This is my first submission to the site and is the rather popular "meme" category Crash% on the Mario Kart DS category extensions boards with nearly 50 runners.
Category explanation:
The premise of this category is to crash Mario Kart DS as soon as possible using the A+B spin glitch on the stairs of Luigi's Mansion.
The glitch occurs because the game attempts to load a sound effect for performing an A+B spin on the stairs but due to a coding error, there is no sound assigned to the surface, and the game crashes. This is currently the fastest known method to initiate a game crash.
The SRC boards are ranked by the time that shows on the bottom screen upon getting the game to crash and thus is reliant on the decimals that are shown on the timer which are actually a pre-determined sequence depending on which track you select. For this run, the time would be 5.174 which actually ties the IGT record by a Japanese runner, Towa. My main inspiration for doing this run was to attempt to beat their time but I was only able to find several different ways to tie their time without managing to edge out another frame.
Strategies used:
- To navigate the menus I used the touch screen whenever the option I needed to pick was not the first auto-selected item on screen.
- The run is performed in Time Trials since it allows us to access Luigi's Mansion in the shortest time possible compared to any other mode and starts the kart right at the line as opposed to eighth place behind CPUs.
- Dry Bones in the ROB-STD kart is selected because Dry Bones is the lightest character in the game, thus making them lose the minimum amount of speed when off-road or not in a shroom-boosted or PRB state. The ROB-STD kart has one of the highest speed stats in the game and gives you two mushrooms in time trial mode. Despite it's higher speed and one less menu scroll over, the ROB-BLS is not faster since it only gives the runner one mushroom requiring use of miniturbos which would divert the kart from the optimal line.
- Once loaded into the course, the best possible starting boost is achieved by holding A anywhere between 109-111 frames before 'START' appears on screen. This gives the kart 100 frames of boost where it will travel at maximum speed and not lose speed in off-road. Each mushroom is used the frame before the previous boost expires so that maximum speed is not lost for a single frame. The mushroom boosts also last 100 frames. This run only loses boost for 4 frames at the very end which is necessary to initiate the A+B spin (which I will discuss in more detail later).
- Constant hops are used during the straight boosting portion of the run because it allows the kart to travel uphill slightly faster than driving normally (saves ~2 frames as opposed to not hopping from my own testing).
- When the boosts from the final mushroom is about to expire, a hop to the left is performed to better set up the angle for the miniturbo which needs to be performed. After that hop I initiate a left facing drift that stays close to the sloped grass on the left but doesn't go too wide as to lose time.
- The miniturbo is released right before the final shroom boost expires and I start hopping again to preserve my speed. I slightly adjust the angle of the kart while in mid-air so I don't lose my speed and can align myself for the perfect spot to perform the A+B spin.
- In order to activate the A+B spin as quickly as possible, I need to lose enough speed so that one can be started. The speed requirement is not exactly known but it's close to a standstill. Luckily if the kart hits the corner of wall next to the stairs into the mansion it can lose the required speed instantly and allow a spin to be performed right away. Releasing the mini turbo slightly later to ensure it's boost of 49 frames doesn't expire early does not change the final time of the run so it does not matter that the boost runs out for 2 frames.
- Once A+B and a direction are held on the stairs the game will attempt to load the sound and crash on the following frame and display the time shown on the bottom screen 5.174. (Note: the timer on the bottom screen is in no way representative of the actual time that has elapsed since internally the game recognizes this time as 5.150. The reason for this discrepancy is because the timer must 'appear' random to the average player thus it can't just display exact decimals in increments of 16ms)
Screenshot of the game on the first crash frame with in game information provided via Lua script shown
Notes:
This submission was performed on a 100% complete save file to allow the use of all 36 karts to each character. I have been made aware that this may require the submission of an accompanying verification movie that shows all of the steps that were made to achieve this starting save file. While I cannot provide a tasproject file of that exact description I can confirm that this is an unmodified save that I ripped directly from the cartridge that I performed a 100% run of the game on RTA seen here: https://www.speedrun.com/mkdsce/runs/y27jrk6z
If this does mean that the submission will be rejected I understand and will do my best to provide whatever I need to in order for this submission to be accepted. Feedback is greatly appreciated!
If this does mean that the submission will be rejected I understand and will do my best to provide whatever I need to in order for this submission to be accepted. Feedback is greatly appreciated!
feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: Since this run uses unlockable character and kart, it belongs to a category that we would keep separate from "fastest crash" made on fresh start. Therefore I added NG+ indication to the branch label, and used the crash goal wording we traditionally prefer (since
% is not very meaningful in a case like this).
feos: Waiting for the author's response to Forum/Posts/525737.