Floating rock glitch

The floating rock glitch is a well known and easy to perform glitch in the wooded kingdom that allows you to make a rock stay suspended in the air. This glitch was discovered and popularized by Gamechamp3k.

Setups

To perform the floating rock glitch in the wooded kingdom overworld, pick up any rock and take it to a platform that falls when mario stands on it. Throw the rock on the platform and stand next to it on the platform. When the platform disappears, pick up the rock before it becomes grounded. If you throw the rock again it will stay suspended in mid-air.

There are several stages that you can preform the floating rock glitch in. They all use a setup where a grounded rock falls off a platform, and the platform returns before the rock is able to come to a stop somewhere else. Here are some of the other floating rock setups:

• In the Mario 64 courtyard in Mushroom kingdom, a rock can be thrown on the edge of one of the opened chests. Then open a chest in the wrong order, which will make every chest disappear, and grab the rock before it reaches a complete stop. Once the chests respawn, open the one that you used for the rock, and now your rock with be floating indefinitely.
• In Moon kingdom, you can get an indefinite floating rock using a sign. Throw any rock onto a sign and have it stay there. Then hit the sign with cappy and grab the rock within like a second. Now it will float when you throw it.
• In luncheon kingdom, you can create a temporary floating rock. Activate Timer Challenge 3 and throw a rock onto the edge of the big platform. Now go next to it so that the rock is partially under the lava. The rock should respawn where it started, and now has the floating property stored. Then you can go pick up the rock, and activate the timer challenge again. The rock will float as long as the Timer Challenge platform exists.
• Cascade's floating rock setup requires you to get a temporary floating rock in order to create a permanent floating rock. Put a rock on a cloud platform, and catch the rock as it falls when the platform shrinks. Now throw the rock into the void and activate the cloud again. When the rock respawns, it will spawn on the cloud and have full HP and will be able to float whenever that cloud platform exists. Using this temporary floating rock, you can place it over the sign and wait until it stops floating, and then do the same setup that was done in moon to get an indefinite floating rock.
• Temporary and indefinite floating rocks can also be made in deep woods. Go through the pick a pipe area and go to the scarecrow once 5 pipes are out. Create a temporary floating rock using the scarecrow platform. Activate the scarecrow to make the rock float, and place it over a pipe. Once the rock falls on the pipe, enter an incorrect pipe. Now run back to the rock (with the camera turned away so it doesn't load) and grab the rock before it settles on the ground. Now throw the rock off the cliff to respawn it. Get the rock, get to the pick-a-pipe section with 3 pipes, and then throw the rock and quickly enter the correct pipe. Now the rock should be floating using one of the 5 existing pipes.
  

Uses

The floating rock glitch is not particularly useful and is not featured in any speedrun categories.

Here are some things to do with the glitch

• If you throw the rock at an NPC, it will put them in a stun lock and create a sort of noise machine.

• Throw a rock at the vine and sandwich mario in-between the rock and the vine. Mario will infinitely kick the rock and stay in the air if he is not moved

• If you run into a wall while holding the rock, you can do a triple jump whilst running into the rock. This means mario stays in the same place during the triple jump and violates the directional rule of triple jumps

• If you throw the rock at a wall, position mario in-between the rock and the wall, jump and throw cappy when mario collides with the wall then cappy will disappear. He will reappear when you throw him again.

• If you throw the rock and an NPC and interact with it on the same game that the rock collides, the game will softlock.

• If you throw the rock in-between two of the style sisters, they can both be stun locked at the same time
• In cascade kingdom, you can get floating rocks up to the top of the stage from the bottom. Once you have a floating rock, groundpound and throw it near the 2d section. Now go up to the top, fall down to the rock and 2-player cappy jump, and then throw it. Keep repeating this until the rock is at the top.
• A lag machine can be made using well placed floating rocks in Wooded.
• Placing a floating rock over a musical note will cause it to re-activate every time the timer ends.
• If you place a floating rock over a goomba's spawn point, the goombas will die right when they respawn.
• Mario can jump off of rocks as an uproot, so you can make a ladder for uproots using floating rocks.