This is the updated run of the 96-exit in 01:14:37.63 which is an improvement of 6:52 minutes over the previous movie. The improvement comes from new glitches and better optimization.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Snes9x 1.43 v17
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programming errors
- Manipulates luck
- Does not eat any chucks
Comments
This run was started on Jan 15 '12, and was finished on Jan 28 '13. It's the result of one year's hard work. We hope you enjoy the run. We'd like to give huge thanks to Mister and PangaeaPanga who both showed an interest and have input in the run at points.
The new tricks included in this run are detailed on the Game Resources page. They are:
- -1 Trick
- Rise Cancel
- Perpetual Air Catch
- 1/1 Swimming
- Double Yoshi
- Cancel-Eat
- Item Swap
- Null Sprites
- Stunned Sprites
- Corner Clipping
- Duplicating into a Dragon Coin
Chuck-Eat Glitch
This glitch is a (relatively) new trick whereby eating a chuck results in a weird sprite in reserve depending on certain circumstances. The most useful of these is a goal sphere. For an explanation please see any% comments.
The reason we didn't use the glitch in this run is:
- It's ridiculously difficult to route-plan such a run because we'd have to time very many strats and we don't want to exhaust our motivation from that
- Very few SMW TASers think the glitch should be in the run, whose opinions are very important to us
- A fair portion of the community thought it would be a bad idea
- It's probably about as boring as watching paint dry.
Stage by stage comments
Some levels have two exits. Which exit was played is marked after the level name. a means normal exit, b means secret exit.
| Level | Comments |
|---|---|
| Yoshi's Island 2 | |
| Yoshi's Island 3 | |
| Yoshi's Island 4 | |
| #1 Iggy's Castle | |
| Donut Plains 1 b | |
| Donut Secret 1 b | |
| Donut Plains 1 a | |
| Donut Plains 2 b | |
| Green Switch Palace | |
| Donut Plains 2 a | |
| Donut Ghost House a | |
| Donut Plains 3 | |
| Donut Plains 4 | We manipulated the ID of the blue shell to get Mario to catch it after he spins. Also we got a boost from the hammer brother platform |
| #2 Morton's Castle | |
| Vanilla Dome 1 a | Placing a yoshicoin so close to a block was a big mistake :P |
| Vanilla Dome 2 b | |
| Red Switch Palace | |
| Vanilla Dome 2 a | Totally playing this level the intended way |
| Vanilla Ghost House | Cornerclips save the day |
| Vanilla Dome 3 | If you are on a Yoshi as it disappears the game will create the invincible Yoshi you are then sitting on |
| Vanilla Dome 4 | |
| #3 Lemmy's Castle | |
| Cheese Bridge Area a | A regular Yoshi Wing exit! |
| Cookie Mountain | |
| Cheese Bridge Area b | |
| Soda Lake | |
| Star World 3 a | It's funny that simply running to the right is not the fastest way for the normal exit ;) |
| Star World 3 b | Simple, isn't it? |
| Star World 4 a | Mario kept duplicating more than one block, aiming this is not easy :( |
| Star World 4 b | Sometimes, score is relevant |
| Star World 5 a | |
| Star World 1 b | Not having those crazy colours saved 4 frames, but I think we should have done them... |
| Star World 2 b | Because switching < and > every other frame was not enough we used Y and X, too |
| Star World 2 a | Make sure to make the sound louder for this exit ;) |
| Star World 1 a | This exit is ISM's exit, we tried to optimize his run but it was just not possible |
| Star World 5 b | Screw the switch palaces, I have a cape! |
| Gnarly | Gnarly is a level where you are supposed to go up and fall down again... we somehow missed that falling down part |
| Tubular | |
| Way Cool | |
| Awesome | |
| Groovy | Second stun glitch in this run |
| Mondo | |
| Outrageous | |
| Funky | So apparently we are not A SUPER PLAYER |
| Yoshi's Island 1 | |
| Yellow Switch Palace | |
| Donut Secret 1 a | |
| Donut Ghost House b | |
| Donut Secret House b | The moment is short so don't blink :D |
| Donut Secret House a | |
| Donut Secret 2 | |
| Vanilla Dome 1 b | Nothing to comment about actually... |
| Vanilla Secret 1 b | |
| Vanilla Secret 1 a | Time the scrolling and the shell moves while being stuck |
| Vanilla Secret 2 | |
| Vanilla Secret 3 | |
| Vanilla Fortress | |
| Butter Bridge 1 | We created two tetrominos and a :3 face, keep in mind that releasing Y is necessary for releasing shells but also removes flight (except sometimes) |
| Butter Bridge 2 | |
| #4 Ludwig's Castle | Offscreen climbing, yeah... |
| Forest of Illusion 1 b | |
| Forest Ghost House b | |
| Forest of Illusion 4 b | Starting to set up the score for Chocolate Island 2 b... |
| Forest Secret Area | Who needs flying anyway? |
| Forest Fortress | |
| Forest Ghost House a | |
| Forest of Illusion 1 a | |
| Forest of Illusion 2 a | Starting this level without Yoshi or ending this level with Yoshi loses so much time, so we created a route where we can start this level with Yoshi and end it without him |
| Forest of Illusion 3 a | Setting up the item swap is harder than it looks, because Yoshi kept stomping the shell we need |
| Forest of Illusion 4 a | We had several versions of this run, but this was the one that we couldn't optimize more |
| Forest of Illusion 2 b | We were slowing down a bit to avoid ingame lag |
| Blue Switch Palace | |
| Forest of Illusion 3 b | |
| #5 Roy's Castle | |
| Chocolate Island 1 | When you fly out of the cannon you have a speed of 64 which doesn't allow jumping so we have to slow down to 63. We tried flying with 64 speed but that ended up being slower |
| Choco-Ghost House | That enemy is really ineffective ;) |
| Chocolate Island 2 b | SCORE!! |
| Chocolate Secret | |
| Chocolate Island 2 a | The second area depends on the amount of coins you collected (we collect 9 to go to a different area than the first time). The third area depends on the time which has to be <250 to access the normal exit |
| Chocolate Island 3 a | |
| Chocolate Island 3 b | |
| Chocolate Fortress | |
| Chocolate Island 4 | This exit had several updates until there was the final run |
| Chocolate Island 5 | Duplicating with Yoshi sure is fun |
| #6 Wendy's Castle | |
| Sunken Ghost Ship | Those ghost take their job serious... we tried to avoid lag at the falling part as much as possible |
| Valley of Bowser 1 | Out of all duplications this was the most exhausting one... |
| Valley of Bowser 2 a | Offscreen bats are indeed annoying |
| Valley Ghost House b | |
| #7 Larry's Castle | |
| Valley Ghost House a | What P-Switch? |
| Valley of Bowser 3 | |
| Valley of Bowser 4 b | |
| Valley of Bowser 4 a | Double stun! We stun the rock to a sliding koopa and then the sliding koopa to a koopa kid which we defeat and end the level :) |
| Valley of Bowser 2 b | That double cornerclip was some hard thing to do, but it saves a lot of time :D |
| Valley Fortress | |
| Back Door | |
| Bowser |
Potential Improvements
There have been some improvements pointed out to us during the course of this run. Usually they were far back. As we wanted to keep our motivation, we decided not to implement them (this game is not hex-friendly at all). The times saved are just guesses and could be more or less.
- 20-30 frames improvable in DS1 via better optimization involving Yoshi swimming.
- 10 frames or so in a couple of water levels (DS1, Vanilla Fortress) via more optimized corner boosts (it was my own oversight).
- 7 frames in FoI4b by embedding a shell in the key block surroundings to hit a turn block.
- 56 frames in FoI2 from optimized clipping.
- 40-50 frames in Awesome by item-swapping the goal via fire and coin.
- 100+ frames in VS1a using a glitch where item-swapping a goal tape can change it from a secret exit into a normal one.
- 100+ frames in FGH via a powerup clip.
- 100+ frames during CI2's normal exit, by item swapping the message box to put it in a position where it displays an incorrect message (specifically, the YSP message). If you reset the game at some point before the level without beating any switch palaces in the meantime, this causes the level to autocomplete shortly after the message appears.
- The most volatile parts of this run are block duplication and lag changes. Block duplication could possibly be improved with enough time invested in it. With a score plan, lag could be reduced by a lot.
- The overworld route may be improvable.
Thanks
- DarkMoon for encoding and showing an interest through the run
- Mister & PangaeaPanga, as mentioned before, who have input in the run (Mister: fgha, fghb, ideas in C2 and elsewhere; PangaeaPanga: yi3, ds1b)
- ISM for his fantastic WIP, without which we couldn't have started, as well as the Nico encode
- #smw for motivation and whose streams kept us motivated while TASing
- #smwtas
- amaurea and gocha as always, for their lua scripts.
Suggested Screenshots
Let's break the habit of using dp2.
15533, 22582, 74790, 107941, 132531, 182383.
Nach: This didn't get 99 lives, you call this a TAS???!?
Well, I happened to get a memo that this is indeed a TAS...
To be honest, I thought I knew this game well, but watching this, it appears I don't know anything. In fact, I think I was hallucinating football players with large tongues coming out of their eyes or something.
It's all just too confusing, so I'll just err on the side of acceptance.
feos: Publishing.