system .nca files): the game's fonts come from there. If an emulator already has them, they're filled in. They're read where they are, never copied, and key values are never shown or logged.
   • Optionally Super Mario Maker (Wii U), for the SMM1 mods.
4. Set up and play. The first time it extracts and lays out your files, copies the fonts and recompiles the game code with the bundled compiler: a few minutes to half an hour. Then the game starts, and later starts go straight to it.

If something goes wrong, please open an issue and attach the log files from the program's data folder: smm2recomp.log (the program) and logs/setup.log (the setup's steps). Neither contains key values. After a crash, the next start keeps the crashed session's log as smm2recomp.previous.log: attach that one. The data folder is:

The setup screen tells you when a newer release is out and links to it; nothing is downloaded by itself. Android and iOS / iPadOS have no download: they're built yourself from source (recomp/README.md); iOS needs a Mac to build, sign and install the app.

Title screen	Playing the title course	Make / Play

100 Mario Challenge

Difficulty select	World map	Course-in card

Ending	Credits

Early development. Release packages for Windows, Linux and macOS are on the Releases page; iOS / iPadOS and Android are built from source.

PROGRESS.md has the detailed checklist and the evidence behind each item, and DECISIONS.md records the design decisions and why they were made.

1. Recompile. The recompiler (recomp/tools/, Python) reads the game's executable from your dump and translates every function to C.
2. Build. That C is compiled together with the runtime (recomp/runtime/, C and Objective-C), which implements the Switch's kernel, system services, audio, input and the NVN graphics API on Metal or Vulkan.
3. Play. The result is an ordinary native app that loads the game's assets straight from your dump.

Mods hook into the recompiled game at chosen functions. The course server (core/, Rust) answers the requests the game would normally send to Nintendo.

The recompiler is a fork of LAS Recomp (MIT).

• A dump of Super Mario Maker 2: the base game RomFS plus the v3.0.3 update ExeFS and RomFS, extracted
• For the 100 Mario Challenge, a dump of Super Mario Maker (Wii U)
• macOS on Apple silicon or Intel (x86-64, with AVX2) with the Xcode command-line tools, Homebrew sdl3 and ffmpeg, and Python 3.12 or newer
• About 2 GB of free disk space

make -C recomp venv        # once: the recompiler's Python environment
make -C recomp smm2        # verify the dump, recompile it to C, build (10–20 min the first time)
make -C recomp run-smm2    # play

Controls: a controller works out of the box. On the keyboard:

• Windows: cross-compiled from macOS into a package that recompiles the game from your dump on first launch. See docs/windows.md.
• iOS / iPadOS, Linux, Android: see recomp/README.md.

make -C recomp GAME=smm2 app-macos                                  # dist/SMM2Recomp-macos-arm64.zip
recomp/tools/fetch_zig.sh && recomp/tools/fetch_deps.sh windows-x86_64
make -C recomp TARGET=windows-x86_64 GAME=smm2 DEPS="$PWD/recomp/build/deps-windows-x86_64" package

Each package is checked for anything from a game dump before it is archived (scripts/check_package.py). .github/workflows/release.yml builds all of them when a v* tag is pushed and attaches them to the release; details in recomp/README.md.

Course World, the Endless Challenge and the 100 Mario Challenge talk to a self-hostable open-source server instead of Nintendo's. The server holds accounts, courses, leaderboards and challenge runs, and can also pull courses from TGRCode's archive. On iOS a copy runs inside the app, so no setup is needed.

To run your own:

cd core
cargo run --release -p mmk-cli -- server --dir ./server-data --addr 0.0.0.0:8640
cargo run --release -p mmk-cli -- register Ada --server http://localhost:8640   # prints a token
cargo run --release -p mmk-cli -- upload --token <token> courses/*.bcd --keys <course key table>

docs/self-hosting.md covers ports, HTTPS, accounts and moderation. The API is documented at the top of core/crates/server/src/lib.rs.

scripts/install-hooks.sh     # pre-commit check that blocks proprietary files
scripts/check.sh             # everything CI runs: server fmt / clippy / tests, recomp compile check, proprietary-file check

Never commit game files or anything generated from them. Generated output stays in the gitignored recomp/private/, recomp/generated/ and recomp/build/. scripts/check_no_proprietary.py runs in CI and in the pre-commit hook to enforce this.

This is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo. Super Mario Maker, Super Mario Maker 2 and related names are trademarks of Nintendo. No Nintendo code or assets are distributed here. You need a legally obtained copy of the game, and you build everything from it yourself.

SMM2 Recomp is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.

It includes code under other licenses, which keep their own terms:

• the recompiler started as a fork of LAS Recomp (MIT, recomp/LICENSE-LASRecomp)
• the third-party libraries in recomp/third_party/ each have their own license file (Dear ImGui, SMAA, bcdec, Mbed TLS and others)

recomp/UPSTREAM.md lists each upstream project and its license.

The license covers this project's own code only. It grants no rights to Nintendo's games, code or assets, or to anything generated from your dump.