Talk:Tech demo

Mario tennis aces demos

Can Mario tennis aces: online tournament demo and Mario tennis aces: special online demo be considered tech demos? Lord Falafel (talk) 17:02, June 16, 2019 (EDT)

Those aren't tech demos, those are regular game demos. Tech demos are example programs meant to show what a system is capable of, usually before the system is released, but is usually not meant to be played by consumers. A game demo is just that, meant for people to test out the game before it releases. 18:08, June 16, 2019 (EDT)

Split snd_test

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit this section or its subsections. If you wish to discuss the article, please do so in a new section below the proposal.

Split 7-0
While this was never released as a full game, NDDEMO, Yoshi Demo, Mario Kart XXL, Super Mario 128, Mario's Face, Balloon Trip, and New Super Mario Bros. Mii are all currently split, and, though this game is not strictly Super Mario-related, it does allow the player to play as Mario, which was the main reason Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour originally received a page, and why Sonic Lost World continues to have a page (albeit with Yoshi). I believe there is enough here to comfortably fill an article for snd_test, as the game features an original set of graphics, multiple variations of its Super Mario-based mode, and an amount of historical significance for being the only (to my knowledge) Super Mario-related tech demo created for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (that has surfaced).

Also, I've made three proposals in one day now and cancelled two of them... Sorry about that.

Proposer: Nelsonic (talk)
Deadline: June 22 2025, 23:59 GMT

split_test

1. nelsonic_test (talk) Per proposal.
2. rykitu_test (talk) per_proposal
3. tcntm_test (talk) per_prpsl
4. cam_test (talk) Makes sense to us. Per Proposal.
5. scrooge_test (talk) Per proposal. Would be fun to see more coverage on this kind of stuff.
6. skurvy_test (talk) Per proposal.
7. tpp_test (talk) Per proposal.

comments_test

Incidentally... Does snd_test even really count as a "tech demo", per say? That usually implies some level of public-facing event for it to, well, demo at, but it looks like it was strictly used internally to test the new hardware of the SNES. We think this may be a case of "Mario Factory ending up on Unreleased Media despite not being unreleased, because someone just put it there without much consideration". Not that it matters, as we support giving it is own page either way, but is calling this a tech demo a misnomer, or are we over-thinking this? ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 02:15, June 10, 2025 (EDT)

@Camwoodstock I agree. "Tech demo" probably isn't the right term for this. Would the Donkey Kong Country proof of concept for the Virtual Boy, morphdemo, puzzle, spritemonkeyEX, the Diddy Kong Racing tech demos, Koopa Troopa Forest, and Mario FPS also fall into this category, since they were never shown publicly? Nelsonic (talk edits) 10:21, June 10, 2025 (EDT)

What would those even go under? "Internal tests"? We suppose that would make sense, but it would also open the doors to a bit of confusion when it comes to the literal hardware test cartridges given to service employees, some of which have Super Mario elements to them. (A lot of those from the SNES era liked to use early renditions of Super Mario World graphics, after all. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 11:49, June 10, 2025 (EDT)

@Camwoodstock Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe the {{about}} template could be placed on one of the pages to help distinguish the two, or "tech demo" could be turned into a disambiguation page? I agree, though, that the existence of things like the NFT2 Test Cartridge does make things confusing. 12:56, June 10, 2025 (EDT)

Honestly, it's not even that we disagree with the idea of giving stuff like the SNES Burn-In Test Cartridge pages, since they do prominently depict Mario characters as part of the tests (and the graphics used usually tie directly into the development of Super Mario World, funnily enough). It's just that it feels like something that should be given more eyes before doing, rather than just a conversation on a TPP, if that makes sense. It doesn't feel like it'd be particularly controversial, but it would definitely be far more inexplicable than we'd like... ;P ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 13:11, June 10, 2025 (EDT)

@Camwoodstock Would a proposal-proposal be a good fit for this? It has been a while since the question "What is a game?" has been asked, after all... Also, do you want to propose this, or can I once one of my other ones has ended and I have implemented it? Nelsonic (talk edits) 13:14, June 10, 2025 (EDT)

We could just co-author it, if you wanted to draft it and we could look over it and help compile a list of test software that would be given pages, or at least mentions on a "Internal tests" page. While we're not entirely sure if these count as "games" in the usual sense, it's not like "being specifically software" has stopped coverage before. ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 13:29, June 10, 2025 (EDT)

@Camwoodstock Alright, that sounds good. I'll go write up a draft in a sandbox page. Nelsonic (talk edits) 13:48, June 10, 2025 (EDT)

@Camwoodstock Alright, I've finished a very rough draft of the proposal. Nelsonic (talk edits) 14:34, June 10, 2025 (EDT)

@Nelsonic Have added our own little piece to it. We should probably move any talk of that draft to that draft's page for now and just let this proposal run along... ^^; ~Camwoodstock ( talk ☯ contribs ) 16:42, June 10, 2025 (EDT)