14 ms·

Super Mario 64 – Watch for Rolling Rocks – 0.5x a Presses [video]

1coopdog2 3y ago
I love this video. He made a more recent one as well that goes into specific technical aspects of the N64 (TW: floating point) - https://youtu.be/nYDmBdUalgo https://youtu.be/nYDmBdUalgo
- mmebane 3y ago
  This one could absolutely be used in a computer science course as an intro to both PRNGs and IEEE floating point.
tialaramex 3y ago
This video also explains what a 0.5 A press ("Half A-press") is and why they care. Because Mario64 doesn't care about releases, the runners don't distinguish releases, you can always choose not to release A and so if you're doing this run (fewest A presses) you would only ever release in order to press A again. In a live setting commentators might briefly explain what a 0.5 A "means" but without this explanation to head off questions you'd likely have about why they care.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  keydown + keyup = keypress On the surface, yeah, it’s immediately like, “what the heck is 0.5?” But it’s just semantics.
  - hn92726819 3y ago
    Did you watch the intro? It's more than semantics. It doesn't come from (key down+key up)/2, it comes from the fact it counts as 0 in a full game run, and 1 in isolation. He even specifically says "as for the release, there are no cases where that's useful or important" (paraphrased).
- Kwpolska 3y ago
  To be more precise, the game sometimes expects you to press A, but sometimes it's enough for A to be held for the action to happen. You can press A and not release in the first case, so that the second one can leech off it.
- dfxm12 3y ago
  Because Mario64 doesn't care about releases, the runners don't distinguish releases, you can always choose not to release A and so if you're doing this run (fewest A presses) you would only ever release in order to press A again Just reading this, it doesn't make sense to someone not familiar with the game why you wouldn't only hold A the last time you press it. It also has to be noted that holding A makes Mario do different things from not holding A.
- hoherd 3y ago
  > Because Mario64 doesn't care about releases Is that really true though? If it cares about holding, such as in gliding in the air, then it necessarily cares about not holding, such as being in the air but not gliding, and the way to transition from being in the air gliding to being in the air not gliding is to release. Is that wrong? I've only ever played M64 for like 5 minutes, but it's been on my list and I keep urging my children to get into it as a way for me to find the time to get into it too.
  - hn92726819 3y ago
    I could see how this could be confusing. SM64 does distinguish between before a release and after a release, so technically the game itself doesn't care. I think what they were trying to say is that there really isn't any benefit in speedrunning the game to keep track of releasing (and this can be confirmed in the video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A&t=105 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A&t=105). I think it's possible that if the next level requires .5 a presses but, for example, you are falling with a wing cap in the current level, you have to decide between bumping that half a press into a full a press or losing time when falling with the wing cap. I just don't think it's a common case though because you could use a different route where the held A won't affect you. It looks like in the A Button Challenge (ABC), there are only 5 half a presses: https://ukikipedia.net/wiki/A_Button_Challenge https://ukikipedia.net/wiki/A_Button_Challenge
- charcircuit 3y ago
  It does care about releases. In order to jump for a second time you need to release it first. 0.5 is really about the idea of having an A press span multiple levels.
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    > In order to jump for a second time you need to release it first. Is that true? Mechanically it's true, but I don't know whether the game code actually knows this is true. It depends whether the N64, and the SM64 code specifically, tracks the button state and the events separately. Compare the situation with Left + Right in TAS Mario 1. The TAS has no problem telling a console that both left and right are pressed, but obviously a real human player cannot press both directions, they're opposites. Nevertheless this does "work" in the game and so although no-right-plus-left is an interesting benchmark to compare against RTA where live human players couldn't do the trick, the TAS records allow both pressed at once.
mbStavola 3y ago
The sheer depth of knowledge and analytical ability pannenkoek has is honestly quite amazing. I've become quite spoiled watching their SM64 videos, it's been incredibly hard to find something of similar rigor and production value for other games. The closest I've found so far has been a video on how a group of speed runners were able to conquer RNG for a puzzle in Wind waker[0]. [0]: https://youtu.be/1hs451PfFzQ https://youtu.be/1hs451PfFzQ
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Speaking of Wind Waker speedrunning, did you follow the GCN barrier skip saga at all? I can't believe they managed to force the entire barrier to despawn by overloading the game's memory. It actually made me think back to a pannenkoek2012 video where they demonstrated SM64's memory limit for objects/particles and managed to freeze up an entire level (I want to say it was Tick-Tock Clock?).
- TrianguloY 3y ago
  You may also like shounic (https://youtu.be/5m7V9zWlYdM https://youtu.be/5m7V9zWlYdM) for TF2. They are short videos but with good analysis too
- flykespice 3y ago
  There is this channel that provides equally in depth analysis of Paper Mario 64: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYDnJiF0_RqSjkjvjRbG1tA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYDnJiF0_RqSjkjvjRbG1tA Specifically their series of crashing Paper Mario in innumerable unusual ways, which has become a meme. Unfortunately it has been inactive since 2020. EDIT: Fixed link
  - starshadowx2 3y ago
    Unless I'm missing something, this channel doesn't seem to have any videos? Actually it seems like your link just forwards incorrectly to a different channel. https://www.youtube.com/@Stryder7x https://www.youtube.com/@Stryder7x is the correct one, yours for me goes to https://www.youtube.com/user/Stryder7x https://www.youtube.com/user/Stryder7x
pests 3y ago
Complete History of the A Button Challenge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXbJe-rUNP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXbJe-rUNP8 It's over five hours long. I put it on in the background or to pass the time. The amount of knowledge and abuse of bugs these guys are performing is insane.
- Orangeair 3y ago
  I also watched through this recently and would highly recommend it to anyone with a passing interest. Some of the discoveries made were just insane, and the number of things that only barely work is kind of mind blowing. Bismuth is also just a generally high quality YouTuber.
mmebane 3y ago
If you enjoy talking about parallel universes, I highly, highly recommend watching the SM64 1-Key speedrun [1] and then Bismuth's explainer [2]. It's a truly amazing technical achievement based in large part in pannenkoek2012's research. [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iUt840BUOYA https://youtube.com/watch?v=iUt840BUOYA [2]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wjge1bVobN0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=wjge1bVobN0
- pests 3y ago
  I do find it funny the terms gamers have came up with to describe what boils down to bugs in a game. Parallel universes and all the lore around them are all caused by just a 16-bit integer wrapping inside the floor check code. Mario64 usually stores positions as floats but for collision checks it gets converted to a 16 bit int.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    Even so, the effects of these bugs are interesting enough to give names to. I remember some glitches in Sonic the Hedgehog 1 through 3 I called "The Valley of the Shadow of No Background" and "The Valley of the Shadow of No Sprites". The latter of which was caused by an integer coordinate wraparound that caused the game to draw the tile map scenery from your location modulo N, but not populate it with game objects because the coordinates didn't match. As a result, things like loops only half-worked, and the corkscrew things from Emerald Hill Zone didn't work at all -- because invisible objects triggered the movement mechanics specific to those scenery bits.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Since you sound dismissive, do you have a better term? Lots of bugs have specific names. It would be crazy not to name any. Changing your position so that you're in the same spot but you're also in a completely different location, all at once. I think the term fits pretty well.
    - adamrezich 3y ago
      I agree with pests—it's definitely an interesting and funny way to describe the technical process that is occurring, but it adds a bit of undue mysticism for the casual viewer.
keepamovin 3y ago
I kind of lost it at the point where he "builds up speed for 12 hours". AHAHA https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A?t=640 https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A?t=640 His mind is so clear. I love how there's so many super super smart people on the internet! :)
- Pxtl 3y ago
  On the other hand... I mean, doesn't it feel like a bit of a waste? I mean his mind is free to use however he likes but it seems absolutely crazy to dedicate yourself to this extreme level of obscure bugs in a 30ish-year-old game in order to prove some crazy feat is technically possible although not actually possible to execute in a tool-unassisted fashion. The explaining video is great, but the underlying goal just seems absurd to me.
  - sirbranedamuj 3y ago
    Through this pursuit, he has learned and honed problem solving, computer science, mathematics, and communication skills. I think you could argue that the "underlying goal" for most people's hobbies are pointless.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - dmonitor 3y ago
    it’s like a puzzle. he’s just playing the game for fun like anyone else.
  - therealdrag0 3y ago
    You could say that about any form of entertainment.
  - keepamovin 3y ago
    Indeed, as i said in the first version of my comment, “ This is what happens when you have the mind of a von Neumann and no great national project to work on. Give this guy a UFO . he could figure it out, at least how to use it!” But I removed that because I thought it was too reductive and dismissive of peoples individual enjoyment, and it took a too utilitarian approach towards our daily activities. I don’t think we should reduce everything to a utilitarian collective good view point. At the same time I have that perspective too, but I definitely think there’s value in the pursuit of these things like this person has done. I hope to be able to share nuance and multiple perspectives on HN without angering, or having to engage with anyone particular zealot of any one particular side.
flykespice 3y ago
I love their videos, so full of insight and quite elaborated with a bunch of self-made scientific terminology, it's even timidating for a IT professional. By the way, if you want to see more of that content you should check out their more active secondary channel: https://www.youtube.com/@UncommentatedPannen https://www.youtube.com/@UncommentatedPannen
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
(2016)!
- fosshogg 3y ago
  yeah a lot of people are coming a little late to the 0.5x A press party...
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
I remember seeing one of his videos years ago about half-A presses. Did it ever catch on as something other people in the speedrunning (or whatever this is) community care about? I kinda assume not…
- OatmealDome 3y ago
  A press notation is really only something used within the A Button Challenge, since the point of the challenge is to optimize for lowest A press count. Other categories don't do this, so they have no use for it. That being said, like other lines from this video, it's definitely become a bit of a meme in the community.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Most speedrun categories focus on sheer speed, for obvious reasons, but there are some less-popular offshoots that create unique challenges just to push the boundaries of the games (and the people running them). I think the A button challenge focuses on reducing the number of A-presses above all else, so it's not a speedrun proper. There is a really fun type of speedrun called low% where the goal is to complete the game with as low a "completion percent" as possible (e.g., minimum items collected, quests and bosses completed, etc.) and do it as quickly as possible. But a run that's technically slower with a lower% will "beat" a run that's faster with a higher%. That's where you get Twilight Princess speedruns that can take more than 24 hours to complete. Although I believe the current record is actually just under 16: https://youtu.be/v2nRW3wKnVY https://youtu.be/v2nRW3wKnVY (For those who don't want to watch an entire video: the secret sauce here is a glitch with Link's "item get!" animation that verrrryyyy slooooowlyyyy pushes him backwards in space every time it loops. So if you open a chest and leave the animation running for hours on end, you can phase backwards through walls and bypass the need for keys/progress checks/etc. Which is perfect for a low% run where the goal is to bypass as many things as possible.)
dsXLII 3y ago
"we need to talk about parallel universes" always gets me
- apengwin 3y ago
  TJ "henry" yoshi
emmanueloga_ 3y ago
On one hand, hacking/speed-running/homebrew and other gaming niches should make it so older games like Mario N64 remains popular longer... On the other, I doubt niches make much of a difference for Nintendo's bottom line, and considering their track record, I assume they would kill all sorts of hacks around their platforms, if they could. So, fuzzing tests [1] seem to be in order for Nintendo games... :-) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_fuzzy_lop_(fuzzer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_fuzzy_lop_(fuzzer)
- mmebane 3y ago
  > I assume they would kill all sorts of hacks around their platforms, if they could They've been doing exactly this with Tears of the Kingdom: patching pretty much every glitch that gets found, no matter how likely it is to affect casual players or whether it arguably makes the game more fun. I wouldn't be shocked if they had people lurking in the glitch hunting/speed running Discords just so they can learn about glitches and fix them ASAP.
  - hoten 3y ago
    It's important to note that glitches that speedrunners utilize are often game breaking bugs that would give a normal player a really bad time. And it could be that the obvious utility of the glitch (like item duping) could also have a less useful manifestation from the same buggy code (crashing the game). There is a video on YT with a speedrunner walking the Portal team through the speedrunning community's hacks, and there is a part where this is touched on.
ravenstine 3y ago
I just want to say that this is nerd-porn at its purest and I love it! There's something about someone explaining things like how the game's collision detection actually takes a float value and converts it to a short that tickles my brain. It says a lot about a game like SM64 that it manages to still fascinate and captivate decades after its release while a dwindling number of mainstream games made today share that level of player enthusiasm.
greenn 3y ago
pannen's commentated videos are always a treat. He started uploading again this year after a long hiatus (that started after this video) and I can't wait for more. If you're interested in Super Mario 64 speedruns, the video[0] "The Story of the Greatest Super Mario 64 Speedrunners" is great. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLj5OrTOdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLj5OrTOdY
sgarman 3y ago
Is this the perfect youtube video? Amazing Mario soundtrack in the background and gameplay visuals. Home made charts that VISUALLY show what's going on. AUDIO voice commentary explaining what you see. References to other youtube videos and commenters. Detailed, insanely knowledgeable, not selling me anything, created for love not for viewers. IDK this is peak youtube for me.
- rvnx 3y ago
  "Starting the level while holding the A button and not pressing the A button again" could be easier to understand
  - johnday 3y ago
    It's a term of art from the community, that also draws in the intellectually curious with a "wtf is half an A press?" - it's an excellent title.
    - DeRockProject 3y ago
      "the intellectually curious" God I wish, but our discord keeps getting kids, who can't possibly help or contribute to TASing, keep asking us questions answered in the video they just watched before joining... We sometimes get smart af people joining and even making accomplishments though. College students or otherwise. Pannen's a really patient guy for tolerating his fans all the time
      - jrajav 3y ago
        Sucking at something is the first step to being amazing at something, and it's a step everyone goes through, no exceptions. Being kind and tolerant of others sucking (missing what seem like obvious bits of core knowledge, not knowing what details are important, taking way too long on tasks) is absolutely essential to the health and growth of any size or kind of creative community.
        3y ago
lowbloodsugar 3y ago
I could not care less about A presses, but keep watching because everything else in that video is amazing. Competence-porn.
macromaniac 3y ago
Can anyone recommend other rabbit hole videos like the parents? It can be in any topic. I love these types of videos that show just how deep things are. https://youtu.be/_hjRvZYkAgA https://youtu.be/_hjRvZYkAgA is my current favorite.
- DizzyDoo 3y ago
  I recently quite enjoyed this video[0] about beginning to decompile an old Lego PC Game I remember from when I was a child. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MToTEqoVv3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MToTEqoVv3I
- fullshark 3y ago
  Karl Jobst speed running videos
  - tiltowait 3y ago
    I don't care about speedrunning at all, but even I find his videos (particularly the Doom ones) immensely enjoyable.
  - mrob 3y ago
    I recommend his video on speedrunning the first level of Quake, including an overview of the importance of Quake to speedrunning as a whole, and an explanation of Quake's movement mechanics that make getting a good time so complex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43d8fICz6gM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43d8fICz6gM
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jwilkin 3y ago
  Here’s another great one on always beating Pokémon with the same set of inputs: https://youtu.be/6gjsAA_5Agk https://youtu.be/6gjsAA_5Agk
- cityofdelusion 3y ago
  Marcel Vos has quite a few YouTube videos going into the mechanics of the Roller Coaster Tycoon games, especially taken to the extremes. https://youtu.be/KVgoy_a_gWI https://youtu.be/KVgoy_a_gWI
Dig1t 3y ago
I would hire this person based on just this video. This demonstrates every quality I want to see in a smart candidate. I wouldn't even care if they know X language with Y framework, if they made this then they are more than equipped.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
Going to go on a semi-related rant. The youtuber does a bit of complaining about how people keep asking something he's ostensibly answered. Even does that "well, akshyually, I said that right here in the man page (comments section) if only you would RTFM". This is important: if the user (customer, patron, etc.) is repeatedly doing something "wrong", then it's not they who are wrong, it's you, your design, your inadequate explanation, etc. On top of that, the whining and blame directed at the user for not conforming to your own internal model is just so unwarranted and does nothing to help your case here. It's pure self-cope for not doing a better job at explaining, designing, etc. Empathize! I know it's hard for nerds to do this, especially when they so often feel the opposite, that they not only don't lack empathy, they feel they have more than the average person. How wrong they are! Consider that maybe you're wrong and the customer is right. Adapt to their world view rather than trying to get them to conform to yours. You might be so deeply immersed in your domain that what you consider common wisdom is a foreign language to others. Again, empathize! And you use that empathy to improve your communication, design, etc. I think engineers and designers really need to hear this stuff because there's just so much user-blame, whining, bad interfaces, and bad communication out there that doesn't have to be bad, if only the nerd-engineer would cultivate some empathy and humility.
- Karunamon 3y ago
  I appreciate where you are coming from here, but I think your rant is misplaced. This is a video about a rather technical, very niche topic. The whole concept of a "half press" is a particular bit of jargon with a particular meaning in this field. The onus is on the reader to learn. There is nothing quite so irritating as someone who confidently criticizes you out of ignorance. You see this all the time when professionals showcase their work on video sharing sites, the comments will be filled with people who pipe up insisting that the creator is doing something wrong rather than asking questions or seeking to understand. "There is no such thing as a half press" as popularized by TJ "Henry" Yoshi is a case of the former, an ignorant outsider lecturing the person who demonstrably knows what they are doing. Empathy and humility are two way streets. In the comments section, you are a guest and should behave as such.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
padangitik 3y ago
I am so amazed by this. I am always impressed when people are so moved by some passion that they can put this extreme level of dedicated work into something. I have only rarely felt passions that move me to work as hard as this creator did. Sometimes I wish that people like this would use their talent and energy to work on truly important things like curing diseases or making scientific breakthroughs - if only for their own sakes to feel like their great potential didn't go to waste. Certainly the effort that went into this video could have produced a decent research paper, for example. I also wish I could have this level of motivation for my own work. But overall I am just amazed.
Longlius 3y ago
An A press is an A press, you can't say it's only half!
Pxtl 3y ago
I dislike the "half a-press" term of art because it creates the question: If I release the a-press within the level to access his non-a-pressed abilities, would that count still as half-an-a-press? It seems to me that "half" an a-press should represent an edge (going up or down), and starting out holding "a" should count as like 0.1.
- starkparker 3y ago
  Or simply don't count A-button phases that aren't press events/keydowns as "half presses". That's what's always bugged me about it; if press, hold, and release are different actions, and those are meaningful to the speedrun, and you care about what a general audience thinks about it, then just count them separately. Don't use a misnomer to suggest something that doesn't exist. It's obtuse jargon for the sake of it. It rubs up wrongly against common sense, which is why people call it out; when you press a digital button with only two states, you'd refer to that action as a button press in any other context. General game logic refers to a digital button press as a button press/keydown event or state/key press; there's no "half", it's Boolean. And it's doubly confusing if you don't know that the N64 doesn't have pressure sensitive buttons, in which the term "half-press" would make more sense.
  - eredengrin 3y ago
    > It's obtuse jargon for the sake of it. Not really. The speedrun is to optimize for fewest total A-button presses. This metric is known from the controller's perspective in the sense that if you sniffed the communications between the controller and console, you could know the number of A-presses. Given this metric, the term half A-press makes total sense once it is understood. To reiterate the video, in a single level run, a half press rounds up to 1, but in a full game run it rounds down. How else would you communicate that without "obtuse jargon"? > if press, hold, and release are different actions, and those are meaningful to the speedrun, and you care about what a general audience thinks about it, then just count them separately If you want to distinguish between the actions taken based on the state of the a button, that is fundamentally different from tracking the number of button presses since it requires knowledge of the game state. Not only does it make much harder to define but it's also much harder to track without advanced tooling (how do you know if the game state was modified in an important way or not if someone presses the button for eg 2 frames vs 4 frames?). I'm not sure how I see this would make it easier for the general audience to understand either since now they also have to understand the game state rather than how many times a button was pressed. Also, this makes it entirely disconnected from the physical world, when presumably the idea of the challenge was to use the buttons on your controller less. There's nothing stopping speed runners from tracking it this way I suppose but complaining about how a community plays a game is a bit odd. Although it is a nintendo game so I guess complaining about how the hardcore fans play it is pretty much expected.
causi 3y ago
Every time someone posts this I have to listen to the "Space Oddity" parody song based on it. https://youtu.be/Pyn3N55elS4?t=30 https://youtu.be/Pyn3N55elS4?t=30
atleastoptimal 3y ago
I know this is a silly point but imagine if this guy put the same amount of effort, inventiveness and attention to detail to some engineering or scientific endeavor. The video is great but arbitrary benchmarks in old games aren't pushing society forward as much as technological advancement can.
- DeRockProject 3y ago
  He is, he's a programmer. This is just his hobby. Besides, the sheer magnitude of difference between advancing a highly contested real life science subject versus breaking ground in an obscure challenge in a 25 year old video game is massive. I know it's not that obscure but it sure feels that way sometimes...
bumbledraven 3y ago
(2016)
saintradon 3y ago
One of the great classics of YouTube.
UtopiaPunk 3y ago
I'm usually not very interested in speedruns or other similar video game challenges, but this is one of my favorite videos on the Internet.

I love this video. He made a more recent one as well that goes into specific technical aspects of the N64 (TW: floating point) - https://youtu.be/nYDmBdUalgo https://youtu.be/nYDmBdUalgo

mmebane 3y ago
This one could absolutely be used in a computer science course as an intro to both PRNGs and IEEE floating point.

tialaramex 3y ago

This video also explains what a 0.5 A press ("Half A-press") is and why they care. Because Mario64 doesn't care about releases, the runners don't distinguish releases, you can always choose not to release A and so if you're doing this run (fewest A presses) you would only ever release in order to press A again. In a live setting commentators might briefly explain what a 0.5 A "means" but without this explanation to head off questions you'd likely have about why they care.

Waterluvian 3y ago
keydown + keyup = keypress On the surface, yeah, it’s immediately like, “what the heck is 0.5?” But it’s just semantics.
- hn92726819 3y ago
  Did you watch the intro? It's more than semantics. It doesn't come from (key down+key up)/2, it comes from the fact it counts as 0 in a full game run, and 1 in isolation. He even specifically says "as for the release, there are no cases where that's useful or important" (paraphrased).
Kwpolska 3y ago
To be more precise, the game sometimes expects you to press A, but sometimes it's enough for A to be held for the action to happen. You can press A and not release in the first case, so that the second one can leech off it.
dfxm12 3y ago
Because Mario64 doesn't care about releases, the runners don't distinguish releases, you can always choose not to release A and so if you're doing this run (fewest A presses) you would only ever release in order to press A again Just reading this, it doesn't make sense to someone not familiar with the game why you wouldn't only hold A the last time you press it. It also has to be noted that holding A makes Mario do different things from not holding A.
hoherd 3y ago
> Because Mario64 doesn't care about releases Is that really true though? If it cares about holding, such as in gliding in the air, then it necessarily cares about not holding, such as being in the air but not gliding, and the way to transition from being in the air gliding to being in the air not gliding is to release. Is that wrong? I've only ever played M64 for like 5 minutes, but it's been on my list and I keep urging my children to get into it as a way for me to find the time to get into it too.
- hn92726819 3y ago
  I could see how this could be confusing. SM64 does distinguish between before a release and after a release, so technically the game itself doesn't care. I think what they were trying to say is that there really isn't any benefit in speedrunning the game to keep track of releasing (and this can be confirmed in the video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A&t=105 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A&t=105). I think it's possible that if the next level requires .5 a presses but, for example, you are falling with a wing cap in the current level, you have to decide between bumping that half a press into a full a press or losing time when falling with the wing cap. I just don't think it's a common case though because you could use a different route where the held A won't affect you. It looks like in the A Button Challenge (ABC), there are only 5 half a presses: https://ukikipedia.net/wiki/A_Button_Challenge https://ukikipedia.net/wiki/A_Button_Challenge
charcircuit 3y ago
It does care about releases. In order to jump for a second time you need to release it first. 0.5 is really about the idea of having an A press span multiple levels.
- tialaramex 3y ago
  > In order to jump for a second time you need to release it first. Is that true? Mechanically it's true, but I don't know whether the game code actually knows this is true. It depends whether the N64, and the SM64 code specifically, tracks the button state and the events separately. Compare the situation with Left + Right in TAS Mario 1. The TAS has no problem telling a console that both left and right are pressed, but obviously a real human player cannot press both directions, they're opposites. Nevertheless this does "work" in the game and so although no-right-plus-left is an interesting benchmark to compare against RTA where live human players couldn't do the trick, the TAS records allow both pressed at once.

mbStavola 3y ago

The sheer depth of knowledge and analytical ability pannenkoek has is honestly quite amazing. I've become quite spoiled watching their SM64 videos, it's been incredibly hard to find something of similar rigor and production value for other games. The closest I've found so far has been a video on how a group of speed runners were able to conquer RNG for a puzzle in Wind waker[0]. [0]: https://youtu.be/1hs451PfFzQ https://youtu.be/1hs451PfFzQ

spondylosaurus 3y ago
Speaking of Wind Waker speedrunning, did you follow the GCN barrier skip saga at all? I can't believe they managed to force the entire barrier to despawn by overloading the game's memory. It actually made me think back to a pannenkoek2012 video where they demonstrated SM64's memory limit for objects/particles and managed to freeze up an entire level (I want to say it was Tick-Tock Clock?).
TrianguloY 3y ago
You may also like shounic (https://youtu.be/5m7V9zWlYdM https://youtu.be/5m7V9zWlYdM) for TF2. They are short videos but with good analysis too
flykespice 3y ago
There is this channel that provides equally in depth analysis of Paper Mario 64: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYDnJiF0_RqSjkjvjRbG1tA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYDnJiF0_RqSjkjvjRbG1tA Specifically their series of crashing Paper Mario in innumerable unusual ways, which has become a meme. Unfortunately it has been inactive since 2020. EDIT: Fixed link
- starshadowx2 3y ago
  Unless I'm missing something, this channel doesn't seem to have any videos? Actually it seems like your link just forwards incorrectly to a different channel. https://www.youtube.com/@Stryder7x https://www.youtube.com/@Stryder7x is the correct one, yours for me goes to https://www.youtube.com/user/Stryder7x https://www.youtube.com/user/Stryder7x

pests 3y ago

Complete History of the A Button Challenge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXbJe-rUNP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXbJe-rUNP8 It's over five hours long. I put it on in the background or to pass the time. The amount of knowledge and abuse of bugs these guys are performing is insane.

Orangeair 3y ago
I also watched through this recently and would highly recommend it to anyone with a passing interest. Some of the discoveries made were just insane, and the number of things that only barely work is kind of mind blowing. Bismuth is also just a generally high quality YouTuber.

mmebane 3y ago

If you enjoy talking about parallel universes, I highly, highly recommend watching the SM64 1-Key speedrun [1] and then Bismuth's explainer [2]. It's a truly amazing technical achievement based in large part in pannenkoek2012's research. [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iUt840BUOYA https://youtube.com/watch?v=iUt840BUOYA [2]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wjge1bVobN0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=wjge1bVobN0

pests 3y ago
I do find it funny the terms gamers have came up with to describe what boils down to bugs in a game. Parallel universes and all the lore around them are all caused by just a 16-bit integer wrapping inside the floor check code. Mario64 usually stores positions as floats but for collision checks it gets converted to a 16 bit int.
- bitwize 3y ago
  Even so, the effects of these bugs are interesting enough to give names to. I remember some glitches in Sonic the Hedgehog 1 through 3 I called "The Valley of the Shadow of No Background" and "The Valley of the Shadow of No Sprites". The latter of which was caused by an integer coordinate wraparound that caused the game to draw the tile map scenery from your location modulo N, but not populate it with game objects because the coordinates didn't match. As a result, things like loops only half-worked, and the corkscrew things from Emerald Hill Zone didn't work at all -- because invisible objects triggered the movement mechanics specific to those scenery bits.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Since you sound dismissive, do you have a better term? Lots of bugs have specific names. It would be crazy not to name any. Changing your position so that you're in the same spot but you're also in a completely different location, all at once. I think the term fits pretty well.
  - adamrezich 3y ago
    I agree with pests—it's definitely an interesting and funny way to describe the technical process that is occurring, but it adds a bit of undue mysticism for the casual viewer.

keepamovin 3y ago

I kind of lost it at the point where he "builds up speed for 12 hours". AHAHA https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A?t=640 https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A?t=640 His mind is so clear. I love how there's so many super super smart people on the internet! :)

Pxtl 3y ago
On the other hand... I mean, doesn't it feel like a bit of a waste? I mean his mind is free to use however he likes but it seems absolutely crazy to dedicate yourself to this extreme level of obscure bugs in a 30ish-year-old game in order to prove some crazy feat is technically possible although not actually possible to execute in a tool-unassisted fashion. The explaining video is great, but the underlying goal just seems absurd to me.
- sirbranedamuj 3y ago
  Through this pursuit, he has learned and honed problem solving, computer science, mathematics, and communication skills. I think you could argue that the "underlying goal" for most people's hobbies are pointless.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dmonitor 3y ago
  it’s like a puzzle. he’s just playing the game for fun like anyone else.
- therealdrag0 3y ago
  You could say that about any form of entertainment.
- keepamovin 3y ago
  Indeed, as i said in the first version of my comment, “ This is what happens when you have the mind of a von Neumann and no great national project to work on. Give this guy a UFO . he could figure it out, at least how to use it!” But I removed that because I thought it was too reductive and dismissive of peoples individual enjoyment, and it took a too utilitarian approach towards our daily activities. I don’t think we should reduce everything to a utilitarian collective good view point. At the same time I have that perspective too, but I definitely think there’s value in the pursuit of these things like this person has done. I hope to be able to share nuance and multiple perspectives on HN without angering, or having to engage with anyone particular zealot of any one particular side.

flykespice 3y ago

I love their videos, so full of insight and quite elaborated with a bunch of self-made scientific terminology, it's even timidating for a IT professional. By the way, if you want to see more of that content you should check out their more active secondary channel: https://www.youtube.com/@UncommentatedPannen https://www.youtube.com/@UncommentatedPannen

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

(2016)!

fosshogg 3y ago
yeah a lot of people are coming a little late to the 0.5x A press party...

NotYourLawyer 3y ago

I remember seeing one of his videos years ago about half-A presses. Did it ever catch on as something other people in the speedrunning (or whatever this is) community care about? I kinda assume not…

OatmealDome 3y ago
A press notation is really only something used within the A Button Challenge, since the point of the challenge is to optimize for lowest A press count. Other categories don't do this, so they have no use for it. That being said, like other lines from this video, it's definitely become a bit of a meme in the community.
spondylosaurus 3y ago
Most speedrun categories focus on sheer speed, for obvious reasons, but there are some less-popular offshoots that create unique challenges just to push the boundaries of the games (and the people running them). I think the A button challenge focuses on reducing the number of A-presses above all else, so it's not a speedrun proper. There is a really fun type of speedrun called low% where the goal is to complete the game with as low a "completion percent" as possible (e.g., minimum items collected, quests and bosses completed, etc.) and do it as quickly as possible. But a run that's technically slower with a lower% will "beat" a run that's faster with a higher%. That's where you get Twilight Princess speedruns that can take more than 24 hours to complete. Although I believe the current record is actually just under 16: https://youtu.be/v2nRW3wKnVY https://youtu.be/v2nRW3wKnVY (For those who don't want to watch an entire video: the secret sauce here is a glitch with Link's "item get!" animation that verrrryyyy slooooowlyyyy pushes him backwards in space every time it loops. So if you open a chest and leave the animation running for hours on end, you can phase backwards through walls and bypass the need for keys/progress checks/etc. Which is perfect for a low% run where the goal is to bypass as many things as possible.)

dsXLII 3y ago

"we need to talk about parallel universes" always gets me

apengwin 3y ago
TJ "henry" yoshi

emmanueloga_ 3y ago

On one hand, hacking/speed-running/homebrew and other gaming niches should make it so older games like Mario N64 remains popular longer... On the other, I doubt niches make much of a difference for Nintendo's bottom line, and considering their track record, I assume they would kill all sorts of hacks around their platforms, if they could. So, fuzzing tests [1] seem to be in order for Nintendo games... :-) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_fuzzy_lop_(fuzzer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_fuzzy_lop_(fuzzer)

mmebane 3y ago
> I assume they would kill all sorts of hacks around their platforms, if they could They've been doing exactly this with Tears of the Kingdom: patching pretty much every glitch that gets found, no matter how likely it is to affect casual players or whether it arguably makes the game more fun. I wouldn't be shocked if they had people lurking in the glitch hunting/speed running Discords just so they can learn about glitches and fix them ASAP.
- hoten 3y ago
  It's important to note that glitches that speedrunners utilize are often game breaking bugs that would give a normal player a really bad time. And it could be that the obvious utility of the glitch (like item duping) could also have a less useful manifestation from the same buggy code (crashing the game). There is a video on YT with a speedrunner walking the Portal team through the speedrunning community's hacks, and there is a part where this is touched on.

ravenstine 3y ago

I just want to say that this is nerd-porn at its purest and I love it! There's something about someone explaining things like how the game's collision detection actually takes a float value and converts it to a short that tickles my brain. It says a lot about a game like SM64 that it manages to still fascinate and captivate decades after its release while a dwindling number of mainstream games made today share that level of player enthusiasm.

greenn 3y ago

pannen's commentated videos are always a treat. He started uploading again this year after a long hiatus (that started after this video) and I can't wait for more. If you're interested in Super Mario 64 speedruns, the video[0] "The Story of the Greatest Super Mario 64 Speedrunners" is great. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLj5OrTOdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLj5OrTOdY

sgarman 3y ago

Is this the perfect youtube video? Amazing Mario soundtrack in the background and gameplay visuals. Home made charts that VISUALLY show what's going on. AUDIO voice commentary explaining what you see. References to other youtube videos and commenters. Detailed, insanely knowledgeable, not selling me anything, created for love not for viewers. IDK this is peak youtube for me.

rvnx 3y ago
"Starting the level while holding the A button and not pressing the A button again" could be easier to understand
- johnday 3y ago
  It's a term of art from the community, that also draws in the intellectually curious with a "wtf is half an A press?" - it's an excellent title.
  - DeRockProject 3y ago
    "the intellectually curious" God I wish, but our discord keeps getting kids, who can't possibly help or contribute to TASing, keep asking us questions answered in the video they just watched before joining... We sometimes get smart af people joining and even making accomplishments though. College students or otherwise. Pannen's a really patient guy for tolerating his fans all the time
    - jrajav 3y ago
      Sucking at something is the first step to being amazing at something, and it's a step everyone goes through, no exceptions. Being kind and tolerant of others sucking (missing what seem like obvious bits of core knowledge, not knowing what details are important, taking way too long on tasks) is absolutely essential to the health and growth of any size or kind of creative community.
      - 3y ago

lowbloodsugar 3y ago

I could not care less about A presses, but keep watching because everything else in that video is amazing. Competence-porn.

macromaniac 3y ago

Can anyone recommend other rabbit hole videos like the parents? It can be in any topic. I love these types of videos that show just how deep things are. https://youtu.be/_hjRvZYkAgA https://youtu.be/_hjRvZYkAgA is my current favorite.

DizzyDoo 3y ago
I recently quite enjoyed this video[0] about beginning to decompile an old Lego PC Game I remember from when I was a child. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MToTEqoVv3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MToTEqoVv3I
fullshark 3y ago
Karl Jobst speed running videos
- tiltowait 3y ago
  I don't care about speedrunning at all, but even I find his videos (particularly the Doom ones) immensely enjoyable.
- mrob 3y ago
  I recommend his video on speedrunning the first level of Quake, including an overview of the importance of Quake to speedrunning as a whole, and an explanation of Quake's movement mechanics that make getting a good time so complex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43d8fICz6gM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43d8fICz6gM
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jwilkin 3y ago
Here’s another great one on always beating Pokémon with the same set of inputs: https://youtu.be/6gjsAA_5Agk https://youtu.be/6gjsAA_5Agk
cityofdelusion 3y ago
Marcel Vos has quite a few YouTube videos going into the mechanics of the Roller Coaster Tycoon games, especially taken to the extremes. https://youtu.be/KVgoy_a_gWI https://youtu.be/KVgoy_a_gWI

Dig1t 3y ago

I would hire this person based on just this video. This demonstrates every quality I want to see in a smart candidate. I wouldn't even care if they know X language with Y framework, if they made this then they are more than equipped.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

Going to go on a semi-related rant. The youtuber does a bit of complaining about how people keep asking something he's ostensibly answered. Even does that "well, akshyually, I said that right here in the man page (comments section) if only you would RTFM". This is important: if the user (customer, patron, etc.) is repeatedly doing something "wrong", then it's not they who are wrong, it's you, your design, your inadequate explanation, etc. On top of that, the whining and blame directed at the user for not conforming to your own internal model is just so unwarranted and does nothing to help your case here. It's pure self-cope for not doing a better job at explaining, designing, etc. Empathize! I know it's hard for nerds to do this, especially when they so often feel the opposite, that they not only don't lack empathy, they feel they have more than the average person. How wrong they are! Consider that maybe you're wrong and the customer is right. Adapt to their world view rather than trying to get them to conform to yours. You might be so deeply immersed in your domain that what you consider common wisdom is a foreign language to others. Again, empathize! And you use that empathy to improve your communication, design, etc. I think engineers and designers really need to hear this stuff because there's just so much user-blame, whining, bad interfaces, and bad communication out there that doesn't have to be bad, if only the nerd-engineer would cultivate some empathy and humility.

Karunamon 3y ago
I appreciate where you are coming from here, but I think your rant is misplaced. This is a video about a rather technical, very niche topic. The whole concept of a "half press" is a particular bit of jargon with a particular meaning in this field. The onus is on the reader to learn. There is nothing quite so irritating as someone who confidently criticizes you out of ignorance. You see this all the time when professionals showcase their work on video sharing sites, the comments will be filled with people who pipe up insisting that the creator is doing something wrong rather than asking questions or seeking to understand. "There is no such thing as a half press" as popularized by TJ "Henry" Yoshi is a case of the former, an ignorant outsider lecturing the person who demonstrably knows what they are doing. Empathy and humility are two way streets. In the comments section, you are a guest and should behave as such.
pfannkuchen 3y ago

padangitik 3y ago

I am so amazed by this. I am always impressed when people are so moved by some passion that they can put this extreme level of dedicated work into something. I have only rarely felt passions that move me to work as hard as this creator did. Sometimes I wish that people like this would use their talent and energy to work on truly important things like curing diseases or making scientific breakthroughs - if only for their own sakes to feel like their great potential didn't go to waste. Certainly the effort that went into this video could have produced a decent research paper, for example. I also wish I could have this level of motivation for my own work. But overall I am just amazed.

Longlius 3y ago

An A press is an A press, you can't say it's only half!

Pxtl 3y ago

I dislike the "half a-press" term of art because it creates the question: If I release the a-press within the level to access his non-a-pressed abilities, would that count still as half-an-a-press? It seems to me that "half" an a-press should represent an edge (going up or down), and starting out holding "a" should count as like 0.1.

starkparker 3y ago
Or simply don't count A-button phases that aren't press events/keydowns as "half presses". That's what's always bugged me about it; if press, hold, and release are different actions, and those are meaningful to the speedrun, and you care about what a general audience thinks about it, then just count them separately. Don't use a misnomer to suggest something that doesn't exist. It's obtuse jargon for the sake of it. It rubs up wrongly against common sense, which is why people call it out; when you press a digital button with only two states, you'd refer to that action as a button press in any other context. General game logic refers to a digital button press as a button press/keydown event or state/key press; there's no "half", it's Boolean. And it's doubly confusing if you don't know that the N64 doesn't have pressure sensitive buttons, in which the term "half-press" would make more sense.
- eredengrin 3y ago
  > It's obtuse jargon for the sake of it. Not really. The speedrun is to optimize for fewest total A-button presses. This metric is known from the controller's perspective in the sense that if you sniffed the communications between the controller and console, you could know the number of A-presses. Given this metric, the term half A-press makes total sense once it is understood. To reiterate the video, in a single level run, a half press rounds up to 1, but in a full game run it rounds down. How else would you communicate that without "obtuse jargon"? > if press, hold, and release are different actions, and those are meaningful to the speedrun, and you care about what a general audience thinks about it, then just count them separately If you want to distinguish between the actions taken based on the state of the a button, that is fundamentally different from tracking the number of button presses since it requires knowledge of the game state. Not only does it make much harder to define but it's also much harder to track without advanced tooling (how do you know if the game state was modified in an important way or not if someone presses the button for eg 2 frames vs 4 frames?). I'm not sure how I see this would make it easier for the general audience to understand either since now they also have to understand the game state rather than how many times a button was pressed. Also, this makes it entirely disconnected from the physical world, when presumably the idea of the challenge was to use the buttons on your controller less. There's nothing stopping speed runners from tracking it this way I suppose but complaining about how a community plays a game is a bit odd. Although it is a nintendo game so I guess complaining about how the hardcore fans play it is pretty much expected.

causi 3y ago

Every time someone posts this I have to listen to the "Space Oddity" parody song based on it. https://youtu.be/Pyn3N55elS4?t=30 https://youtu.be/Pyn3N55elS4?t=30

atleastoptimal 3y ago

I know this is a silly point but imagine if this guy put the same amount of effort, inventiveness and attention to detail to some engineering or scientific endeavor. The video is great but arbitrary benchmarks in old games aren't pushing society forward as much as technological advancement can.

DeRockProject 3y ago
He is, he's a programmer. This is just his hobby. Besides, the sheer magnitude of difference between advancing a highly contested real life science subject versus breaking ground in an obscure challenge in a 25 year old video game is massive. I know it's not that obscure but it sure feels that way sometimes...

bumbledraven 3y ago

(2016)

saintradon 3y ago

One of the great classics of YouTube.

UtopiaPunk 3y ago

I'm usually not very interested in speedruns or other similar video game challenges, but this is one of my favorite videos on the Internet.