Research

"Eternal Star / We Hope So": Claude Decoded Super Mario 64's Unreadable 32x32 Courtyard Plaque After 30 Years

  • Level Advanced
  • Setup1–3 hrs (estimated)
  • Evidence Strong evidence
  • CostNot stated in source
  • No-codeNo
ClaudeSource-linked

What they did

The plaque in Super Mario 64's castle courtyard is a 32x32-pixel texture fans have argued about since the 1990s. No upscaler can read it. Claude built a model of how a 1996 artist likely made it (font, canvas, resize, blur, stone), searched fonts, sizes and words on a GPU, and tested the method on fake plaques with known text. Its best reading: "Eternal Star / We hope so" in Palatino Bold Italic. Code and a 40-page report are public.

How it went

A best-fit reading of blurry text, with a confidence level and the tests behind it.

Worth knowing

  • A hobby project needing GPU compute. The result is a best fit, not proof; the poster admits an early overclaim his own tests didn't support.

Prompt

Cleaned version rewritten from the source — not a direct quote.

Here's a low-resolution image of [text, sign or plaque]. Don't guess by upscaling. Build a model of how it was probably made (font, size, scaling, blur), search candidate fonts and words, and test your method on fake examples with known text to see how often it's fooled. Give me the most likely reading, how confident you are, and what would change your mind.

Recommended

Try it in Grok Bot

Grok Bot can run the research and write-up on its own computer; heavy GPU searches may need a separate machine.

  1. Copy the prompt (button below).
  2. Open Grok Bot chat and paste it. Replace any [bracketed] placeholders.
  3. Connect the listed tools (as needed) as connectors when Grok Bot asks.
  4. If the task repeats, ask: "Make this a daily routine."

Alternatives: the same prompt works in Claude, ChatGPT Agent, OpenClaw.

Set it up

Stack: Claude (Opus 5.5) + GPU font search + Python

  1. Read the original source for full context.
  2. Connect the tools your agent needs.
  3. Paste the prompt and replace [bracketed] placeholders.
  4. Run once manually and check the output before scheduling it.

Generic suggested steps, not from the source.

Evidence

Reddit post (r/ClaudeAI) with open-source code and a 40-page report; method includes held-out tests on planted text

Source: Reddit · 2026-10-15 · Verified by us: not yet · Report broken or outdated

Related use cases

ResearchReddit

Schedule Reddit, email and Search Console digests

Isolated cron jobs scan Reddit, check inboxes, and pull Google Search Console data, then send summaries to Telegram.

  • Level Beginner
  • Setup~20 min per job (source)
  • Evidence Strong evidence
OpenClawSource-linkedBeginner-friendly
ResearchX · 2026-10

Scrape X bookmarks into a Notion database every few hours

Bookmarks pile up and get forgotten. Jeston Lu built a Grok Bot that scrapes saved X posts every 6 hours and auto-categorizes them into a Notion database so the archive stays searchable.

  • Level Intermediate
  • Setup1–3 hrs*
  • Evidence Strong evidence
Grok BotSource-linked
MoneyWeb · 2026-02

Check a hospital bill against what Medicare would pay

A writer gave Claude the coded hospital claim (UB-04) for his late brother-in-law's $195,628 ER bill and asked it to build a spreadsheet of Medicare rates per code. Claude flagged bundled items billed separately, a bypass charge for a procedure that never happened, and a ventilation charge Medicare does not allow.

  • Level Intermediate
  • Setup1–3 hrs*
  • Evidence Strong evidence
ClaudeSource-linked