STROOP! They called their toolset STROOP! That’s hilarious. For those who don’t know, a stroopwafel is a Dutch waffle cookie with caramel or maple syrup filling. For those who also don’t know, pannenkoek is a Dutch style of pancake.
I also came here to point this out. Stroop is Dutch for syrup, a natural pairing for pannenkoeken ☺️. This is related to the English word "blackstrap", as in molasses
Wait seriously?!? Who came up with the perfectly logical acronym that is ALSO is a brilliant pun?? I guess I can't be too surprised there's something about STROOP I don't know... after sll I've only been TASimg for a few months amd theres a litteral ocean of data there. But the name? I didn't get the pun in the *name?!?*
Part of what I find so compelling about the ABC is that it's a challenge that no one knows if it's possible to complete. It's like climbing Mt. Everest--no one knew if it was even possible to do that until someone did. The mountain doesn't care if it's possible--it was never "designed" to be climbed. In the same way, SM64 was never designed to be done 0xA. Getting to 19xA is a monumental achievement because its impossible to have known if such a thing was even possible. It feels like the ABC is a "puzzle designed by god". It's a hidden game inside of regular SM64, created by the negative space from the design that the game devs had originally carved out. A secret riddle with no intended solution or even possibly any solution at all. Every level is more of a toybox of movement tech and glitches that, if strung together in just the right way, would just barely be able to work. It's a game where the levels get harder--have to get harder because if there was any easier way to do it we would've found it already.
Very late to the party on this one and I have nothing to add that hasn't been said already, but even though I knew about Pannen's most recent return, the ending reveal still gave me goosebumps accompanied by a loud, audible "WHAT?!" followed by flabbergasted laughter at seeing the preview of what's to come. Love you Bismuth, your dedication to this series is what makes all the effort of the ABC team approachable to normal people and easy to appreciate by people of any level of background knowledge of sm64.
the end had me scream "HUH?!?!" out loud when i realized the date was TODAY and then seeing how wild that movement looks! I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT PART!! FANTASTIC WORK AS ALWAYS!!!
@@marksmithwas12 None in a full run because the first star, secret aquarium, requires a to not be held. Unless you mean quitting out, pressing a, and starting again before each half a press. There are only 4 half a presses left anyways
Throughout 2016, the ABC crew had several dead-end strategies in TTC that ended up documented on Pannen's secondary channel. Bismuth didn't go over them here (understandably so, the video's long enough as it is), but when going back through the archives between this and Part 5, two in particular fascinated me and I'd like to give them a whirl. Spinner Pedro Spot: It was found that if the red coin spinners are within a certain angle range, there is a Pedro Spot that could be used to build up speed and save 2 A presses (1 on The Pit and the Pendulums, 1 on Timed Jumps on Moving Bars). On the random setting, it's impossible for the spinners to stay perfectly still, but it was theorized that one could simulate stillness by getting enough good RNG calls ahead of time (remember, RNG can't be manipulated while inside the Pedro Spot) to have the spinner rotate back-and-forth the minimum amount. When a spinner finishes a rotation, it calls RNG twice to determine both its direction (CW or CCW) and the number of frames (30, 60, 90, or 120) of its next rotation. However, due to a quirk of how the spinners move, their rotations ACTUALLY last 31, 61, 91, and 121 frames, ultimately resulting in a net CCW movement over time. Thus, the spinners exit the desired angle range too quickly to build up enough speed for this strategy to work. Random Cog Pedro Spot: This was a crazy one. If this turned out to be possible, TPatP, Stomp on the Thwomp, and TJoMB would've been at 1x, 2x, and 1x way earlier. When a cog rotates on the random setting, it calls RNG twice to determine the magnitude and sign of its next target angular velocity. 0 is a value it can target (which it does 1/7th of the time), and it can target this value an infinite number of times in a row, so in theory you could manipulate RNG ahead of time to keep the floor cog still enough long enough for Mario to build up speed:1200 frames at most. Unfortunately, the chance of this working was calculated to be 10^-1014. The number of possible states TTC could be in was also calculated to be 10^155, which is way too many to iterate through or even calculate the probability that a state succeeds. So, Pannen wrote a program that would simulate the effects of RNG on every object in TTC. Using this, he could move forward in time and determine how long it would take for the cog to stay still for a certain number of frames. This number increases exponentially, to the point where to get just 12 measly frames of stillness took 52 YEARS. Using an exponential trend line with the data, it was calculated that getting the necessary 1200 frames would be predicted to take 10^1101 years (not accounting for the fact that TTC has a limited number of states). So, this strat was declared infeasible to achieve in practice. Obviously, it's not needed nowadays since there are now superior routes. There was a benefit from researching the RCPS, though. In writing that program, Pannen had to study the behavior of pendulums on the random setting, which ultimately led him to finding pendulum manipulation. This is a great example of how sometimes, you need to put your focus into other areas to find the solution to a different problem, a philosophy of how Pannen goes about documenting stuff on his secondary channel.
I did plan on talking about RCPS eventually but yeah, the successes are already so plentiful and complex that also talking about all the failures would take many more hours.
@@MagikMKW I think the closest we've got for that so far is a crash in TTC that involves using pendulum manipulation to make the pendulum's angular displacement too large to convert into a 16-bit integer. Console verification of that crash took 39 days.
@@threehead99 sorry, that doesn't work either because it was such a huge collaborative achievement that he actually put "we collect the star" in his descriptions instead of "i collect the star"
@@RichConnerGMN There was coordination but it only stemmed from a coincidence. If we hadn't talked to each other he probably would have released it a few days earlier at most.
@@RichConnerGMN most all a press saves after 2015 or so are huge collaborative achivements. It says "i collect the star" for a lot of pannen's videos cuz he put together the tas, not because he figured it all out by himself.
That moment at the the end, when it was revealed that the A Press Count had decreased, & all those new tricks were shown off.... I was honestly surprised. It's not all 7, but it's still an incredible amount of progress, & because it seems like it was so recent, I like to think it means there's hope for this. Excellent video! Once again, thanks for making this, Bismuth!
Love the RTABC coverage, didn't know that much about it and it's a lot cooler than I realized. Also love the camera work throughout this series and in this video especially. Oh yeah and really appreciate your coverage of the SA lobby movement, that was super nice :)
That moment when people finish the premiere and realise there’s 3 A press saves that were uploaded WHILE watching the premiere, meaning the end of the video was technically up to date at the time of premiering
"but on 0 stars there's no tornado here" This is where I remembered that this entire manipulation is to enter a stage with the same amount of A presses but on a different version of the game.
Clearly, they are already on their way to making Tick Tock Clock Heaven given that their abilities have evolved Maneuversnake into A-Moon. They already have shaved 3 a presses already, Which is similar to Pucci shaving off two days by using C-Moon to make a weightless area to float to the conditions he needed to get Made In Heaven
current action: bye bye was definitely my favorite part. This journey has been incredible to relive, it's strange feeling going from the beginnings of the challenge to more recent stuff that I actually was able to witness. Tick Tock Clock is definitely a remarkable area for this challenge because its complexity is both a blessing and a curse.
Glad someone else saw the Action: Bye bye Got a chuckle out of me for sure. And yeah... TTC is a blessing and a curse. Theres a lot of objects with interesting behavior that leaves plenty of room for abuse. But there are a LOT of objects to sort through. Wiggler's red coins have the exact opposite issue. There are exactly two objects able to do stuff. The fire spitter, and the Wiggler boss (technically 6 obj but whatever) Whats heartbreaking is BOTH of these objects are pretty close to saving the first of the two A presses, but because there aren't any other objects present it isn't enough. Idea 1: we can gain hyperspeed by bouncing on wiggler, then land and use text redirection. Then force our speed to turn negetive, and use that to do a negetive jump strait through the floor to the first red coin. Hold that A for a bit lets you then blast to the second coin, skipping the double jump. The issue? We need about -1900 SPD for the negetive jump to work, and while we can get several thousand SPD using the wiggler, theres not a way to preserve more than a few hundred. Idea 2: The fire spitter is in a pretty odd place and can sometimes shoot its fire out into the air. By doing a DR on the platforms we have access to, and then doing a fire bounce gives juuust enough height the grab the ledge with the first coin. The issue? Can't grab ledges while burning. And absolutely nothing in the room is capable of putting Mario out except for spawning a 100 coin star, and you can't spawn one near enough to the ledge to do a Star Dance Clip.
Bismuth, you know how bad I want to write a whole multiple-paragraph appreciation letter to your incredible work. But instead I'm just gonna say what any other casual viewer would say: Holy cow!
To be so incredibly invested in this series for the last 14 months... And see that ending... I have never felt so connected to the actual history of the speedrun community as in this moment. Just magical. Sincerely, hats off to you Bismuth.
Now I finally understand why Get a Hand & re-entry .5xA wasn't a case of "just kick the wall duh". It required the stars to align (almost literally) to still be able to land on the spinner. Ever since I've seen this series I've gained a whole new appreciation for the amount of serious work the ABC crew put into their research!
I was watching a random Nathaniel Bandy video a few days ago, where he very briefly said "I was watching Pannenkoek's video on the 19 remaining A presses". For whatever reason, it caught my attention so I decided to look into it, which lead me to watching your series. Then, only a couple days after I finish it, you upload part 6?! Then out of nowhere you reveal the count is at SIXTEEN as of today! I feel so lucky, keep up the great work!!
As someone who absolutely sucks at math,, who doesnt know anything about code, who has never even played mario 64 or any nintendo 64 games, this series, or no, this channel explains everything insanely well It's all very clear and well done, nothing feels rushed, it's a masterpiece No words could actually explain how I feel about this, not only the videos but also the community, all of this accomplished simply because of love for this single game, it's just so fun to see something like that even if you're not a part of it AAlso! wanted to add that the piano covers in the background add a lot to the video, they're amazing!!
Can't wait for part 7. I just watched Pannenkoek's recent TTC videos and I don't have enough PhDs to fully understand that insanity. Thank you Bismuth for this awesome series! Also, it's crazy RTABC is actually a thing. I never would've expected people to use some of these tricks.
“Don’t have enough PhDs” too true lmao, this shit is beyond what most people will ever be able to grasp in their lifetime, and that’s barely an exaggeration
"the most off-the-wall insane ABC achievement yet: entering the secret aquarium in zero A-presses without parallel universes." is the type of line I delight in. Something that excites and makes total sense to us nutjobs who follow these labours of love religiously, while making no sense and exposing our insanity to anyone else.
It's not just the editing that's phenomenal. It's also the research! I've been subbed to pannenkoek for years and still managed to miss so much of the behind the scene.
I thought I had seen it all but this episode blew me away The culmination of all sorts of tricks and techniques in order to make the Aquarium entrance work, it's like puzzle pieces finally matching together And gosh, I really thought it was the last one, that last teaser was unexpected to say the least. I can't wait for the last part, love this series!
The amount of dedication displayed by not only you for making these videos, but the abc crew as a whole is astonishing. Can’t wait to see how this episode turns out.
I thought it impressive that mario can traverse parallel universes, accelerate indefinitely, & clone goombas, but controlling fate itself by kicking up dust is by far the most impressive power
Came here from yesterday’s 3 a press save livestream, and gotta say, I’m just glad for the simple fact that TTC has bob-ombs lol Also, never knew about RTA a button challenge until now. Definitely checking out the Dark World in 0 A presses RTA and other videos after this.
One of the best parts of getting through one of these videos is the sense of wonder at what can possibly come next. The music really does a great job. Well done.
Thank you so much for this Bismuth. Just binged all 6 episodes. I tried writing many nice things in this comment to you but alas i'm simply lost for proper words and right now feel so touched by the story that i cant even stay in myself. So simply, thank you! Amazing work and likewise for our speedrun team and community.
As I've gone through this series, I've gone from "Wow! That's a cool trick, I need to understand it completely!" to "This is black magic and there is no way I'm going to be able to understand it entirely!" I'm blown away with the ingenuity and sheer dogged determination.
The scariest thing : 16 A press is not the end yet. From what've understood the ABC crew seem to has find way to shave 6 other A press, yes , not 2 or 3 , but SIX a presses ! Takign down the count to 10
Also absolutely stunned that we aren’t done yet, thanks for the dedication to telling this story in such detail! Eagerly awaiting for the next one to be ready
There are just too many great things to comment on. From the ABC TASers, to the ABC real time runners, to the theory crafters and of course Bismuth. When I clicked on play, I thought the new saved presses would surely be in the video but given their absurd complexity, they really deserve their own video. And maybe Marbler finds a way to stomp in 0xA. Incredible stuff.
Honestly, I've never been so invested in a video game project until this series. I sincerely hope these guys can find a way to pull this off. This is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.
I can tell this is gonna be one of those series that I can sit and re-watch multiple times. The only other series like that for me is the Chris Chan documentary.
Thank you for this series, sometimes it's hard to wrap your head around some of the abc stuff and this series has really helped me understand just how insane the work going into these discoveries is
This whole endeavor has grown old-goomba-bridge-like. It's honestly incredible the collective amount of work that's gone into achieving an utter pipe dream, that becomes more and more plausible by the day.
Even after multiple viewings of every previous installment of the series, i have absolutely no hope of understanding whats going on Cheers for another great video sir
I feel like I would understand more if I paid more attention. I would mostly rely on a rudimentary understanding of game programming and the C language. Understanding Mario 65 seems to just rely on know how badly it's programmed and the shortcuts it uses. The game uses multiple different number systems leading to collision errors, there are multiple frame perfect tricks caused by bad ordering (or lacking duplication) of lines in the code and the collision system uses midsteps instead of casting presumably to make its implementation easier. These crazy tricks just stem from those errors and very simplified actor behavior.
to this day, that ending is still INSANE. the upload date coinciding with the 3 a press saves might just be the craziest moment in the series history, even rivaling the pannen reveal at the end of part 1
OK. That secret aquarium 0xA explanation was BONKERS. Imma be honest, I've re-watched bad boots video on it multiple times. So for the first part I got to just enjoy the subtle humor as my brain wasn't being blown to bits. (27:34. Action: Bye bye. Freaking beautiful.) Then we enter the castle and I finally saw what made this so damn hard. I've gained enough familiarity with TASing to know the main issues with high speed. As soon as you said the pillar is 77 units higher I literally said out loud. "Oh. Thats why" Cuz I *thought* it was a misalignment. (bad_boot does say "unit precise movement" so I can't exactly be blamed here) Ha. If only it was. Its crazy to think that one of dozens of things that made the difference was the order two walls happened to process in was just right. The level of precision needed to make that cieiling cancel work is also just insane. I'm honestly amazed a solution exists. The range of speed to make it up the JRB stairs is just large enough to make it possible to get to the platform at all, and that speed range also *happens* to include the speed range needed for the DR cancel to work??? Also, I'm glad to finally have an answer to the number one thing that bugged me. Why does Mario burn so much speed by the PSS door?!? Doesn't he need all that precious speed? To get there, yes. To get from there to the GLG? No. Wish I had been able to catch this live... or any time in the past few days. (In fact I'm unwisely staying up to 3am again. Gonna regret that tommorrow, but damn it was sure worth it for some answers!) Side note: RTABC is a big thing?!? How haven't I heard of this before?!? And as always, these videos are such high quality! Thank you for putting together this documentary Bismuth, and thanks to everyone in the ABC crew who helped supply him with the detailed info (and TASing the incredible solutions) Now only one question remained... if Part 6 is called "Conquering TTC" and the recent A press saves finally remove everything inside TTC (damn clock jump...) what will part 7 be called?
i am always blown away by how incredible these videos are, im so glad that the abc has such a sophisticated archive in this series, and the reveal at the end was jawdropping. as always, beautiful beautiful work
This get's uploaded the day of some TTC a press saves? Man, what a treat! Also that little tease at the end of what was saved TODAY was a nice touch. It's incredible how much this community has came together to save that many! Though the final push of those last bit of a presses are going to be the hardest.
Amazing as always, probably my favorite series on YT atm. That aquarium section was so ridiculous for how many moving pieces were involved to solve it. One question I have though is why the Wii VC version couldn't be emulated through Dolphin for the Fire Sea platform raise glitch? Is it just not accurate enough or are the WAD files treated differently by the emulator somehow?
Every a press save is tested on actual N64 hardware. As good as dolphin is at emulating the wii, it will never be perfect. And there is just no way to test a TAS on an actual wii.
Sometimes it feels like Nintendo was planning for crazy shit like this all along; so many things are just barely, barely possible, like that insane 10 triangle wall push
Ahh we are getting so close to the end!! That was such a sick reveal!! And wow, this is the episode with BitFS 0x on Wii VC and Enter Secret Aquarium 0x on console! I remember both of those, they were legendary! It was great hearing about them again c:
I really hope we can get a future video explaining all of the remaining a presses, why they are difficult, what ideas there are for collecting them, and which ones are the hardest!
Good lord! This may honestly be one of the greatest cumulative human achievements I've seen in a very long time. The amount of man hours that must have went into all this is truly staggering!
I’ve been loving this series I’m excited to watch this next part. Your videos are extremely well made and I always love watching them. You’re definitely one of my favorite youtubers rn.
In case you were wondering. Stroop can be pronounced by putting an S in front of the word trope. (So, strope) The oe in PannenkOEk has the same pronounciation as the oo in cOOkie. ( there is a ton of story behind the word cookie actually.)
![[TH] RNT vs SPG - VCT Ascension Pacific - Day 1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RUTkf8Detj8/mqdefault.jpg)
STROOP! They called their toolset STROOP! That’s hilarious.
For those who don’t know, a stroopwafel is a Dutch waffle cookie with caramel or maple syrup filling.
For those who also don’t know, pannenkoek is a Dutch style of pancake.
There's another tool called wafel actually
I also came here to point this out. Stroop is Dutch for syrup, a natural pairing for pannenkoeken ☺️. This is related to the English word "blackstrap", as in molasses
Wait seriously?!?
Who came up with the perfectly logical acronym that is ALSO is a brilliant pun??
I guess I can't be too surprised there's something about STROOP I don't know... after sll I've only been TASimg for a few months amd theres a litteral ocean of data there.
But the name? I didn't get the pun in the *name?!?*
finally, someone that acknowledges the joke
Look at the logo for Stroop. It's a stack of waffles with syrup dripping (or in the case of a stroopwafel, the caramel filling melting out the side) 😆
Wow, yet another oldhead speedrunner showing up in these ABC videos. Z1mb0bw4y's Portal run at sgdq 2012 was legendary
I'm surprised I even ended up in the video! It's an honor to have one of my runs called legendary by you 😄
@@Z1mb0bw4y You are loved
@@Z1mb0bw4y may you have peace and rest in your body
@@Z1mb0bw4y Pls join and hang out in the abc server more lol, even if it's just chilling in #other or #voice
@@Z1mb0bw4y I was surprised too. I didn't realize you'd contributed to this, even indirectly. Shoutouts to the board game crew!
Part of what I find so compelling about the ABC is that it's a challenge that no one knows if it's possible to complete. It's like climbing Mt. Everest--no one knew if it was even possible to do that until someone did. The mountain doesn't care if it's possible--it was never "designed" to be climbed. In the same way, SM64 was never designed to be done 0xA. Getting to 19xA is a monumental achievement because its impossible to have known if such a thing was even possible.
It feels like the ABC is a "puzzle designed by god". It's a hidden game inside of regular SM64, created by the negative space from the design that the game devs had originally carved out. A secret riddle with no intended solution or even possibly any solution at all. Every level is more of a toybox of movement tech and glitches that, if strung together in just the right way, would just barely be able to work. It's a game where the levels get harder--have to get harder because if there was any easier way to do it we would've found it already.
Underrated comment
Oh yeah this shit is beautiful, well done. Even if we never get below 10 A presses, it won’t matter, since the journey is what this is about
Now, with just 16xA presses, there is hope.
"puzzle designed by god" perfect description
This is a really beautiful sentiment
Very late to the party on this one and I have nothing to add that hasn't been said already, but even though I knew about Pannen's most recent return, the ending reveal still gave me goosebumps accompanied by a loud, audible "WHAT?!" followed by flabbergasted laughter at seeing the preview of what's to come. Love you Bismuth, your dedication to this series is what makes all the effort of the ABC team approachable to normal people and easy to appreciate by people of any level of background knowledge of sm64.
the end had me scream "HUH?!?!" out loud when i realized the date was TODAY and then seeing how wild that movement looks! I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT PART!! FANTASTIC WORK AS ALWAYS!!!
Wait what
@@DanielVCOliveira 53:40
HOLY COW HOW DID I NOT REALISE. That single second of video is amazing!
YO SAME
YES OMG
The pendulum having ten triangles, just enough for the spawning displacement to work, makes me believe we’re destined to one day get to 0X ABC
Considering the number of 0.5s, I wonder if 1X is more likely.
@@Agedude I wonder how many 0.5 A Press stars can be chained from pressing and holding A from the file select screen? 🤔
Wingmario over the rainbow scares me.
@@marksmithwas12 None in a full run because the first star, secret aquarium, requires a to not be held. Unless you mean quitting out, pressing a, and starting again before each half a press.
There are only 4 half a presses left anyways
@@acblook good point actually 🤔
5:49 "Now that the pendulum manipulation is in *full swing*"
Good pun
Throughout 2016, the ABC crew had several dead-end strategies in TTC that ended up documented on Pannen's secondary channel. Bismuth didn't go over them here (understandably so, the video's long enough as it is), but when going back through the archives between this and Part 5, two in particular fascinated me and I'd like to give them a whirl.
Spinner Pedro Spot: It was found that if the red coin spinners are within a certain angle range, there is a Pedro Spot that could be used to build up speed and save 2 A presses (1 on The Pit and the Pendulums, 1 on Timed Jumps on Moving Bars). On the random setting, it's impossible for the spinners to stay perfectly still, but it was theorized that one could simulate stillness by getting enough good RNG calls ahead of time (remember, RNG can't be manipulated while inside the Pedro Spot) to have the spinner rotate back-and-forth the minimum amount. When a spinner finishes a rotation, it calls RNG twice to determine both its direction (CW or CCW) and the number of frames (30, 60, 90, or 120) of its next rotation. However, due to a quirk of how the spinners move, their rotations ACTUALLY last 31, 61, 91, and 121 frames, ultimately resulting in a net CCW movement over time. Thus, the spinners exit the desired angle range too quickly to build up enough speed for this strategy to work.
Random Cog Pedro Spot: This was a crazy one. If this turned out to be possible, TPatP, Stomp on the Thwomp, and TJoMB would've been at 1x, 2x, and 1x way earlier. When a cog rotates on the random setting, it calls RNG twice to determine the magnitude and sign of its next target angular velocity. 0 is a value it can target (which it does 1/7th of the time), and it can target this value an infinite number of times in a row, so in theory you could manipulate RNG ahead of time to keep the floor cog still enough long enough for Mario to build up speed:1200 frames at most. Unfortunately, the chance of this working was calculated to be 10^-1014. The number of possible states TTC could be in was also calculated to be 10^155, which is way too many to iterate through or even calculate the probability that a state succeeds. So, Pannen wrote a program that would simulate the effects of RNG on every object in TTC. Using this, he could move forward in time and determine how long it would take for the cog to stay still for a certain number of frames. This number increases exponentially, to the point where to get just 12 measly frames of stillness took 52 YEARS. Using an exponential trend line with the data, it was calculated that getting the necessary 1200 frames would be predicted to take 10^1101 years (not accounting for the fact that TTC has a limited number of states). So, this strat was declared infeasible to achieve in practice. Obviously, it's not needed nowadays since there are now superior routes.
There was a benefit from researching the RCPS, though. In writing that program, Pannen had to study the behavior of pendulums on the random setting, which ultimately led him to finding pendulum manipulation. This is a great example of how sometimes, you need to put your focus into other areas to find the solution to a different problem, a philosophy of how Pannen goes about documenting stuff on his secondary channel.
I did plan on talking about RCPS eventually but yeah, the successes are already so plentiful and complex that also talking about all the failures would take many more hours.
This is one of the craziest things I've ever read holy shit
It would be so sick to have a strat that takes until the heat death of the universe to finish
@@MagikMKW I think the closest we've got for that so far is a crash in TTC that involves using pendulum manipulation to make the pendulum's angular displacement too large to convert into a 16-bit integer. Console verification of that crash took 39 days.
@@SuperViperT302 hahahah that's a cool one
"In 2022, the A press count is still at 19"
*proceeds to save 3 A presses at once*
Everyone: bro :/
why did pannenkoek kick the bucket
@@JK17-2 right at the end of this one
@@JK17-2 You should watch the new video on pannenkoek's channel. It's frickin' insane.
@@scotterboi9 *pannenkeok aka UncommentatedPannen
@@stevegamer68 I'm stupid.
I love how pannen was waiting to release saved A presses untill after you made this video ;)
they were just console verified yesterday, so that's probably the real reason (also those came out during the premiere)
@@RichConnerGMN reality be damned. Let's just act like he wanted another episode to himself.
@@threehead99 sorry, that doesn't work either because it was such a huge collaborative achievement that he actually put "we collect the star" in his descriptions instead of "i collect the star"
@@RichConnerGMN There was coordination but it only stemmed from a coincidence. If we hadn't talked to each other he probably would have released it a few days earlier at most.
@@RichConnerGMN most all a press saves after 2015 or so are huge collaborative achivements. It says "i collect the star" for a lot of pannen's videos cuz he put together the tas, not because he figured it all out by himself.
That moment at the the end, when it was revealed that the A Press Count had decreased, & all those new tricks were shown off.... I was honestly surprised. It's not all 7, but it's still an incredible amount of progress, & because it seems like it was so recent, I like to think it means there's hope for this.
Excellent video! Once again, thanks for making this, Bismuth!
> It's not all 7
:)
So, I suppose that's the e-*WHAT*
This was the best ending reveal. A bit of a shame that some people in chat couldn't stay quiet, but still a sick reveal nonetheless!
aaand this is why I turned off chat
hi
@@RichConnerGMN richconner you missed the 2 people group watch in the server >:(
Now you are one of those people
charcoal jumpscare
Love the RTABC coverage, didn't know that much about it and it's a lot cooler than I realized. Also love the camera work throughout this series and in this video especially.
Oh yeah and really appreciate your coverage of the SA lobby movement, that was super nice :)
Yeah! thats was incredible to see! i saw the original strat and now see this other angle is so cool!
I've only just found this series (unless i'm stupid and don't remember watching), and another part's appeared right now! That's luck for me lol
early on a verified comment
RNG manipulation
Same exact thing for me. TH-cam algorithm.
WHY ARE YOU HERE
WHY ARE YOU ALWAYSVHERE
I CANT ESCAPE YOU
NOT EVEN IN SHORTS
You're so late my man! This is the best series on TH-cam!
The ABC Crew’s determination to get the amount of A presses down is legendary.
Never seen anything like it. Maybe going to the moon in the 60s
That moment when people finish the premiere and realise there’s 3 A press saves that were uploaded WHILE watching the premiere, meaning the end of the video was technically up to date at the time of premiering
"but on 0 stars there's no tornado here"
This is where I remembered that this entire manipulation is to enter a stage with the same amount of A presses but on a different version of the game.
Part 6? Man I can’t wait to see Jolyne beat up a priest!
There might be a way to reach tick tock clock heaven, and I'll do everything to get here
Just wait until the end of Part 6: Part 6: Part 3. Many good writing choices were made there.
@@skepticpunk_ I love Part 6's ending. I guess I can see why some people don't, but cmon, what else would've happened?
Clearly, they are already on their way to making Tick Tock Clock Heaven given that their abilities have evolved Maneuversnake into A-Moon. They already have shaved 3 a presses already,
Which is similar to Pucci shaving off two days by using C-Moon to make a weightless area to float to the conditions he needed to get Made In Heaven
The priest only wanted a world where everyone knew what their next RNG value would be
I gasped out loud when you revealed the 3 A press save at the end - brilliant stuff!
One of the best series on TH-cam, can't wait for this new video
You don't have to
@@Fortbuilder789 wdym
38:35 I am in love with Bismuth's timing
(Ukulele strum) "2 days later"
Only like 5 seconds in and already hit with "this wall isn't always a wall"
Phenomenal
current action: bye bye was definitely my favorite part. This journey has been incredible to relive, it's strange feeling going from the beginnings of the challenge to more recent stuff that I actually was able to witness. Tick Tock Clock is definitely a remarkable area for this challenge because its complexity is both a blessing and a curse.
Glad someone else saw the Action: Bye bye
Got a chuckle out of me for sure.
And yeah... TTC is a blessing and a curse. Theres a lot of objects with interesting behavior that leaves plenty of room for abuse.
But there are a LOT of objects to sort through.
Wiggler's red coins have the exact opposite issue. There are exactly two objects able to do stuff.
The fire spitter, and the Wiggler boss (technically 6 obj but whatever)
Whats heartbreaking is BOTH of these objects are pretty close to saving the first of the two A presses, but because there aren't any other objects present it isn't enough.
Idea 1: we can gain hyperspeed by bouncing on wiggler, then land and use text redirection. Then force our speed to turn negetive, and use that to do a negetive jump strait through the floor to the first red coin. Hold that A for a bit lets you then blast to the second coin, skipping the double jump.
The issue? We need about -1900 SPD for the negetive jump to work, and while we can get several thousand SPD using the wiggler, theres not a way to preserve more than a few hundred.
Idea 2: The fire spitter is in a pretty odd place and can sometimes shoot its fire out into the air.
By doing a DR on the platforms we have access to, and then doing a fire bounce gives juuust enough height the grab the ledge with the first coin.
The issue? Can't grab ledges while burning. And absolutely nothing in the room is capable of putting Mario out except for spawning a 100 coin star, and you can't spawn one near enough to the ledge to do a Star Dance Clip.
Bismuth, you know how bad I want to write a whole multiple-paragraph appreciation letter to your incredible work.
But instead I'm just gonna say what any other casual viewer would say: Holy cow!
I never knew about RTABC before this video. thats absolutely insane
To be so incredibly invested in this series for the last 14 months... And see that ending... I have never felt so connected to the actual history of the speedrun community as in this moment. Just magical. Sincerely, hats off to you Bismuth.
Now I finally understand why Get a Hand & re-entry .5xA wasn't a case of "just kick the wall duh". It required the stars to align (almost literally) to still be able to land on the spinner.
Ever since I've seen this series I've gained a whole new appreciation for the amount of serious work the ABC crew put into their research!
I was watching a random Nathaniel Bandy video a few days ago, where he very briefly said "I was watching Pannenkoek's video on the 19 remaining A presses". For whatever reason, it caught my attention so I decided to look into it, which lead me to watching your series. Then, only a couple days after I finish it, you upload part 6?! Then out of nowhere you reveal the count is at SIXTEEN as of today! I feel so lucky, keep up the great work!!
What cideo was that?
@@want-diversecontent3887 What happens when you leave Mario 64 running for a month
That's right, this "history"... it's still being written! Ludicrously inspirational.
I thought the series had to be done because you already got to 19, which I knew was the current count...was not expecting that ending.
you thought it was 16...
It's 14 A presses now
@@JK17-1 no it isn't bruh
@@TimofAwsome well I gotta change my comment now
As someone who absolutely sucks at math,, who doesnt know anything about code, who has never even played mario 64 or any nintendo 64 games, this series, or no, this channel explains everything insanely well
It's all very clear and well done, nothing feels rushed, it's a masterpiece
No words could actually explain how I feel about this, not only the videos but also the community, all of this accomplished simply because of love for this single game, it's just so fun to see something like that even if you're not a part of it
AAlso! wanted to add that the piano covers in the background add a lot to the video, they're amazing!!
Can't wait for part 7. I just watched Pannenkoek's recent TTC videos and I don't have enough PhDs to fully understand that insanity. Thank you Bismuth for this awesome series!
Also, it's crazy RTABC is actually a thing. I never would've expected people to use some of these tricks.
“Don’t have enough PhDs” too true lmao, this shit is beyond what most people will ever be able to grasp in their lifetime, and that’s barely an exaggeration
Regular gameplay: "Never play Tik Tok Clock in the chaotic mode, it's basically unplayable."
ABC: "Only play in the chaotic mode, it makes you GOD."
"the most off-the-wall insane ABC achievement yet: entering the secret aquarium in zero A-presses without parallel universes." is the type of line I delight in. Something that excites and makes total sense to us nutjobs who follow these labours of love religiously, while making no sense and exposing our insanity to anyone else.
The ending where he acknowledges the 3 new A press saves
47:22 "I used an A press to destroy an A press."
I've heard high schoolers ask "but when am I ever going to write an essay in real life?" Y'all these are great essays.
I KNEW IT!!! I CALLED IT!!! I knew that this episode would coincide with new A presses being removed, LETS GOOO
It's not just the editing that's phenomenal. It's also the research! I've been subbed to pannenkoek for years and still managed to miss so much of the behind the scene.
I thought I had seen it all but this episode blew me away
The culmination of all sorts of tricks and techniques in order to make the Aquarium entrance work, it's like puzzle pieces finally matching together
And gosh, I really thought it was the last one, that last teaser was unexpected to say the least. I can't wait for the last part, love this series!
That ending made me way more happy than it should have
The amount of dedication displayed by not only you for making these videos, but the abc crew as a whole is astonishing. Can’t wait to see how this episode turns out.
"In 2022, the A button count is still 19"
Shows graph that has it dip to 16 presses. Has "To be continued" at the end. Hm...Curious...
Check out pannenkoek's channels! They synced releases today.
That's his joke.
No
New A press save in Lethal Lava Land brings the A press count down to 15
I’m too invested in this silly challenge. It’s like art of the soul
I thought it impressive that mario can traverse parallel universes, accelerate indefinitely, & clone goombas, but controlling fate itself by kicking up dust is by far the most impressive power
Oh my god, I knew that Pannen had uploaded new improvements, but that ending gave me chills.
Came here from yesterday’s 3 a press save livestream, and gotta say, I’m just glad for the simple fact that TTC has bob-ombs lol
Also, never knew about RTA a button challenge until now. Definitely checking out the Dark World in 0 A presses RTA and other videos after this.
where
Wait 100% of part seven is going to be stuff that never even happened when part one was made. You could keep making this series on and off forever.
Part 1 was released over a year ago!
@@bloodlust_9890 feel old yet?
caught up to the present only to be hit with that To Be Continued!!!! fantastic! legendary work by the abc crew and another legendary video about it
It is just amazing how most tricks just barely work, as if it was intended to be found
I think TH-cam would break if Summoning salt and Bismuth did a crossover.
Could be called Summoning Bismuth.
One of the best parts of getting through one of these videos is the sense of wonder at what can possibly come next. The music really does a great job. Well done.
THAT ENDING MAKES ME SO EXCITED WHAT THE FUCK
Thank you so much for this Bismuth. Just binged all 6 episodes. I tried writing many nice things in this comment to you but alas i'm simply lost for proper words and right now feel so touched by the story that i cant even stay in myself. So simply, thank you! Amazing work and likewise for our speedrun team and community.
As I've gone through this series, I've gone from "Wow! That's a cool trick, I need to understand it completely!" to "This is black magic and there is no way I'm going to be able to understand it entirely!" I'm blown away with the ingenuity and sheer dogged determination.
the secret aquarium a press save might be the most insane sequence i’ve ever seen. incredible job from the people who made it work
Bismuth : *Going to release the last part of A button challenge*
ABC Crew : The story isn't end here
I legit screamed at the end of the video when I saw the counter go down. So much improvement at the same time, it's amazing.
The dedication AND creativity for these people is insane. I would have never thought about anything like the SA A press save in a billion years!
The scariest thing : 16 A press is not the end yet.
From what've understood the ABC crew seem to has find way to shave 6 other A press, yes , not 2 or 3 , but SIX a presses ! Takign down the count to 10
Elevator tour 0x, stomp on the thwomp 0x, and fire sea 0x. What are the other 3?
@@want-diversecontent3887 I initially though they might had found a way to do TTC 0xA entry , wich took 3 A presses.
But guess I was wrong
Also absolutely stunned that we aren’t done yet, thanks for the dedication to telling this story in such detail! Eagerly awaiting for the next one to be ready
There are just too many great things to comment on. From the ABC TASers, to the ABC real time runners, to the theory crafters and of course Bismuth. When I clicked on play, I thought the new saved presses would surely be in the video but given their absurd complexity, they really deserve their own video. And maybe Marbler finds a way to stomp in 0xA. Incredible stuff.
I really thought it was the last episode of the series, I knew the A press count was 19.... until the end. We still have another episode!!
Honestly, I've never been so invested in a video game project until this series. I sincerely hope these guys can find a way to pull this off. This is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.
I can tell this is gonna be one of those series that I can sit and re-watch multiple times. The only other series like that for me is the Chris Chan documentary.
Also, this is a well timed upload seeing as Pannenkoek uploaded 3 new videos yesterday.
What an amazing community. Also thank you Bismuth for doing gods work. This needs to be preserved.
Thank you for this series, sometimes it's hard to wrap your head around some of the abc stuff and this series has really helped me understand just how insane the work going into these discoveries is
Gosh that ending. Just finished watching the TASes, and was hoping they’d be at the end of this vid.
I loved the section on the IRL/RTA ABC runs. I never new people were grinding that out. So cool
This whole endeavor has grown old-goomba-bridge-like. It's honestly incredible the collective amount of work that's gone into achieving an utter pipe dream, that becomes more and more plausible by the day.
That break on June 23rd 2018 felt like it would never end...
Even after multiple viewings of every previous installment of the series, i have absolutely no hope of understanding whats going on
Cheers for another great video sir
Sometimes I put these on while tripping.
I feel like I would understand more if I paid more attention. I would mostly rely on a rudimentary understanding of game programming and the C language. Understanding Mario 65 seems to just rely on know how badly it's programmed and the shortcuts it uses. The game uses multiple different number systems leading to collision errors, there are multiple frame perfect tricks caused by bad ordering (or lacking duplication) of lines in the code and the collision system uses midsteps instead of casting presumably to make its implementation easier. These crazy tricks just stem from those errors and very simplified actor behavior.
I haven’t seen many sm64 videos in a while, so “entering the secret aquarium without parallel universes” kinda caught me off-guard
to this day, that ending is still INSANE. the upload date coinciding with the 3 a press saves might just be the craziest moment in the series history, even rivaling the pannen reveal at the end of part 1
OK. That secret aquarium 0xA explanation was BONKERS.
Imma be honest, I've re-watched bad boots video on it multiple times. So for the first part I got to just enjoy the subtle humor as my brain wasn't being blown to bits. (27:34. Action: Bye bye. Freaking beautiful.)
Then we enter the castle and I finally saw what made this so damn hard. I've gained enough familiarity with TASing to know the main issues with high speed. As soon as you said the pillar is 77 units higher I literally said out loud. "Oh. Thats why" Cuz I *thought* it was a misalignment. (bad_boot does say "unit precise movement" so I can't exactly be blamed here)
Ha. If only it was.
Its crazy to think that one of dozens of things that made the difference was the order two walls happened to process in was just right.
The level of precision needed to make that cieiling cancel work is also just insane. I'm honestly amazed a solution exists. The range of speed to make it up the JRB stairs is just large enough to make it possible to get to the platform at all, and that speed range also *happens* to include the speed range needed for the DR cancel to work???
Also, I'm glad to finally have an answer to the number one thing that bugged me. Why does Mario burn so much speed by the PSS door?!? Doesn't he need all that precious speed?
To get there, yes. To get from there to the GLG? No.
Wish I had been able to catch this live... or any time in the past few days. (In fact I'm unwisely staying up to 3am again. Gonna regret that tommorrow, but damn it was sure worth it for some answers!)
Side note: RTABC is a big thing?!? How haven't I heard of this before?!?
And as always, these videos are such high quality! Thank you for putting together this documentary Bismuth, and thanks to everyone in the ABC crew who helped supply him with the detailed info (and TASing the incredible solutions)
Now only one question remained... if Part 6 is called "Conquering TTC" and the recent A press saves finally remove everything inside TTC (damn clock jump...) what will part 7 be called?
i am always blown away by how incredible these videos are, im so glad that the abc has such a sophisticated archive in this series, and the reveal at the end was jawdropping. as always, beautiful beautiful work
5:49 “now that pendulum manipulation is in full swing”
I see what you did there
That reveal at the end literally gave me chills dude wtf, absolutely GOATed
A recent discovery by the ABC community: TTC has been saved an extra A press. Maybe an update in the comments?
"Now that the pendulum manipulation is in full swing"
Love stealthy puns.
This get's uploaded the day of some TTC a press saves? Man, what a treat! Also that little tease at the end of what was saved TODAY was a nice touch. It's incredible how much this community has came together to save that many! Though the final push of those last bit of a presses are going to be the hardest.
This series is incredibly well made. So glad I saw the notification before deciding to sleep! Can't wait to have my mind blown yet again
I *just* got the joke of Pannenkoek (Dutch pancakes) making a tool called Stroop (A Dutch pastry)
Amazing as always, probably my favorite series on YT atm. That aquarium section was so ridiculous for how many moving pieces were involved to solve it.
One question I have though is why the Wii VC version couldn't be emulated through Dolphin for the Fire Sea platform raise glitch? Is it just not accurate enough or are the WAD files treated differently by the emulator somehow?
Every a press save is tested on actual N64 hardware. As good as dolphin is at emulating the wii, it will never be perfect. And there is just no way to test a TAS on an actual wii.
@@EvilApple567 Your question was why they don't run the TAS on dolphin, the reason is that it would not be able to be console-verified.
This might just be a coincidence, but at 16:27 the A press counter changes to 120 right as Bismuth begins talking about the 120 star run!
Bismuth frequently times stuff like that on purpose.
@@shuttlecrossing7084 I should start looking for that kind of thing then lol
Sometimes it feels like Nintendo was planning for crazy shit like this all along; so many things are just barely, barely possible, like that insane 10 triangle wall push
Ahh we are getting so close to the end!! That was such a sick reveal!! And wow, this is the episode with BitFS 0x on Wii VC and Enter Secret Aquarium 0x on console! I remember both of those, they were legendary! It was great hearing about them again c:
I started crying tears of joy when the number changed at the end
oh!!! love that you took the time to show off some of the RTABC stuff!
I really hope we can get a future video explaining all of the remaining a presses, why they are difficult, what ideas there are for collecting them, and which ones are the hardest!
Good lord! This may honestly be one of the greatest cumulative human achievements I've seen in a very long time. The amount of man hours that must have went into all this is truly staggering!
33:42 The way you phrased this made me laugh, that was good
Wake up honey new bismuth video just got scheduled
I’ve been loving this series I’m excited to watch this next part. Your videos are extremely well made and I always love watching them. You’re definitely one of my favorite youtubers rn.
That’s a lot of one simple problems 😳
Fr though, this has been a fascinating journey, well done!
so happy to have seen this episode go from an idea to realization!
same here buddy
I don't know what's funnier, the fact that pannenkoek keeps naming his tools after pancakes, or the fact that everyone keeps butchering the names.
In case you were wondering.
Stroop can be pronounced by putting an S in front of the word trope. (So, strope)
The oe in PannenkOEk has the same pronounciation as the oo in cOOkie. ( there is a ton of story behind the word cookie actually.)
watch the second video. pannen himself pronounces them that way.
@@RichConnerGMN that's even funnier
I can't believe this was uploaded on the same HOUR as pannen's three TTC A-press saves LOL
It's almost as if it was planned
omg I didn't realize this was uploaded on my 18th birthday, how wonderful