Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 131 posts

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#11

Post by zamadatix »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #6
dane-pgp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An A press is an A press. You can't say it's only a half.

Sure you can, when you define ahead of time that "press" means a full down/up cycle. When you say the down part of the cycle is a "press", you're being just as arbitrary.

That was a direct quote from 1:08 in the video pointing out how people comment and debate on what an A press is or isn't based on the title of things instead of listening to the explanation... not an actual thought by the commenter. Watch the first 2 minutes, you'll get a chuckle :).

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#12

Post by jachee »

default-kramer wrote: post #7

Great video. The realization that "beating Super Mario Bros. 3" is much less well-defined than I thought is very interesting. Not just technically, but like there's some philosophical metaphor that I can't quite describe...

I think the key attribute of "Any %" disconnecting success from actual content completion is essential for this sort of thing to succeed, but also what separates it from the mundane definition of "beating the game."

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#13

Post by paul7986 »

Ive always wished someone made a Super Mario Bros. race your friend to the end split-screen (top & bottom) game. In between each player can hit certain blocks to create obstacles for their opponent.

I think it would be a lot of fun! Maybe some MOD maker can make that!

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#14

Post by zamadatix »

paul7986 wrote: post #13

Ive always wished someone made a Super Mario Bros. race your friend to the end split-screen (top & bottom) game. In between each player can hit certain blocks to create obstacles for their opponent. I think it would be a lot of fun! Maybe some MOD maker can make that!

I'm 95% sure this is sarcastically referencing https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/super-mario-bros-35-sw... but in case it isn't or someone reading isn't aware.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#15

Post by gregsadetsky »

nacs wrote: post #2

The video explanation is almost as impressive as the speed run itself. The speed run is literally doing low level assembly code manipulation to pull off this time apparently. Worth a watch even for people who aren't into gaming.

Agreed, I was first perplexed at what was going on, starting to not see where it was going at all with the low-level explanations, and then when the enemy positions turned out to be assembly instructions... mind blown.

It also reminded me of this video which shows Flappy Bird being code injected into Super Mario World, by hand... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6eY73sLV0

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#16

Post by striking »

devindotcom wrote: post #9
default-kramer wrote: post #7

Great video. The realization that "beating Super Mario Bros. 3" is much less well-defined than I thought is very interesting. Not just technically, but like there's some philosophical metaphor that I can't quite describe...

Yeah, that's why the community has specific categories for different runs. I appreciate glitched runs because of the acumen needed to accomplish them but it's 100% runs that truly impress me most as a gamer. The speedrun world is almost like a scholarly domain, with all the usual bickering about terminology, whether this qualifies as that, and so on. I would be interested to read an ethnology of the community.

> The speedrun world is almost like a scholarly domain, with all the usual bickering about terminology

Right. Like the most recent 100% runs of Ocarina of Time[1], which use glitches to obtain items early and break the sequence of the game, while still obtaining every item from its source eventually making them still legitimate 100% runs.

You'd think "100%" and "glitchless" were synonymous, but they're not anymore!

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4nc4lhj3Uk

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#17

Post by kakkun »

And here's this glitch taken to the max using a TAS (in which a program is used to enter frame-perfect controller inputs). Apparently, a second controller is used to enter arbitrary code into RAM.

http://tasvideos.org/4961S.html

I don't really understand it, but it really blows my mind what some people think of.

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#18

Post by crazygringo »

That's absolutely insane. Manipulating the state of the game world so that its data maps to instructions to complete the game, and then glitching in a way that executes it.

The only thing I'm not clear on: even knowing exactly what you're doing... how likely is it that you could pull this off in real-time? Did the player have to do this 10 times? 100? 1,000?

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#19

Post by tetrisgm »

Excellent video. I'm impressed the author went to recreate the run frame by frame, and then used those findings to analyze what was happening. Never expected this video to turn into a full on reverse engineering explanation.

As a side note, this kind of speed run has become more popular in the recent years for a combination of reasons: - First, it's difficult to improve on the regular world records since they're so optimized (just have a look at Quake Done Quick and its sequels). - Second, the emulators available to the speed running community have evolved. They now include better ways to track what's happening in memory. - Third, the games themselves are understood better (as recently exemplified by the Super Mario 64 full reverse engineering).

So it's creating a whole new genre of runs that simply isn't about execution anymore.

If you're interested in the topic, you might like the Super Mario World speed run that uses a similar technique (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gECESOoU8Es), or the recent work on removing randomness from Wind Waker runs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hs451PfFzQ).

Re: Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3 Minutes – World Record Speedrun Explained [video]

#20

Post by userbinator »

dane-pgp wrote: post #4
zamadatix wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 0 exit speedrun for Super Mario World uses pretty much the exact same method (koopas and all) as well https://www.speedrun.com/smw/run/y65xp50z SMB3 also has an interesting tool assisted speedrun (non-human doing the inputs) where fast inputs on the second controller cause an overflow on the input buffer allowing for the game to be beaten basically instantly from the start screen. If you like this because of the…

An A press is an A press. You can't say it's only a half.

I immediately understood what a half-press meant, because when something/someone tells you to "press x", it usually means "press and release"; and omitting half of that is exactly what I expected "half a press" would be.
Post reply on HN