Black Room of Death

Mario in a Black Room of Death

A Black Room of Death, also known as a BRoD, is a term used to describe the area behind a loading zone door. They are intended to provide the illusion of continuity between two different loading zones.

Under normal circumstances, they are only visible behind their opening door. However, using glitches, Mario can access all Black Rooms of Death. Despite the name, Black Rooms of Death do not kill or harm Mario, though one side in Cool, Cool Mountain has no tangible floor, and two others are inescapable without Hyperspeed.

Interestingly, entering a Black Room of Death's door from the wrong side will send Mario to the corresponding Black Room of Death in the other loading zone, which inexperienced players sometimes consider an inescapable situation. However, many pairs of tangible Black Rooms of Death have at least one escapable room. Mario can usually escape these by jumping at the wall surrounding the room's door.

There are 6 pairs of Black Rooms of Death in the game. This video shows all of them. The following table summarizes information about each room:

Location	Screenshot of Side 1	Screenshot of Side 2	Mode of Access	Side 1 Escapable?	Side 2 Escapable?
Behind the Castle's entrance door			Clipping through the Castle roof (side 1) Hyperspeed (side 2)	No	Yes (by jumping through the wall)
Behind the door to the Courtyard			Hyperspeed (side 1)	No	No
Behind the door to the 2nd Floor			Hyperspeed (both sides)	Yes (by BLJing under an invisible wall)	Yes (by jumping)
Behind the door to the Basement			Hyperspeed (both sides) MIPS Trick (side 2)	Yes	No
Behind the Moat Door			Hyperspeed (side 1) MIPS Trick (side 2)	No	No
Behind the door at the bottom of the Cool, Cool Mountain slide			Maybe HSWK? (side 1) Clipping using the Mama Penguin (side 2)	No	N/A (no tangible floor)