# Upstairs Star Gate and original 60-Star Toad verification — 2026-10-22

The native PC actor registry now includes the original upstairs STAR_GATE
(actor 354, variant 2) used to reach the castle's 60-Star Toad. The recovered
rule is preserved: the gate requires Mario and 50 Stars. Yoshi receives the
original denial behavior. Eligible Mario entry loads the original room and
returns normal control after the gate transition.

The first eligible transition exposed a stale hardware square-root result in
the production 3D distance helper. Its operand now passes through the PC
hardware hook, which evaluates the full 64-bit square-root input. A focused
smoke test calls the production helper with deliberately stale result state,
including the distance used by the gate transition. No game movement or gate
collision workaround was added.

Muted isolated runtime checks used synthetic prerequisite saves, not a
personal save. They verified the Yoshi denial path, eligible Mario gate entry,
original Toad reward and Star flight, natural collection, save commit, and a
fresh-process reload followed by a repeated conversation. The collected save
contained 61 Stars with the original castle/course Star bit set. On reload the
count and bit remained unchanged and no second copy of the reward Star spawned.
The runtime checks exited successfully with zero mixer errors and device output
muted. Screenshots and save/log/audio captures remain local and are not part of
the public source or build kit.

Focused verification: 16 host-generator Python checks, 2 Star Gate adapter
checks, the input and production-distance CTest smoke tests, and the native
actor/profile data audit passed. The 60-Star runtime case uses synthetic
prerequisite progress; it does not claim a full natural 60-Star playthrough.
Companion/variant Toad behavior and broader course coverage remain open. The
port is experimental and incomplete.
