Stuff!

  • Bizhawk 2.3.1 works
  • Uses warps.
  • Plays all stages
  • Avoids the Y button, because it's scary
  • Takes damage to save time.
  • Abuses programming errors in the game.
The goal of this run is to play through all the stages without using Y. The Y button lets you run, roll and pick up barrels. There are however certain mechanics that will allow Diddy/Donkey to run without Y. Such as: Grabbing a rope and getting shot out of certain barrels. Sometimes it is faster to enter a bonus just to get the speed from being shot out of the barrel. I'm only allowed to run on the ground for a couple of frames, otherwise the effects run out, so jumping it is! You are required to use Y to pick/throw barrels during the Queen B fight, for a total of 5 input presses in total. This run using the same ruleset for "All Stages" as the RTA community, which allows the map warp to skip most of Orang-utan Gang, 3-5.
Corner boosts are applied quite a lot of in this category. You can get a boost by either walking/running down the slope or jumping at the corner. Walking/running down gives a bigger boost, though while running it usually doesn't work because the running effect will wear off, which is why jumping is more commonly used.
Enemies are avoided when possible. Each enemy kill (With the exception of when using Enguarde or Rambi) will pause the game for 2 or 3 frames. Some enemies are unavoidable to process or in order to keep the running speed.

Level Summary

Kongo Jungle

Jungle Hijinx:

As I can't pick up the DK barrel, poor Diddy has to wait awhile for his action. Then it's just walking down corners and avoiding enemies to victory.

Ropey Rampage:

If you walk down the slopes in the beginning, the Army will be in the way and cause lag. The rope, as mentioned, activates the running, for to me unknown reasons. The bonus barrel is one of those barrels that will not give you running speed when you are blasted off.

Reptile Rumble

Entering the bonus is the only way to get running speed in the level, which saved a lot of time throughout.

Coral Capers

Water levels are not affected by this category, as you don't swim faster with Y and you can use B to charge with Enguarde. So I went lazy and copied most of the inputs from my 101% TAS.

Barrel Cannon Canyon

Nothing worth noting, I believe.

Very Gnawty's Lair

Except for the very first hit, this is practically the same without Y.


Monkey Mines

Winky's Walkway

The bonus will not shoot you out from a barrel, so no speed can be gained here and the level has no corner boosts either.

Mine Cart Carnage

Mine carts suck.

Bouncy Bonanza

It's quite nice that I get to show off the useless Winky (Shoutouts to Joe) room. Good thing Winky is still useless, I just need the speed from the barrel.

Stop & Go Station

Short and easy. Rolling can normally be used to avoid taking damage from the Rockkroc, but you can just keep jumping, just keep jumping, just keep jumping...

Millstone Mayhem

The warp barrel can only be accessed with Donkey, which is also true for level 3-1 coming up, and it's faster to keep the slow Donkey than to sacrifice him (For now...).

Necky's Nuts

Another + of having Donkey first is that his victory animation is faster than Diddy's.


Vine Valley

Vulture Culture

This warp barrel, which is Donkey only, is also running on a timer. Even with a slow start, the running speed later was enough to reach it in time. Then we can finally kill off Donkey again. Despite hugging the wall in the end, it was faster than to walk into it, as the speed would have ran off.

Tree Top Town

Warps are nice. I like warps.

Forest Frenzy

In order to both avoid the Kritter and to reach the first cycle of the rope, some nice moonwalking was used. If you jump off a rope too early, you'll usually regrab it again. Which is why I wait for it to reach its destination. By holding down, Diddy won't automatically be zipped downwards when you jump off-camera, so you can keep jumping higher and higher. By then jumping off, it's possible to skip a rope section.

Temple Tempest

Expresso is hiding in the first bonus, which would have been faster, except that I can't open said bonus... Normally ropes are grabbed automatically when you approach them, though some ropes can be avoided if you jump to get a corner boost, which puts Diddy in a "falling" state. It also means I can't use some corner boosts at times where I need to grab the rope to progress.

Orang-utan Gang:

Funky is a nice guy and takes us directly to the end of the level.

Clam City

Water stage, move along, move along.

Bumble B Rumble

The only level where Y is required, five presses in total, which are only used to pick and instantly throw a barrel, no speed is gained from this.


Gorilla Glacier

Snow Barrel Blast

Not much to note here, except that ice physics are never fun. It was sadly not possible to hit the hidden barrel in the end without first landing in the above barrel.

Slipslide Ride

With the blue ropes, you are not able to use the infinite-jumping trick that was done in 3-3, without using the Y button. Which means the fat old Donkey had to be used for the warp... Sad day for all of us... Thankfully, he can be killed afterwards.

Ice Age Alley

Here we can finally get Expresso. His running speed can be achieved without Y, making the level pretty quick.

Croctopus Chase

Without Y, you can't set up the split up glitch to use Expresso in this stage (thankfully). So this long boring stage is done the old fashioned way: Slowly!

Torchlight Trouble

This used to be the only (not counting Queen B) level where Y was required, as there is a jump later on that can't be made. Rainbowsprinklez found that you could use a Superjump at the start of the level and fly over the entire stage. Thanks to the DK barrel being a floating barrel, Y is not needed to destroy it. To do a Superjump, one Kong first has to take damage and run into a wall that makes him jump straight up into the air, which is why I need to go right for a bit at the start. Get the Kong back, take damage, keep holding B and land on something you can bounce off of, in this case the Squawks barrel, getting him some time to shine as well. The longer you hold down B for, the higher you go and thus further.

Rope Bridge Rumble

Last level where we get to ignore Winky, making him the only animal buddy not featured in this run (As it should be). We have to tease him a bit and enter the bonus where he's hiding for some speed.

Really Gnawty Rampage

Killing off Donkey can skip a jumping cycle, saving a few seconds. But the best gain is to not have Donkey anymore, obviously.


Kremkroc Industries Inc.

Oil Drum Alley

Rare were nice enough to put a rope at the beginning, I like them. After that it's a classic jumping festival. ("♫ It's time to jump up in the air, jump up, don't be scared ♫")

Trick Track Trek

However... Rare were evil enough to put the warp barrel out of reach. Which means it's autoscroller hype. The most fun you can do is to make a Krusha stuck in midair.

Elevator Antics

Another way to keep your speed, other than jumping, is to crouch. This can be done for as long as possible and still keep the speed aftwards. It's only used to wait for enemies or platforms.

Poison Pond

Don't say you expected some kind of interesting text or explanation? Come on, it's a water level. Get out of here.

Mine Cart Madness

It's always a terrible day when it's faster to break Donkey out from the DK barrel than to skip him. Mine carts have interesting speed mechanics. If you land back into it, the speed will usually reset to the same value. If the mine cart is moving quickly, you want to avoid landing back in it for as long as possible, which is why some enemies were killed in order to bounce further. When the cart is moving slowly, you want to jump back into it as many times as possible to increase the speed for a brief moment.

Blackout Basement

It's dark enough that half of the "action" is missed, no loss there.

Boss Dumb Drumb

Donkey time. Again. Sorry.


Chimp Caverns

Tanked up Trouble

At least a little bit more interesting than Trick Track Trek, still a boring a level.

Manic Mincers:

Rambi is slightly faster than Diddy and you can also use him to damage boost through enemies.

Misty Mine:

Expresso is sadly hiding at the end of a long bonus and was a lot slower to get. But you aren't sick of all this jumping action yet, right?!

Loopy Lights

Same old, same old...

Platform Perils:

This level was the most challenging to do, both to keep the speed throughout the level as well as avoiding enemies. It had me stuck for quite some time, especially the end with all the Krushas. It did work out nicely in the end I think.

Master Necky SNR:

It's another Necky. You've already seen this. Stop watching and go to the next boring boss fight instead.

King K Rool:

I actually found a faster method to end the run compared to my previous TASes. It uses the same idea, but it's done earlier.

"And there you have it. Donkey Kong Country done in 5.0 Y presses."


Memory: Judging
Memory: Optimization looks very good, no obvious mistakes at all.
The entertainment was very good in my eyes. The difference between this goal and the existing branches is like night and day, and there are plenty of clever things in the TAS that make it still entertaining despite being moving significantly slower. The audience enjoyed it too.
The only problem is whether this is truly a walkathon. If you consider moving with the y-button: rolling and running to be not walking, then this is fine. There isn't exactly a much easier way to phrase this without getting overly mechanical so I see "Walkathon" as a fitting enough descriptor.
Accepting to Moons as a new branch.
Dacicus: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
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EZGames69
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Y though?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
EZGames69
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For the record, I do want to vote “yes” on this, but that option contains the letter “Y”, so I’m scared to do it.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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Could this be improved by holding Y before power on? The run wouldn't contain a y press then, just a y hold.
Tompa
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In theory, yes. But that would destroy the goal for this category, as you would be running constantly.
Doomsday31415
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You're still running when you grab ropes and get shot out of barrels though, so it's not a true walkathon either way. I think beating the game in 0.5 Y presses would be more interesting. Either way, been looking forward to this :D
Tompa
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Yeah, I know... The branch name is difficult :).
Personman
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Nah, it's easy: "fewest frames with Y held"
A warb degombs the brangy. Your gitch zanks and leils the warb.
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Normally I'd say yes, but given what day it is, it makes me nervous.
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This was interesting, and I liked this concept. Yes vote. Also, this is really the only DKC game which the "whole" game can be beaten without Y, isn't?
My homepage --Currently not much motived for TASing as before...-- But I'm still working.
Tompa
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DKC2 gets stuck in 1-3, DKC3 can reach the first boss, but you can't beat him without throwing the beetles in his mouth, which requires Y.
Memory
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So personally I see the goal as providing unique and interesting TAS content, the only question I would have would be if there is any better way to rephrase it since you're arguably forced to run at many points. Personally I'd say this is a valid walkathon but that's largely because of all the times in school where I was late to class but there was a "no running in the halls" rule. If I had to guess, my motions then resembled this a bit.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
EZGames69
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Memory wrote:
So personally I see the goal as providing unique and interesting TAS content, the only question I would have would be if there is any better way to rephrase it since you're arguably forced to run at many points.
I do want to mention that if we’re considering renaming to somthing like “No Y presses” then that would be incredibly misleading since the Y button has to be used for one of the bosses.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Memory
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EZGames69 wrote:
Memory wrote:
So personally I see the goal as providing unique and interesting TAS content, the only question I would have would be if there is any better way to rephrase it since you're arguably forced to run at many points.
I do want to mention that if we’re considering renaming to somthing like “No Y presses” then that would be incredibly misleading since the Y button has to be used for one of the bosses.
I mean "Minimal Y-Presses" would be extremely accurate, that's not the problem with that label though. It's just that it sounds very mechanical and doesn't let the viewer know what to expect unless they can remember the exact controls off the top of their head.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
EZGames69
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“No run button”?
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Memory
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Except it's used for more than just running so not really? Also it would still be "Minimal", not "No".
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
lexikiq
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cut out the button, make it "minimal running"?
Doomsday31415
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The fact that DK does in fact run quite frequently because of the barrels makes any label that uses that a recipe for confusion. If there was a category where the Y button was held the entire game, what would be the label for that? I'd imagine this would have a similar label.
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I checked it out and I think it's a decent goal definition. The gameplay difference is very apparent; the main question becomes "but you still go fast without running and rolling in a few places", but it's legitimate since it's not running, or rolling. In Sonic "no zips" Aglar clips through things and people noticed it and it was questioned, but the result was still very entertaining, technically no zipping was involved, and it was published with a potential way to be obsoleted by a slightly different goal. Here it feels the same, maybe it'd feel more "walkathon" without going fast at all, but gameplay would look largely similar to this movie anyway, just a little bit slower. I think walkathon is the best name, even if it's not 100% perfect. It should just be mentioned that we define walkathon as no running or rolling which is what the Y button does.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Doomsday31415
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I was reading through the Guidelines for something else and read something that contradicts accepting this run.
Do not impose artificial restrictions on the run. Such as “No usage of this particular weapon”, “Both high score and fast time” (how should we compare that run to a future one?), or “No jumping except where necessary”. It is possible to set auxiliary goals, such as “as high a score as possible without wasting time”, but, as stated, it must not interfere with the primary goal of fastest completion.
This run very clearly falls under "no pressing Y except where necessary". Perhaps the guideline could be clarified?
Memory
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Two things. One, they're guidelines, they're not rules. Two, he presses y there in that spot to grab a barrel, not to run.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Doomsday31415
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Memory wrote:
Two things. One, they're guidelines, they're not rules. Two, he presses y there in that spot to grab a barrel, not to run.
Guideline or rule, this still blatantly goes against it. If the guideline can be ignored this easily, how's anyone supposed to tell when to actually follow it? The restriction on this run is "minimal Y presses". If it wasn't, it would be faster to pick up barrels in a variety of places.
EZGames69
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Minimal does not mean 0 Y presses, it just means it uses it the least amount of times.
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
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The main question is: is picking barrels limited in this movie, and if it is, how? Also, in Moons we explicitly allow esoteric goals as long as the definition feels solid and the movie is entertaining, the guideline you quoted existed long before we created tiers, and can't be taken as a rule in such cases.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Memory
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feos wrote:
Also, in Moons we explicitly allow esoteric goals as long as the definition feels solid and the movie is entertaining, the guideline you quoted existed long before we created tiers, and can't be taken as a rule in such cases.
Indeed the sentence at the start of that very section states
Guidelines wrote:
Choose goals that will make the run entertaining.
The reason that specifically was suggested was because it would likely be an example of a goal that would feel strange to the audience. This goal does not feel strange to me at all.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero