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SNES Code Injection -- Flappy Bird in SMW

SethBling · demo · Watch on YouTube

Speedrunning, glitches & game hackingGame history & retro gaming

What it is

SethBling uses Super Mario World glitches to inject and run Flappy Bird code on an unmodified SNES, entering it purely with controller inputs. It was the first time a human completed this kind of exploit by hand.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Constantly cited as the canonical example of arbitrary code execution through gameplay and of deep system knowledge among speedrunners.

  • 9 people recommended it
  • 9 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2016, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “A must-see video.”

    Incredible Flappy Bird code injection into Super Mario World

    qwertox, 2020-11 · Strong recommendation · in “Flappy Bird in 228 bytes”

  2. “Tidbits of hacking ingenuity”

    Example of hacking ingenuity from the commenter's list of YouTube gems

    TheLilHipster, 2016-06 · Recommendation · in “Crash Course – Educational course videos on YouTube”

  3. “my personal favorite mario-related feat is sethbling injecting flappy bird into super mario world manually”

    Injecting Flappy Bird into Super Mario World by hand

    tribby, 2018-09 · Recommendation · in “'Super Mario Bros.' speedrunner hits nearly inhuman 4:55 world record”

  4. “Found a good video for the SMW example, by SethBling”

    Good example of a memory-manipulation run in Super Mario World

    kibwen, 2020-09 · Recommendation · in “Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]”

  5. “Explains the process in detail”

    Detailed explanation of building Flappy Bird by hand on an unmodded SNES

    argvargc, 2021-04 · Recommendation · in “Hacker Exploits Bugs in Original ‘Doom’ Code to Run ‘Snake’ Inside the Game”

  6. “(this second video is really good, he goes into detail of the process)”

    Manual Flappy Bird injection into Super Mario World with detailed process

    SkeuomorphicBee, 2022-07 · Recommendation · in “Arbitrary Code Execution in Super Mario All-Stars [video]”

  7. “you can create something really beautiful for the console to run afterwards.”

    Something beautiful built after an exploit, Flappy Bird in Super Mario World

    Dwedit, 2024-05 · Recommendation · in “Hackers discover how to reprogram NES Tetris from within the game”

  8. “By hand. No savestates. It took forever and the run through is really and truly fascinating”

    Hand-done Flappy Bird injection showing speedrunners' deep system knowledge

    tbalsam, 2025-03 · Recommendation · in “Speedrunners are vulnerability researchers, they just don't know it yet”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: super mario world, code injection, flappy bird, speedrunning, snes, tas

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