Support NeoGAF

[FyreWulff]

And this is why you gotta be careful with wrapping in your code.

 

[LordOcidax]

0.0 Da fu...

 

[AHindD]

 

[KeRaSh]

This is absolutely amazing. The fact that a simple idea or challenge like beating Mario 64 with the least amount of A presses started a whole new community project with crazy science and code analysis is mindblowingly beautiful.
One of the reasons why I love gaming and (most of) the community surrounding it.

 

[Tizoc]

As someone who hasn't played Mario 64, rather enjoys its crazy speedruns on GDQ, I gotta say
THAT IS A LOT OF SCIENCE FOR A VIDEO GAME.

 

[Ostinatto]

First time i heard about a button challenge run on any game. Is this a thing now?

 

[jett]

Why is this guy obsessed with how many times the A button gets pressed? When does the crazy stuff start?

The only thing crazy about the video is the guy that made it.

 

[hawthorneluke]

And this is why you gotta be careful with wrapping in your code.

Why? Sure if it affects actual players like in bug ridden games, but thanks to the universe being the way it is in this game, we get, well, videos like this, which is just incredible to watch imo (as are the reactions in this thread), seeing the physics of that universe being reverse engineered and put to use like that. (Of course the problem isn't the float => short cast but how the match of physics and collision detection lets mario build up speed indefinitely though.)

 

[KevinCow]

As someone who hasn't played Mario 64

What the hell. Get on that shit, breh.

 

[mocoworm]

I just watched this. That guy is a genius.

 

[Bjoern the Smexy]

Getting this one star would take over 12 hours according to this video.
So how and why would anyone ever do this?

I mean, it surely is impressive to say the least (mainly because it's full of math and I hate math, yet I understood all of it).
But the usability of this particular method of getting this (and possibly other) star(s) would be useless.

 

[Jebusman]

Getting this one star would take over 12 hours according to this video.
So how and why would anyone ever do this?

I mean, it surely is impressive to say the least (mainly because it's full of math and I hate math, yet I understood all of it).
But the usability of this particular method of getting this (and possibly other) star(s) would be useless.

Thanks to the magic of emulation and being able to speed up time, not really.

Not everything has to be done all the time on original consoles. He just has to prove it "could" be done as a validation that it's not a glitch specific to the emulator.

 

[KarmaCow]

Getting this one star would take over 12 hours according to this video.
So how and why would anyone ever do this?

I mean, it surely is impressive to say the least (mainly because it's full of math and I hate math, yet I understood all of it).
But the usability of this particular method of getting this (and possibly other) star(s) would be useless.

The challenge is to beat Mario 64 pressing the A button -- the button to jump in a platformer -- the least amount of times.

There is no real value in it other than the challenge in of itself. It doesn't need to be practical because the challenge itself is impractical.

 

[NotMyPsn]

Holy wow, mario is an amazing game.

 

[Salbug]

Then you missed the best part.

And the glitches this guy finds. I love that particular one from the Bowser Glitches Video:

Holy shit, I think I'm gonna sub to this guy now.

 

[Mokujin]

That was really awesome.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Weirded out how he pronounces Mario it "Märiou"!

Yeah lol but I think it's funny that he in some videos pronounces it correctly and in others it comes out a weird "Marry-OH".

 

[K' Dash]

People didn´t know about half pressing?

 

[Shifty]

So is this how the Millennium Falcon did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs?

damnit, someone made this joke 40 posts before me

fingerguns.gif

 

[Shuggananas]

First time i heard about a button challenge run on any game. Is this a thing now?

No running run in super mario bros is a thing. Minimal amount of jumps too I think

 

[Chuckpebble]

Coworker asked me why I looked so awestruck. Told her I couldn't explain it but sent her the link and said it'd be 25 minutes.

 

[sn0man]

It's actually shown quite clearly in the video.

Basically, while Mario's "real position" is stored as a specific data type that allows it to have an absurdly-huge value (for the purposes of the engine), the level itself has a specific boundary set to it on each axis. The engine handles things being outside of these boundaries by using the modulo operation, which basically returns the remainder after dividing evenly however many times as possible. The end result, is that the "useful" position for Mario, the position actually used for detecting collision with terrain, is some number within the level boundaries.

Even though Mario's "real position" is far outside of the map's boundaries, the engine's math for determining the value to use for collision detection always remains within the boundaries. This makes it so that Mario can collide with the terrain inside of the level boundaries, despite that he is himself not inside the level boundaries.

To put it simply, it says "Mario is at (X, Y)," after doing math, and deals with collision as if he is there, regardless of whether or not he actually is.

Thank you! I watched the video and the more I thought about it the more it didn't make sense to me. This clears it up though. It sounds like an issue where they didn't cap Marios real movement and they used mod as a bandaid.

I wonder why though — was Mario’s movement engine not reacting well to certain conditions when it was bounded or did the designers just not think of the race cases. I would love to have a back and forth with a few speed runners and the original developers Iwata asks style.

 

[John Rabbit]

i did not intend to watch this entire video. not only did that happen, but i had to rewatch several sections.

 

[BrettHeazy]

I'll have to watch later, seems very interesting but I've got no sound at work at the mo'

 

[Shifty]

I wonder why though — was Mario’s movement engine not reacting well to certain conditions when it was bounded or did the designers just not think of the race cases. I would love to have a back and forth with a few speed runners and the original developers Iwata asks style.

It could be that the modulo operation was implicit in this case. In programming, when an integer exceeds the minimum or maximum value that its datatype can hold, it automatically wraps around to the other end of its range. Converting from floating point to integer was actually undefined behaviour for C back in the N64 era, so the compiler's float-to-int implementation may have taken the repeated overflows/underflows into account during the conversion instead of simply clamping to the minimum/maximum value as is standard these days.

My guess would be that the developers didn't realise this would happen, since they never intended for Mario's real position to leave the level bounds. Can't say for certain though.

I'd like to see a dev interview too, particularly if it was their first exposure to these crazy glitches. Their reactions would be priceless.

 

[ar4757]

There's already something a little sad about speedrunning, but I understand why there are any% runs, no-glitch runs, 100% runs, etc.

But seeing such thought and effort poured into such an asinine goal is extra depressing somehow.

Have you watched AGDQ? It's for charity, is fun for 100s of thousands of viewers, and is fun for even the speed runners.

Seeing such a narrow-minded view (yours) is depressing. Lighten up and let people enjoy their lives.

 

[Reversed]

I'd like to see more explanations like this. For instance, TAS explained videos.

Hopefully he can find the way to step on the hidden goomba.

 

[Peru]

Beautiful stuff. Teaches us outsiders about the actual behind the scenes process of making game worlds, about SM64, while also in itself working as some sort of pure video game art. Wow.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Mostly the fact that saying there are parallel universes can be a bit misleading because of the implications it has - it sounds a lot fancier than it actually is, and doesn't necessarily represent what's going on.

Again, the video makes perfectly clear what is happening to anyone interested in understanding as much.

Still, one could reasonably come up with an easy-to-say term that describes what's going on, or rather, simply file it under myriad other glitch types that are commonly used in breaking down games of many types (wrong warps, screen-wraps, or in this case, an out-of-bounds glitch). Calling it a parallel universe is a bit needlessly-fanciful, considering all of the things it doesn't have in common with the concept.

Okay then, let's hear this alternative terms one can come up with so easily, that is descriptive, short and unmistakable.

 

[Ragnarok]

If only that ingenuity was focused on something meaningful...

 

[crooked spin]

As an artist who understands programming in only the most abstract way this video is seriously educational. Subbed.

 

[brainzelda]

This was a god tier video. But what raised it to OMEGA XIS GOD TIER was the fact that he had to plan the physical route through the PU grid to get back to the "real" map so that he could utilize objects that are not replicated in the PUs. What the fuck.

 

[ScOULaris]

Wow. Just wow. What an impressive video and fantastic explanation. My hat goes off to this guy.

 

[Azure J]

This was a god tier video. But what raised it to OMEGA XIS GOD TIER was the fact that he had to plan the physical route through the PU grid to get back to the "real" map so that he could utilize objects that are not replicated in the PUs. What the fuck.

That was some fucking Steins;gate shit.

 

[mackattk]

It is pretty amazing that people went through and figured all this shit out. I am a few minutes in and the whole scuttlebug transportation/levitation is just crazy... How/why do people go in and play these games so in depth to get this level of knowledge.

I didn't even know there was an A challenge for mario and things like that.

 

[zenosparadox]

And this is why you gotta be careful with wrapping in your code.

Wrapping? Do you mean truncation or overflow?

 

[Anth0ny]

As someone who hasn't played Mario 64,

what

go. go play it now.

it's the best 3d mario. it has parallel universes what more do you want?

 

[Roubjon]

People didn´t know about half pressing?

As if "half pressing" is common knowledge.

 

[Keikaku]

I'm glad that the response to the video has been so positive!

There was just something so infectious about the dudes joy in the whole situation that really grabbed me and compelled me to share it. I'm subbing to him too!

 

[CronoShot]

What the fuck.

What the fuck.

What the fuck.

 

[FyreWulff]

Why? Sure if it affects actual players like in bug ridden games, but thanks to the universe being the way it is in this game, we get, well, videos like this, which is just incredible to watch imo (as are the reactions in this thread), seeing the physics of that universe being reverse engineered and put to use like that. (Of course the problem isn't the float => short cast but how the match of physics and collision detection lets mario build up speed indefinitely though.)

I didn't mean it in a negative way - but this is how some hilarious and some bad bugs can occur in game engines, or even in regular programs, when you aren't careful about where stuff gets used or stored.

 

[Jonbo298]

Poor taste.

Having high functioning autism myself, I didn't find poor taste in any of the jokes mentioned. I laughed.

 

[War Eagle]

Just watched this video by pannenkoek2012 and my mind is broken. I've enjoyed speedruns for a while now but I've never had an appreciation for glitching or TAS runs until now! The amount of work that went into breaking down Super Mario 64 is seriously impressive. This video might just be one of the best uses of your 25 minutes today.

Holy poo poo!

Commenting so I remember to watch when I get into bed.

Edit: What the fuck did I just watch

 

[MrCunningham]

So is this guy the Ulillillia of Mario 64?

 

[Joyful]

i can only imagine what this person could do if they were doing something more constructive with their time

 

[bender]

Basically, at some point years ago, somebody realized they could get one of the stars in Mario 64 without jumping. So they said, "Let's see how many of the stars we can get without jumping."

Then they realized that it was impossible to get all of the stars without jumping, so they said, "Let's try to beat the game with as few A button presses as possible."

And some people got really into this and started finding glitches and exploiting them for the sole purpose of reducing the number of A button presses in the game.

And then this video happened.

Wish i had read this before watching the video but it is still impressive none the less. The video creator is smarter than I'll ever be.

 

[GaimeGuy]

I have never seen such a convoluted explanation of modular arithmetic in my life. Jesus christ

 

[Xerotwo]

Mind blowing stuff from a simple and friendly game. Taking 12 hours to make freaking parallel universes?!

 

[FyreWulff]

I have never seen such a convoluted explanation of modular arithmetic in my life. Jesus christ

I think it was the optimal way to explain how Mario can still collide with nothing in the context of a game engine without making it too much of a math lesson.

 

[todd360]

Can Mario achieve the speed of light if we let him build speed long enough?