Dutch viewers note: pannenkoek2012 does not pronounce his name like the Dutch word for pancake. See for yourself at 1:22:00. 2023-02-15 Update: Treasure of the Ocean Cave was figured out in 0.5xA presses (Total: 13). th-cam.com/video/tAwienu67cU/w-d-xo.html 2023-10-01 Update: Watch for Rolling Rocks is now possible in 0xA presses in only 7 minutes (Total: 13). th-cam.com/video/aFx7woWkZbc/w-d-xo.html
Have you considered doing a video on the various tricks of Banjo-Kazooie? That's a two-hour run filled with weird glitches, clips, and a lot of cool tricks like Reverse Bee Adventure.
Thank you so much for this and all your work on this serie. It opened my eyes on a whole new world. So Inspiring. Everything is great with your coverage: the subject, the music, your narration, your pace, your puns. It's a gem. I have already watched this entire serie multiple times, and I will watch it again.
I still haven't watched through your last chapter in the story but I've watched all the other episodes. Props to you for doing such a great job on such a novel topic!
Sorry babe, I can't come over right now. Bismuth just dropped an extremely researched 5 hour documentary about beating a 25 year old Mario game with as little A presses as possible.
Little did that Japanese developer realize, that by going home early on that 1996 day, he’d miss a bug that would cause gamers to do PhD level work to exploit nearly 30 years later.
Japanese workers couldn't, and still can't, go home early. Overworking to death is a common problem there. Super Mario 64 devs were apparently especially overworked to get the game released.
At some point during this video, I realized that, without a doubt, more hours have been invested into the A Button Challenge than were invested in actually developing the game. This blows my mind. Famously, months of SM64's development were spent solely on Mario's movement. Yet, a community emerged that has invested significantly more time and energy than that into arbitrarily disregarding that movement. The irony and absurdity of the whole situation is just mind bending.
UPDATE (2/15/23): The A press count has now been decreased to 13 thanks to Treasure of the Ocean Cave now being possible in 0.5 A presses. th-cam.com/video/tAwienu67cU/w-d-xo.html
At this point, if I'm alive to see the very last half A press be taken out of SM64, I know I will have been born into an age that will never truly be forgotten.
Amazing how the first 12-15 years of the A Button Challenge are covered in 15 minutes... in a 5 and a half hour video. Pannenkoek seriously blew this game wide open.
To be honest I could have taken a lot more time to break down the 2007-2008 era but I wanted to use it as a baseline for what had yet to come, instead of diving deep into it.
It's kinda hard to explain, but this video brought me some immense peace during a very dark time in my life. The gorgeous piano, your calming voice, and the sheer fascination of the entire challenge combined into something beautiful. Thank you for this, everyone involved.
@@PUCCl_ Literally coming within a single unit of these stunts being impossible multiple times, abusing bullies and moving platform quirks to send Mario to a parallel universe, and getting squished in the perfect way multiple times in the air many times over. True madness.
start of the video: "you can clone goomba and throw them, using them as stepping stools later!" end of the video: "by kicking up dust in a pattern for hours, mario can manipulate a pendulum to go upwards through the floor and hit him 10 times at once to shoot himself across the room"
I’m at the part where he can literally just…grab fire…I mean….I guess that’s one way to make fire Mario 😂 and it’s only a fifth of the way through the video! Oh boy this ride is gonna be something special
It’s amazing how far people can come, it really makes me want to take part in great stuff like this; if a hero like Pannen could start from there, then anyone else has potential too.
His question was entirely valid, by the way. To air kick, you need to be in either a single jump or double jump state. You also need low enough speed to not dive (or something like that, I think joystick position might also be a factor). It is completely impossible to enter one of those states without pressing the A button to jump. Pressing the B button in any other airborne state like free fall or bonking will always result in either a dive or nothing at all. So I don't know why he's being labelled as clueless here. Would love to know the context for that particular question.
Jumping is terrifying let's instead go to parallel universes and go faster than literally possible so I don't have to do all of the work it takes to jump
Jumping is hard, doing frame perfect glitches and cloning objects is easy. And then its even easier to just wait a few hours... or days... and discover parallel universes.
Sakurai is once quoted as saying "Whoever beats Super Mario 64 with zero A presses will get a handwritten letter from me informing them that Waluigi is now in Smash Bros."
it opens up the glass in the spire. if you make it inside the gap where the stained glass was, it sends you to a room with peach, where you eat cake. she has a text bar that gives you a phone number and a code to redeem the sole copy of sm64 2.
It's truly a shame that the watch for rolling rocks had such a negative effect on pannenkoek, it's still to this day one of the most informative, entertaining, and high quality videos on youtube, not just among challenge videos, but in general. It takes an incredibly obtuse, deep topic that would be impossible to penetrate for the lay person and gives all the information in a digestible format with excellent editing. I love the memes, but I love them because the video was so well made that I could actually understand what was going on.
it’s what sparked my initial love for speedrunning. i was always so confused by everyone making fun of him, because he did something so cool and explained it in a way that made me purely obsessed. i hope he’s doing well despite it all
I wonder to myself sometimes, I love the memes but like you I genuinely love the content, but like, enjoying the memes is not hurting Pannenkoek, right?
@@CractusJohn for how i understood it the memes arent exactly the problem, its this very specific topic of him dumbing it down so that even a toddler can understand thats an issue for him. so basically the first thing with explaining the half a press. its for some reason an issue for him, so memes and people that pointing this very specific thing out is his problem. as i said, thats atleast how i understand this. i really like him, he did such a great thing for the internet.
@@mauer1 none of this is true. He said that he was having a rough home life at the time he was making the video, and when people said to him "hi I loved it please make another" he heard "I want you to suffer again." Very irrational. But y'know, that's how it goes sometimes. I'm glad he's over it now
I can’t believe you started this video before the final A presses were even saved in the last three CHAPTERS. You weren’t kidding when you said “the complete history,” your dedication to finish this is inspiring.
@@nambona8900.5 is about as good as solved since its completely impossible to save the first canon shot in WMotR. There is nothing at all to work with in the level, and you have a massive vertical distance to cover in order to reach the last red coins, so flying with the wing cap is absolutely mandatory.
"This problem can be solved with the right amount of planning, which, as it turns out, is a shit ton of planning" delivered in that dry monolgue really got me hahahaaha
This is my favorite type of video on YT, a passionate and in-depth documentary on a topic too niche to be given the same amount of respect than on any other media platform. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
2:39:57 Imagine being an unsuspecting spider just chasing after some dude, thinking you're about to win, he walks away for a second and then comes back in lightspeed and knocks you out on the way
Some of my favorite parts of this video have to be your comments "What seems like 2 hours ago" "Once the blood sacrifice has been made" "Simply because this thing is stupid" "Mario performs a complex mating dance" "The latest advancements in goomba engineering" "Haphazardly smashed their face against a wall in hopes of a golden ticket to the top" "As always, time was *very much* a secondary concern" "Here comes the easy part... Just kidding, it's actually the hard part :)"
Dude... I can't BELIEVE you mentioned Walton Dell's website! I thought I was the only one! That place is a staple of my childhood. I remember heading there ALL the time to view the "Super Mario 64 Tips and Tricks" section and duplicate them myself! I even made a couple submissions back in the day... It popped into my head about a year ago and I checked it out, and it's still up! So many memories. I hope that guy knows how integral he was to a huge part of my (and others, I assume) childhood. wdell might've been one of the very first "video game sites" that I ever laid eyes on as a kid. I can't overstate how happy I am that the site still remains with it's original layout, even to this very day. I'll remember the "SUPER MARIO 64" background of the SM64 page (and the basic late '90s layout of his parent site) until the day I die. Walton Dell, you're a real one.
What a truly amazing series. Sad to see it come to an end as you finally caught up with the present A-press count, but you should be incredibly proud of what you’ve made, and the ABC Crew should be especially proud of their recent accomplishments!
Only 10 minutes of TH-cam shorts? Honestly I'd rather watch long-form videos way more than any shorts, none of them are enjoyable for me. All I get are stupid hyper-political bullcrap shorts or ads for games.
Who would have thought that cloned, gravity defying, frozen goombas that can only be interacted with once would be so helpful to beating a 26 year old super mario game without jumping
Can we also give a big round of applause for all the music remixes here? There's such a unique calming and inviting and emotional aura they bring to the whole video, and the points where they really go along with what's being said or shown (like at 4:03:59 and 4:33:24) get me every time. I have to tip my hat to Bismuth for arranging the whole soundtrack here.
One of the reasons I love the growing TH-cam genre of niche documentaries is that they’re being made by the people that are super passionate and excited to share the things they love with the world. The amount of effort in every little detail is really heartwarming
Delighted to have followed this series from part 1. What an absolute labour of love. You sir, are clearly a master of your art, and every video is brimming with passion and top drawer editing talent. Not to mention the amount of research that has gone into this, 5 hrs of video must have come with 100 hr+ of work behind the scenes. Cannot thank you enough for documenting what has fast become the most intriuging and fascinating bit of gaming history I have ever come across. Take a bow Bismuth!
@@Bismuth9 those 2k hours will surely produce hundreds of thousands of hours of entertainment and education, it will be totally worth it, and hopefully you will make enough money to at least compensate the time inversion.
How are none of the comments commending this video for having such great visuals. I wouldn’t have been able to understand any of the concepts without the amazing in-game/short animations.
Yeah the explanations were carried by the visuals. Having multiple camera angles at once, the level geometry... the editing quality of this 5 hour long video is insane
if pannen ever reads comments at all I want him to know that all of his work is incredible and amazing and you were the one who did it and we're all proud and amazed. it is okay to be proud of your fantastic work.
i love how literally every line of code written in this game is somehow manipulatable to make it the most perfect speedgame to ever exist. its irreplicable and gorgeous. There will literally never be another game like this. it was the first true 3d platformer, so its its the perfect canvas for exploiting. pannenkoek is the goat
Very rarely have I watched a video this long where I understood every word, yet understood almost nothing that was said. I think I stopped comprehending very much after about the 20 minute mark, but was still in awe for the entire thing! What a fantastic journey, and an amazing feat, both for the ABC team, and for Bismuth in putting this video together! Well done to both parties!
When I finished this video I cried and said "but it's so stupid". I guess I wasn't really talking about the a button challenge in particular, but about life. May we climb everests forever.
Can I say that I adore the "they took a break. {absurdly short time period} later, they..." Or "It's been an {absurdly short time period} since breakthroughs, so time for a breakthrough" or similar such "short time span discussed like it was a long break" things being a running gag through this whole thing? It's so good 😆
And then similarly with the other way around. Like when he shows the graph at the beginning and gives it a ton of room to show progress and then over a year it barely moved like "Oh, oops"
I find it hilarious that the volcano fast bully battery strat accelerates Mario to a pretty significant percentage of the speed of light (about 0.7%, just over 2 million meters per second).
if a movie was five and a half hours long I'd be like "that's a little excessive." but this, I'm sure I'm going to watch it multiple times, and enjoy it every time.
Honestly I was so impressed on my first watch that yes, it is 5 hours long, but there was not a second of filler. Informative the whole way through while also telling a lot of sweet and funny stories plus some really great music? Bismuth truly spoils us
11:28 Apart from making the audial experience very cohesive and just plain pleasant to listen to, I never considered how performing your own background music allows you to so deliberately _score_ your essays like films! The subtle fade from the traditional credits theme to this somber minor key(?) variant sells the emotional shift before you even have to say a word! Thank you for making these videos Bismuth, they’re an absolute joy from top to bottom
I’m so glad pannenkoek gets the love he deserves, it’s such a niche subject to be a legend in, but everyone can appreciate his dedication and creativity
I can‘t believe we‘ve come this far and still haven‘t found ACE in SM64. It seems that with the level of scrutiny applied to this game, it‘d have been the first classic game with ACE. A testament to its tight programming.
These videos are such a treat. I try to watch all the ABC developments on all their channels, read the descriptions on all their videos for the explanations, and yours STILL blow me away when you demonstrate the insane precision and techniques they carried out in the greatest detail. The final LLL star's bully position over time visualisation feels like aliens showing me a map of the galaxy. Observing the ABC community is easily my favorite thing on the internet, and you have made me enjoy it even more! Thank you for your hard work, Bismuth & ABC crew
What I love about this video/series is that it covers the community aspect as well as the run itself, right down to the youtube comments and the process of making the videos, as well as how everyone first got involved in the community. Most speedrun histories don't even touch that stuff, but this is so in-depth
Before I came across this video, I hadn't really paid much attention to the A button challenge. I just thought of it as one of those ridiculous challenges people with too much time on their hands like to do. After watching this video, I realized that it absolutely IS one of those ridiculous challenges that people with too much time on their hands like to do. But I have much MUCH greater respect for the work and effort that go into these types of challenges. I don't think it would be a stretch to call the ABC crew SM64 physicists, and it's incredibly impressive to see what's been done with even the tiniest, most insignificant seeming glitches and oversights. Thank you for putting this colossal documentary together and bringing us all along for the (surprisingly quite emotional) ride.
This section of the script is likely a reference to a stereotypical sentence in mathematics papers, which reads similarly to "The proof is left as an exercise for the reader".
How in the world did you make subtitles for this video? That's five hours and a half hours worth of subtitles, that's some SERIOUS dedication right there.
TH-cam has a feature where you can paste the script of a video into the subtitle settings, and it will automatically set it to the sections of the video that contain those lines.
Not only that, but it took seconds to sync the words to the audio. Seconds! When I write the script, I make sure to avoid writing anything that won't be said out loud and keep any notes in comments or somewhere else. I only have section titles that I remove before pasting into the subtitles textbox.
@@Bismuth9 well, that's really quite interesting! Still doesn't change the fact that everything else about this project also was very high effort, so good job on that front!
@@Bismuth9 Thank you SO much for doing this btw. I know this seems small but with the number of acronyms in this video (looking at you, HOLP) this would have been a nightmare if you had used auto-generated subtitles.
I love your subtle sense of humour, there’s some great little jokes in this, such as: “Despite both Technical and Skill Issues causing multiple failures, one thing became clear. This glitch worked.” It’s so subtle but so funny and still quite respectful, and very informative. This is one incredible video.
I won’t spoil the final A button count but I can’t believe it got so low - that takes amazing dedication and a meticulously thorough knowledge of game mechanics. I also think it takes almost equally amazing talent to make a video detailing the history of it. Astounding work, Bismuth!
This is one of my favorite videos. I watched the parts as they were coming out. I love having it all in one five hour video. Sometimes I put it on as background noise when I’m going to bed and I sleep like a baby.
Bro you are insanely underrated. This video is one of the single most in-depth coverages of any one topic that I have yet to see. I admire your discipline and your willingness to make this fantastic project completely free for the world to view. Cheers, mate.
Amazing work both by Pannenkoek and the ABC Crew for maintaining this awesome challenge, and Bismuth for putting together such a well-crafted documentary. This is truly inspiring, thank you very much!
If someone can watch this in one sitting and absorb everything, you are a god. Bismuth, this is objectively one of the best series made on TH-cam, it’s so beautifully obscure but also fucking amazing. I love it. You are awesome
beginning of video: "but after three and a half days of discussion, the thread died down, and the A Button Challenge was once again forgotten" middle of video: "so basically, Pannenkoek performed an extremely specific sequence of actions to manipulate the quantum entanglement of the electrons on his console's motherboard, thus allowing mario to gain 3 extra units of speed and grab this red coin in 0 A presses"
What’s bismuth simply glosses over for the sake of brevity. Is that every single one of these tricks has a mathematical equation in the code. And he didn’t include it but pannenkoek had to read and understand these for ideas and then manipulate these in the game and bismuth just covers the last part. I cannot express how long and complicated these are, and are a mix of English and maths gibberish
I like how the things Tyler Kehne figured out are the kinds of things I would try when I was a kid. Seems like he has a very honest, workmanlike gamer approach.
This confirms my feeling that something made well and with intention is never too long! Nothing is worse than investing time in watching a video and in the end feeling like it needed to go more in depth to feel satisfying and that you still don't have some important/relevant information, so even if it takes a while to watch I vastly prefer how in depth this goes as opposed to any shorter alternative.
I feel like the explanations are so technical and the payoff is personally minimal because I think it's so much effort for an arbitrary challenge. But the quiet music, calm voiceover, and the fact that the content is interesting enough to listen to but not interesting enough to hold my attention makes this the ultimate video to lull me to sleep. I guess thats a backhanded compliment, but i truly do enjoy this video because I've struggled all my life to sleep well and regularly.
What I learn here is that pannenkoek is a low-key A press genius. Bravo for the dedication, also for Bismuth to showcasing the legend to a broader audience.
I absolutely love the detailed yet never too much explanation of everything in this video. It's like an advanced course that draws you in not with the simple, standard introduction but by explaining how to take on an insurmountable challenge, and how far you can go beyond what's visible on the surface.
God, I’m in chapter 7 right now and seeing that old strat for Bowser in the Dark World again was so surreal, it’s amazing how far this challenge has come. At first it was Pannen doing complex but understandable strategies and now it’s just mind-boggling magic almost beyond my compression. This really is one hell of a strategy.
Since the video came out: * Jolly Roger Bay's A-press was lowered to 0.5 A-presses in February 2023 * Watch for Rolling Rocks' 0.5 A-presses was wiped out in October 2023 I think a lower limit for humans by 2025 will be 12, and 8 by 2030.
@@zachattack1279 or something like cloning across levels or safe files. If you can bring objects to the castle or even anywhere it would save many many A presses if not all
this was an expertly crafted video. I was surprisingly engaged during this video despite the fact it feels like a textbook. I love math and this was right up my alley as a game dev too. Thank you for your work that you put into this and I hope your future endeavors are as triumphantly epic as completing this beast of a documentary was. P.S. The script had to have been in the range of 150-200 pages.
What a true testament of time. This is an amazing documentary series you put together. I can't wait to see what comes of this community in the next unwritten chapter of the A button challenge though. Hopefully there will be some surprises along the way :)
I keep coming back to this and i just have to say that this may be my favorite series on youtube. The editing is constantly filled with clear visuals that could not have been easy to create, the narration is clean and enjoyable throughout the entire 5 hours, and the storytelling with the writing is fantastic. The whole thing is beautifully put together and there's perhaps no better demonstration of how much tool-assisted runs and video game analysis can resemble STEM fields.
Once you're halfway through this video, it starts sounding like schizophrenic rambling when out of context. 4:25:25 "The second problem is that the Pedro spot VSC strategy for the end of Stomp on the Thwomp required a different preset HOLP to send a bob-omb high above mario."
Wild getting to the quick aside at 2:35:37, knowing that it now has its own multi-hour video all about it. The sheer amount of intriguing documentation of Super Mario 64 is phenomenal.
over a year later and this is still my favorite video on this platform to date. the music, the editing, the humor, the explanations, the atmosphere, its just... perfect. thank you bismuth
The Pannenkoek reveal will never not send a shiver down my spine The fact this is essentially a love letter to his work and took so long and is so well made is such a beautiful video. I really hope Pannen knows how much he’s loved and can get past his anxiety and imposter syndrome (from the explanation of his issues it sounds so much like it).
According to the pinned comment for part 5 standalone, he’s doing better than the hell he was in during the making of the Watch for Rolling Rocks video. I can’t verify if he’s fully recovered (I doubt anyone but Pannen himself can do that), but it seems like he has improved since then.
Dude, the storytelling, research quality, and editing polish throughout this whole roughly 5.5 hour video is insane. I never got bored from the explanations of glitches, etc. Every time there was a new twist where it seemed the story would end, I didn't go "OOoooOouuuuUUuggHHHHhhHhh..... More oF the vIdEO!?? UuuUhhhhgggggGGGhHhh..." but rather "What!? Tell me more!" Well done sir, you deserve a prize for making this level of game-breaking madness this accessible and understandible.
What an amazing story about a community of determined individuals, banding together to whittle down the A button count! Turning an odd little challenge into science and engineering. If this story doesn't perfectly sum up the human condition, I don't know what does. Absolutely moving and somehow deeply touching! It's sad that we probably won't ever see at least the 70 star full game run, but what has been achieved is nothing short miraculous. Thank you for going down the rabbit hole for us. I doubt I would have ever been exposed to this story and the incredible individuals otherwise.
Stomp on the Thwomp in 0x A presses may be the absolutely most incredible and genius thing ever done in a video game. My jaw dropped at nearly every part; the amount of things that are within one SINGLE unit of working and the dozens of incredibly hard and unlikely tricks that need to be used is awe-inspiring. Having the final thwomp climb feature 4 glitches, new and old, that was learned throughout this journey, is a very poetic for the end of TTC imo
This is easily one of the best mario videos on youtube, maybe one of the best video game videos in general endlessly interesting, exciting, funny, really well written and narrated, amazing piano score. actually teared up at the end!!
This is all so impressive. Somehow, every star manages to be more impressive than the next, and everything done in this is despite not having any known ACE. This kind of work is the kind of stuff machinists and aerospace-physics engineers work on, yet it is all for such a silly challenge. This really makes you feel happy, knowing how much dedication and passion people can put into work and collaborative efforts, without any real incentive besides "It's fun and people like it".
Despite being 5 1/3 hours long, this amazing vid only got me though 1% of my game update development. Nonetheless, this is a genius explanation of an absolutely genius group of runners. Thanks for putting this Goliath of a video together.
Two Goombas walk into a bar The first is pushed out by the collision detection The other freezes in place The first says "I knew it, you're a clone, you' were going to make this our only interaction! I thought you said you were in for something long term!" The second says "Gimmie 12 hours and I'll show you something really fun!"
It's been a while, hasn't it. From humble beginnings to parallel universes and HOLP manipulations. The A Button Challenge has come a long way, and I thank everyone in the community for explaining, analyzing, and, most importantly of all, testing the many ideas and experiments throughout the years.
Dutch viewers note: pannenkoek2012 does not pronounce his name like the Dutch word for pancake. See for yourself at 1:22:00.
2023-02-15 Update: Treasure of the Ocean Cave was figured out in 0.5xA presses (Total: 13). th-cam.com/video/tAwienu67cU/w-d-xo.html
2023-10-01 Update: Watch for Rolling Rocks is now possible in 0xA presses in only 7 minutes (Total: 13). th-cam.com/video/aFx7woWkZbc/w-d-xo.html
Have you considered doing a video on the various tricks of Banjo-Kazooie? That's a two-hour run filled with weird glitches, clips, and a lot of cool tricks like Reverse Bee Adventure.
Congrats Bi! ABC; keep up the good work even during the hardest of times!
Thank you so much for this and all your work on this serie. It opened my eyes on a whole new world. So Inspiring. Everything is great with your coverage: the subject, the music, your narration, your pace, your puns. It's a gem. I have already watched this entire serie multiple times, and I will watch it again.
I still haven't watched through your last chapter in the story but I've watched all the other episodes. Props to you for doing such a great job on such a novel topic!
you've earned a rest now
Sorry babe, I can't come over right now. Bismuth just dropped an extremely researched 5 hour documentary about beating a 25 year old Mario game with as little A presses as possible.
The 1996 video game "Super Mario 64" is not 25 years old. It is currently 26 years old.
Fr man, I had to drop everything I'm doing to watch this
Oh my God it is THEODD1SOUT
Omg, it’s the guy
ODD
111 A Buttton presses at 1:11:11
That was uh, definitely on purpose, yeah yeah
@@Bismuth9 uh-huh. yeahhhh. cool coincidence tho ;D
Let's go!
I know it when I see it 👍
1/9 chance for a 1. 1/9^8 chance. Or a 1/43 million chance.
Little did that Japanese developer realize, that by going home early on that 1996 day, he’d miss a bug that would cause gamers to do PhD level work to exploit nearly 30 years later.
Japanese workers couldn't, and still can't, go home early. Overworking to death is a common problem there. Super Mario 64 devs were apparently especially overworked to get the game released.
@@jongyon7192p it's called a joke ya halfwit
@@jongyon7192p It's more than likely supposed to be a joke.
@@jordantfryman6184 I know it's a joke, duh.
@@jongyon7192p come on man!!!!
At some point during this video, I realized that, without a doubt, more hours have been invested into the A Button Challenge than were invested in actually developing the game. This blows my mind.
Famously, months of SM64's development were spent solely on Mario's movement. Yet, a community emerged that has invested significantly more time and energy than that into arbitrarily disregarding that movement. The irony and absurdity of the whole situation is just mind bending.
Japanese Developers vs a group of people dedicated to researching their own game for a silly challenge
clearly they never spent much double-checking there weren't at least any egregious floor/wall/ceiling leaks
UPDATE (2/15/23): The A press count has now been decreased to 13 thanks to Treasure of the Ocean Cave now being possible in 0.5 A presses. th-cam.com/video/tAwienu67cU/w-d-xo.html
After 9 years, they finally were able to get JRB chests down to 0(.5) A presses
2nd
15th
4rd
At this point, if I'm alive to see the very last half A press be taken out of SM64, I know I will have been born into an age that will never truly be forgotten.
Amazing how the first 12-15 years of the A Button Challenge are covered in 15 minutes... in a 5 and a half hour video.
Pannenkoek seriously blew this game wide open.
To be honest I could have taken a lot more time to break down the 2007-2008 era but I wanted to use it as a baseline for what had yet to come, instead of diving deep into it.
It’s crazy to think that part 1 technically covered the first 13 ish years of the challenge, and that the challenge is now 23 years old.
Okay, good call on the video length. 😅
"Mario travels through parallel universes in order to not jump" is one of the most ridiculous truthful statements I think I've ever encountered
It's kinda hard to explain, but this video brought me some immense peace during a very dark time in my life. The gorgeous piano, your calming voice, and the sheer fascination of the entire challenge combined into something beautiful. Thank you for this, everyone involved.
yooo the cats hittin the vape
yooo the cats hittin the vape
yooo the cats hittin the vape
Jesus loves you. There's always a reason to keep going.
Isaiah 41:10
Romans 3:23-24
John 3:16-17
Romans 8:35-39
Luke 23:42-43
Zephaniah 3:17
That's beautiful ❤ It's always such a blessing when you find something that affects you in just the right way at just the right time.
"what is your passion?"
"i'm a conservationist"
"cool, attuned to nature. what kind?"
"vertical speed conservation. specifically i'm assigned to DDD."
i love how the longer the video goes, the more insane the concepts becomes
We went from a simple challenge, to goomba bridges, to half A presses, to parallel universes, to complete madness
@@PUCCl_
Literally coming within a single unit of these stunts being impossible multiple times, abusing bullies and moving platform quirks to send Mario to a parallel universe, and getting squished in the perfect way multiple times in the air many times over. True madness.
The longer the A-Button Challenge exists, the crazier it will become.
start of the video: "you can clone goomba and throw them, using them as stepping stools later!"
end of the video: "by kicking up dust in a pattern for hours, mario can manipulate a pendulum to go upwards through the floor and hit him 10 times at once to shoot himself across the room"
I’m at the part where he can literally just…grab fire…I mean….I guess that’s one way to make fire Mario 😂 and it’s only a fifth of the way through the video! Oh boy this ride is gonna be something special
The chapter 1 cliffhanger with the clueless gamer being pannenkoek was so hype when it came out omg
Pannen is definitely a clueless gamer
It’s amazing how far people can come, it really makes me want to take part in great stuff like this; if a hero like Pannen could start from there, then anyone else has potential too.
@@justanotheryoutubechannel i think the clueless part was because he had no clue of the magnitude of what he was going into
His question was entirely valid, by the way. To air kick, you need to be in either a single jump or double jump state. You also need low enough speed to not dive (or something like that, I think joystick position might also be a factor). It is completely impossible to enter one of those states without pressing the A button to jump. Pressing the B button in any other airborne state like free fall or bonking will always result in either a dive or nothing at all. So I don't know why he's being labelled as clueless here. Would love to know the context for that particular question.
Honestly this is truly the most legendary video game challenge ever.
Thank you for being honest
@@dorol6375 Thank you for being honest
@@LavaCreeperPeople Thank you for being honest
@@PixalonGC Thank you for being honest
I agree
"Local Plumber Breaks All Known Laws Of Physics To Avoid Jumping"
"Dont work harder, work SMARTER"
Why go through the hassle and fatigue of a jump? I dont want to hurt my ankles!
Jumping is terrifying let's instead go to parallel universes and go faster than literally possible so I don't have to do all of the work it takes to jump
More like international plumber
Jumping is hard, doing frame perfect glitches and cloning objects is easy.
And then its even easier to just wait a few hours... or days... and discover parallel universes.
@@SilasAdra hold on, I can't be bothered to go up the stairs, so I'm gonna break the speed of light. Seems easier
it's been hypothesized that getting all 120 stars without pressing A finally unlocks Luigi and allows for 2 player mode
and gives you access to waluigi
Sakurai is once quoted as saying "Whoever beats Super Mario 64 with zero A presses will get a handwritten letter from me informing them that Waluigi is now in Smash Bros."
You need to get 2401 coins without pressing a
it opens up the glass in the spire. if you make it inside the gap where the stained glass was, it sends you to a room with peach, where you eat cake. she has a text bar that gives you a phone number and a code to redeem the sole copy of sm64 2.
This is true
Source: my dad is Shigeru Miyamoto
you know when you hear that piano music that there is about to be a extremely long and mind boggling explanation
It's truly a shame that the watch for rolling rocks had such a negative effect on pannenkoek, it's still to this day one of the most informative, entertaining, and high quality videos on youtube, not just among challenge videos, but in general. It takes an incredibly obtuse, deep topic that would be impossible to penetrate for the lay person and gives all the information in a digestible format with excellent editing. I love the memes, but I love them because the video was so well made that I could actually understand what was going on.
it’s what sparked my initial love for speedrunning. i was always so confused by everyone making fun of him, because he did something so cool and explained it in a way that made me purely obsessed. i hope he’s doing well despite it all
I wonder to myself sometimes, I love the memes but like you I genuinely love the content, but like, enjoying the memes is not hurting Pannenkoek, right?
@@CractusJohn for how i understood it the memes arent exactly the problem, its this very specific topic of him dumbing it down so that even a toddler can understand thats an issue for him. so basically the first thing with explaining the half a press.
its for some reason an issue for him, so memes and people that pointing this very specific thing out is his problem.
as i said, thats atleast how i understand this.
i really like him, he did such a great thing for the internet.
@@mauer1 none of this is true. He said that he was having a rough home life at the time he was making the video, and when people said to him "hi I loved it please make another" he heard "I want you to suffer again."
Very irrational. But y'know, that's how it goes sometimes. I'm glad he's over it now
@@turnkey_hole well I can only say how I understood it. Which I clarified in the beginning.
I was so desensitized to completely insanity I absolutely bought the “negative A press” 😂
me too
2:22:48, for the timestamp
I can’t believe you started this video before the final A presses were even saved in the last three CHAPTERS. You weren’t kidding when you said “the complete history,” your dedication to finish this is inspiring.
And then the video was immediately invalidated by a new discovery lol
Yup
@@jijonbreaker what was invalidated exactly?
@@yuurina5092 They shaved off the JRB chest A press.
@@jijonbreaker that invalidates the ENTIRE video?
>Marks JRB's star as 'unlikely'
>JRB star gets solved
Absolutely incredible lmao
This referring to its last a press?
@@galfinsp7216 yes! JRB is solved at 0.5xA presses currently! up on uncommentated pannen
The nature of the beast.
not *completely* solved, it's at 0.5 for now
@@nambona8900.5 is about as good as solved since its completely impossible to save the first canon shot in WMotR. There is nothing at all to work with in the level, and you have a massive vertical distance to cover in order to reach the last red coins, so flying with the wing cap is absolutely mandatory.
"This problem can be solved with the right amount of planning, which, as it turns out, is a shit ton of planning" delivered in that dry monolgue really got me hahahaaha
When is this?
@@WilliamLister-wx8uk Haha sorry I'm not sure, video SO LONG
@@Ceremor 2:48:10 just found it
@@WilliamLister-wx8uk LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
This is my favorite type of video on YT, a passionate and in-depth documentary on a topic too niche to be given the same amount of respect than on any other media platform. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
2:39:57 Imagine being an unsuspecting spider just chasing after some dude, thinking you're about to win, he walks away for a second and then comes back in lightspeed and knocks you out on the way
1:32:29
Not quite light speed but it's still similar
It's closer to 2:40:25 by the way
It's 2:40:21 by the way
Some of my favorite parts of this video have to be your comments
"What seems like 2 hours ago"
"Once the blood sacrifice has been made"
"Simply because this thing is stupid"
"Mario performs a complex mating dance"
"The latest advancements in goomba engineering"
"Haphazardly smashed their face against a wall in hopes of a golden ticket to the top"
"As always, time was *very much* a secondary concern"
"Here comes the easy part... Just kidding, it's actually the hard part :)"
The best part is "What seems like two hours ago" is in the first 30 minutes of the video. Of a five hour video.
I'm also a fan of "Until Super Mario 64 expert, sm64expert, found this."
"But hold on. Clock hands are supposed to move clockwise; that's literally the definition of clockwise."
"How he solved that seems absolutely insane, because it _is_ absolutely insane!"
Dude... I can't BELIEVE you mentioned Walton Dell's website! I thought I was the only one!
That place is a staple of my childhood. I remember heading there ALL the time to view the "Super Mario 64 Tips and Tricks" section and duplicate them myself! I even made a couple submissions back in the day... It popped into my head about a year ago and I checked it out, and it's still up! So many memories.
I hope that guy knows how integral he was to a huge part of my (and others, I assume) childhood. wdell might've been one of the very first "video game sites" that I ever laid eyes on as a kid. I can't overstate how happy I am that the site still remains with it's original layout, even to this very day. I'll remember the "SUPER MARIO 64" background of the SM64 page (and the basic late '90s layout of his parent site) until the day I die.
Walton Dell, you're a real one.
What a truly amazing series.
Sad to see it come to an end as you finally caught up with the present A-press count, but you should be incredibly proud of what you’ve made, and the ABC Crew should be especially proud of their recent accomplishments!
Bisexual flag spotted 👀👀💪
pannekoek:are you sure about that
I would rather watch a 5 hour video essay about a niche Mario 64 challenge than watch 10 minutes of TH-cam shorts
Only 10 minutes of TH-cam shorts? Honestly I'd rather watch long-form videos way more than any shorts, none of them are enjoyable for me. All I get are stupid hyper-political bullcrap shorts or ads for games.
Shorts🤮
@@sillybeanthing I only look at the meme compilations or quick video game tips by TRUSTED channels, but I'd rather they put them as regular videos
Rare Anime Pfp W
I literally almost never watch shorts (there are exceptions, such as vsauce for exmaple). You can't put anything into a minute
The "Pannenpaper" joke hurt my sides, I was completely unprepared for that one. Well done, hats off to you.
PannenPaper™
*unpannenprepared
"mountains weren't designed to be climbable" damn... that says it all right there.
tell that one to Madeline Celeste
Who would have thought that cloned, gravity defying, frozen goombas that can only be interacted with once would be so helpful to beating a 26 year old super mario game without jumping
Can we also give a big round of applause for all the music remixes here? There's such a unique calming and inviting and emotional aura they bring to the whole video, and the points where they really go along with what's being said or shown (like at 4:03:59 and 4:33:24) get me every time. I have to tip my hat to Bismuth for arranging the whole soundtrack here.
He also played it himself on his piano.
One of the reasons I love the growing TH-cam genre of niche documentaries is that they’re being made by the people that are super passionate and excited to share the things they love with the world. The amount of effort in every little detail is really heartwarming
👏?
The end of the latter is the biggest chill I’d ever recieved for the beginning of a video chapter.
its literally just mario music you fucking doIt
The reveal of Pannenkoek's backstory will always be one of my favorite plot twists in all media. The birth of an unexpected legend
The file select theme playing upon his reveal really sells it. That track practically belongs to him now.
Pannanpaper 🤣
The 3 hour long 'The Hobbit' Speedrun documentary also has an amazing twist like that ^^
And his name is... matt turk
Wait, backstory? Did I miss a part of this? What is pannenkoek’s backstory?
Delighted to have followed this series from part 1. What an absolute labour of love. You sir, are clearly a master of your art, and every video is brimming with passion and top drawer editing talent. Not to mention the amount of research that has gone into this, 5 hrs of video must have come with 100 hr+ of work behind the scenes.
Cannot thank you enough for documenting what has fast become the most intriuging and fascinating bit of gaming history I have ever come across.
Take a bow Bismuth!
Thank you! You slightly underestimated the work behind the scenes. This video took in the ballpark of 1500-2000 hours to make.
@@Bismuth9 those 2k hours will surely produce hundreds of thousands of hours of entertainment and education, it will be totally worth it, and hopefully you will make enough money to at least compensate the time inversion.
Oh wow, I did mean to write "100s of hrs" but I still would of have been way off!
How are none of the comments commending this video for having such great visuals. I wouldn’t have been able to understand any of the concepts without the amazing in-game/short animations.
seconded!!! its so well made
Yeah the explanations were carried by the visuals. Having multiple camera angles at once, the level geometry... the editing quality of this 5 hour long video is insane
if pannen ever reads comments at all I want him to know that all of his work is incredible and amazing and you were the one who did it and we're all proud and amazed. it is okay to be proud of your fantastic work.
I can't believe that this series ended up being over 5 hours long. The narration and music is so good that it felt like so much less than that
5 straight hours of bismuth… AMAZING!!!!!
If your blood bismuth levels persist for longer than 5 hours, consult a doctor!
It's like a little piece of heaven down on Earth
the transition in between each individual video is just seamless so it looks like a full video. an absolute legend
@@browniex5120 browniex from geometry dash
@@browniex5120 other than the part where he says "the rest of this series" before explaining cloning, yeah
i love how literally every line of code written in this game is somehow manipulatable to make it the most perfect speedgame to ever exist. its irreplicable and gorgeous. There will literally never be another game like this. it was the first true 3d platformer, so its its the perfect canvas for exploiting. pannenkoek is the goat
Idk man OOT comes pretty close, you can straight up write code inside the game.
@@benkeith3764 OOT and in effect MM are the most broken games ever
@@benkeith3764 seriously, they made the fuckin whole triforce ingame, just to have it.
@@B3313fan Smw.
@@benkeith3764 could you please elaborate? this 5 hour video made me curious about such things
I love how it all started with "cannon shots are unavoidable" and may well end with "cannon shot is the only unavoidable a-press"
Very rarely have I watched a video this long where I understood every word, yet understood almost nothing that was said. I think I stopped comprehending very much after about the 20 minute mark, but was still in awe for the entire thing! What a fantastic journey, and an amazing feat, both for the ABC team, and for Bismuth in putting this video together! Well done to both parties!
Hah, I was thinking the same exact thing
When I finished this video I cried and said "but it's so stupid". I guess I wasn't really talking about the a button challenge in particular, but about life. May we climb everests forever.
"Queen marika has high hopes, that we continue to struggle unto eternity.."
Hell yeah.
There are no stupid goals. Only stupid goal-seeking agents.
The Everest is inside us
When mum says you can watch one video before bed:
your day of reckoning is coming
this video is almost longer than my average sleep time
The crazy thing is u can watch this video multiple times and hes still kicking the bully
Youre so creative
i could play this video, go to sleep and wake up and it's not even finished
Can I say that I adore the "they took a break. {absurdly short time period} later, they..."
Or "It's been an {absurdly short time period} since breakthroughs, so time for a breakthrough" or similar such "short time span discussed like it was a long break" things being a running gag through this whole thing?
It's so good 😆
And then similarly with the other way around. Like when he shows the graph at the beginning and gives it a ton of room to show progress and then over a year it barely moved like "Oh, oops"
Yes. It was incredibly well delivered comedic relief that got me to laugh out loud multiple times.
I find it hilarious that the volcano fast bully battery strat accelerates Mario to a pretty significant percentage of the speed of light (about 0.7%, just over 2 million meters per second).
Not only was the JRB star saved but the solution was surprisingly simple by the standards of the challenge, which you can argue also outdates 3:11:38
Right
I’ve heard about that A-press save, but I haven’t actually seen it happen. Though it is rather debatable what “simple” means in this context.
@@TheDMan2003 It means it's just a matter of building up speed on a submerged slope
@@crazynaut223 Wow, that really is simple.
@@TheDMan2003 It really was NOT simple. There's a lot under the hood of that speed buildup.
if a movie was five and a half hours long I'd be like "that's a little excessive." but this, I'm sure I'm going to watch it multiple times, and enjoy it every time.
That just means you might get autistic
And by "might"...
Honestly I was so impressed on my first watch that yes, it is 5 hours long, but there was not a second of filler. Informative the whole way through while also telling a lot of sweet and funny stories plus some really great music? Bismuth truly spoils us
11:28 Apart from making the audial experience very cohesive and just plain pleasant to listen to, I never considered how performing your own background music allows you to so deliberately _score_ your essays like films! The subtle fade from the traditional credits theme to this somber minor key(?) variant sells the emotional shift before you even have to say a word! Thank you for making these videos Bismuth, they’re an absolute joy from top to bottom
I’m so glad pannenkoek gets the love he deserves, it’s such a niche subject to be a legend in, but everyone can appreciate his dedication and creativity
I can‘t believe we‘ve come this far and still haven‘t found ACE in SM64. It seems that with the level of scrutiny applied to this game, it‘d have been the first classic game with ACE. A testament to its tight programming.
and after a LITERAL week, I have finished this incredible masterpiece. Bismuth, you're incredible for making this.
These videos are such a treat. I try to watch all the ABC developments on all their channels, read the descriptions on all their videos for the explanations, and yours STILL blow me away when you demonstrate the insane precision and techniques they carried out in the greatest detail.
The final LLL star's bully position over time visualisation feels like aliens showing me a map of the galaxy.
Observing the ABC community is easily my favorite thing on the internet, and you have made me enjoy it even more! Thank you for your hard work, Bismuth & ABC crew
What I love about this video/series is that it covers the community aspect as well as the run itself, right down to the youtube comments and the process of making the videos, as well as how everyone first got involved in the community. Most speedrun histories don't even touch that stuff, but this is so in-depth
Before I came across this video, I hadn't really paid much attention to the A button challenge. I just thought of it as one of those ridiculous challenges people with too much time on their hands like to do.
After watching this video, I realized that it absolutely IS one of those ridiculous challenges that people with too much time on their hands like to do. But I have much MUCH greater respect for the work and effort that go into these types of challenges. I don't think it would be a stretch to call the ABC crew SM64 physicists, and it's incredibly impressive to see what's been done with even the tiniest, most insignificant seeming glitches and oversights.
Thank you for putting this colossal documentary together and bringing us all along for the (surprisingly quite emotional) ride.
"And that's where the record stands today" is such a SummoningSalt line
1:26:38 "I'll leave figuring out why as an exercise for the viewer" is the funniest way of saying "fucking obviously" I've heard in my life
This section of the script is likely a reference to a stereotypical sentence in mathematics papers, which reads similarly to "The proof is left as an exercise for the reader".
@@yellowmarkers I'm aware, it's placed so goddamn well here though
@@skylarfox_bmb yeah, not sure how you could better say “duh”.
It took me 6 months to realize what he meant.
“1 A-press was saved using black magic”
wasn’t expecting that at all
How in the world did you make subtitles for this video? That's five hours and a half hours worth of subtitles, that's some SERIOUS dedication right there.
TH-cam has a feature where you can paste the script of a video into the subtitle settings, and it will automatically set it to the sections of the video that contain those lines.
@@yellowmarkers really? dang, that's neat.
Not only that, but it took seconds to sync the words to the audio. Seconds! When I write the script, I make sure to avoid writing anything that won't be said out loud and keep any notes in comments or somewhere else. I only have section titles that I remove before pasting into the subtitles textbox.
@@Bismuth9 well, that's really quite interesting! Still doesn't change the fact that everything else about this project also was very high effort, so good job on that front!
@@Bismuth9 Thank you SO much for doing this btw. I know this seems small but with the number of acronyms in this video (looking at you, HOLP) this would have been a nightmare if you had used auto-generated subtitles.
I love your subtle sense of humour, there’s some great little jokes in this, such as:
“Despite both Technical and Skill Issues causing multiple failures, one thing became clear. This glitch worked.”
It’s so subtle but so funny and still quite respectful, and very informative. This is one incredible video.
"Now that pendulum manipulation is in full swing..."
I won’t spoil the final A button count but I can’t believe it got so low - that takes amazing dedication and a meticulously thorough knowledge of game mechanics.
I also think it takes almost equally amazing talent to make a video detailing the history of it.
Astounding work, Bismuth!
This is one of my favorite videos.
I watched the parts as they were coming out. I love having it all in one five hour video.
Sometimes I put it on as background noise when I’m going to bed and I sleep like a baby.
thabk you for sayijg this so i dont feel weird for using this to eep
Accurate AF, doing this tonight as I have done approximately twice a month since the vid dropped
I never expected this series to take up as much of my attention as it has. What a time it's been
Bro you are insanely underrated. This video is one of the single most in-depth coverages of any one topic that I have yet to see. I admire your discipline and your willingness to make this fantastic project completely free for the world to view. Cheers, mate.
Amazing work both by Pannenkoek and the ABC Crew for maintaining this awesome challenge, and Bismuth for putting together such a well-crafted documentary. This is truly inspiring, thank you very much!
Summoning Salt is shaking in his boots right now. No possible way he can top this video.
and as of today, the star at 5:05:52 treasure of the ocean cave can now be completed with a half a press! We're at 13 left ladies and gents!
If someone can watch this in one sitting and absorb everything, you are a god. Bismuth, this is objectively one of the best series made on TH-cam, it’s so beautifully obscure but also fucking amazing. I love it. You are awesome
Seems like a worthy follow up challenge after watching ShayMay's 7 hour Omega Ruby retrospective in one go
guess im a god
@@debblez use your newfound omnipotence to save an A press
@@alibitter6361 what about quinton reviews' collective 20+ hours of various semi-related nickolodeon teen sitcoms
hey I love ur ADV videos :D
Can't wait to rewatch the entire saga again in one sitting!
beginning of video: "but after three and a half days of discussion, the thread died down, and the A Button Challenge was once again forgotten"
middle of video: "so basically, Pannenkoek performed an extremely specific sequence of actions to manipulate the quantum entanglement of the electrons on his console's motherboard, thus allowing mario to gain 3 extra units of speed and grab this red coin in 0 A presses"
11:29, it's a small thing, but i love the music matching the beats and the mood of the narration
What’s bismuth simply glosses over for the sake of brevity. Is that every single one of these tricks has a mathematical equation in the code. And he didn’t include it but pannenkoek had to read and understand these for ideas and then manipulate these in the game and bismuth just covers the last part. I cannot express how long and complicated these are, and are a mix of English and maths gibberish
Not so sure this is exactly equations, it is more code with all the issues it comes with. Handling decimal numbers in particular is very error prone.
i can't even imagine the amount of work that went into this series
what a legend you are
GL on Bloodlust you got this king
@@PERMASSBM ty
Under another comment he stated that i took him between 1500 to 2000 hours
Thats crazy dedication
I like how the things Tyler Kehne figured out are the kinds of things I would try when I was a kid. Seems like he has a very honest, workmanlike gamer approach.
This confirms my feeling that something made well and with intention is never too long! Nothing is worse than investing time in watching a video and in the end feeling like it needed to go more in depth to feel satisfying and that you still don't have some important/relevant information, so even if it takes a while to watch I vastly prefer how in depth this goes as opposed to any shorter alternative.
I feel like the explanations are so technical and the payoff is personally minimal because I think it's so much effort for an arbitrary challenge. But the quiet music, calm voiceover, and the fact that the content is interesting enough to listen to but not interesting enough to hold my attention makes this the ultimate video to lull me to sleep. I guess thats a backhanded compliment, but i truly do enjoy this video because I've struggled all my life to sleep well and regularly.
What I learn here is that pannenkoek is a low-key A press genius. Bravo for the dedication, also for Bismuth to showcasing the legend to a broader audience.
I absolutely love the detailed yet never too much explanation of everything in this video. It's like an advanced course that draws you in not with the simple, standard introduction but by explaining how to take on an insurmountable challenge, and how far you can go beyond what's visible on the surface.
God, I’m in chapter 7 right now and seeing that old strat for Bowser in the Dark World again was so surreal, it’s amazing how far this challenge has come. At first it was Pannen doing complex but understandable strategies and now it’s just mind-boggling magic almost beyond my compression. This really is one hell of a strategy.
For what it's worth, pannen is a big part of why I chose my major and master's thesis. So thanks for defining a good portion of my adult life!
Since the video came out:
* Jolly Roger Bay's A-press was lowered to 0.5 A-presses in February 2023
* Watch for Rolling Rocks' 0.5 A-presses was wiped out in October 2023
I think a lower limit for humans by 2025 will be 12, and 8 by 2030.
The only way I could ever see the game have no a presses is by some way of preforming arbitrary code execution
@@zachattack1279 or something like cloning across levels or safe files. If you can bring objects to the castle or even anywhere it would save many many A presses if not all
A conservative estimate.
@@zachattack1279 could something like Row hammer be potentially used.
next is the B Button Challenge
this was an expertly crafted video. I was surprisingly engaged during this video despite the fact it feels like a textbook. I love math and this was right up my alley as a game dev too. Thank you for your work that you put into this and I hope your future endeavors are as triumphantly epic as completing this beast of a documentary was.
P.S. The script had to have been in the range of 150-200 pages.
What a true testament of time. This is an amazing documentary series you put together. I can't wait to see what comes of this community in the next unwritten chapter of the A button challenge though. Hopefully there will be some surprises along the way :)
I keep coming back to this and i just have to say that this may be my favorite series on youtube. The editing is constantly filled with clear visuals that could not have been easy to create, the narration is clean and enjoyable throughout the entire 5 hours, and the storytelling with the writing is fantastic. The whole thing is beautifully put together and there's perhaps no better demonstration of how much tool-assisted runs and video game analysis can resemble STEM fields.
Once you're halfway through this video, it starts sounding like schizophrenic rambling when out of context.
4:25:25 "The second problem is that the Pedro spot VSC strategy for the end of Stomp on the Thwomp required a different preset HOLP to send a bob-omb high above mario."
Now, the Jolly Roger Bay star can be done at 0.5xA, reducing the amount to 13 A presses.
15 year history in 15 minutes
2 year history in 45 minutes
God i love Bismuth
Wild getting to the quick aside at 2:35:37, knowing that it now has its own multi-hour video all about it.
The sheer amount of intriguing documentation of Super Mario 64 is phenomenal.
over a year later and this is still my favorite video on this platform to date. the music, the editing, the humor, the explanations, the atmosphere, its just... perfect. thank you bismuth
The Pannenkoek reveal will never not send a shiver down my spine
The fact this is essentially a love letter to his work and took so long and is so well made is such a beautiful video.
I really hope Pannen knows how much he’s loved and can get past his anxiety and imposter syndrome (from the explanation of his issues it sounds so much like it).
According to the pinned comment for part 5 standalone, he’s doing better than the hell he was in during the making of the Watch for Rolling Rocks video. I can’t verify if he’s fully recovered (I doubt anyone but Pannen himself can do that), but it seems like he has improved since then.
Dude, the storytelling, research quality, and editing polish throughout this whole roughly 5.5 hour video is insane. I never got bored from the explanations of glitches, etc. Every time there was a new twist where it seemed the story would end, I didn't go "OOoooOouuuuUUuggHHHHhhHhh..... More oF the vIdEO!?? UuuUhhhhgggggGGGhHhh..." but rather "What!? Tell me more!"
Well done sir, you deserve a prize for making this level of game-breaking madness this accessible and understandible.
ooh, thank you for also making a full version! I've loved watching these, it helped me understand the things I had already been watching a lot better
What an amazing story about a community of determined individuals, banding together to whittle down the A button count! Turning an odd little challenge into science and engineering. If this story doesn't perfectly sum up the human condition, I don't know what does. Absolutely moving and somehow deeply touching!
It's sad that we probably won't ever see at least the 70 star full game run, but what has been achieved is nothing short miraculous.
Thank you for going down the rabbit hole for us. I doubt I would have ever been exposed to this story and the incredible individuals otherwise.
"while everybody was playing chess, pannen busted out the 4d chest" xD
Stomp on the Thwomp in 0x A presses may be the absolutely most incredible and genius thing ever done in a video game. My jaw dropped at nearly every part; the amount of things that are within one SINGLE unit of working and the dozens of incredibly hard and unlikely tricks that need to be used is awe-inspiring. Having the final thwomp climb feature 4 glitches, new and old, that was learned throughout this journey, is a very poetic for the end of TTC imo
This is easily one of the best mario videos on youtube, maybe one of the best video game videos in general
endlessly interesting, exciting, funny, really well written and narrated, amazing piano score. actually teared up at the end!!
This is all so impressive. Somehow, every star manages to be more impressive than the next, and everything done in this is despite not having any known ACE. This kind of work is the kind of stuff machinists and aerospace-physics engineers work on, yet it is all for such a silly challenge. This really makes you feel happy, knowing how much dedication and passion people can put into work and collaborative efforts, without any real incentive besides "It's fun and people like it".
I hope Pannenkoek knows just how much of an inspiration he is. Dude is a fantastic example of the sheer power of human ingenuity 🤗
the only video where you feel happier the more outdated it gets
Despite being 5 1/3 hours long, this amazing vid only got me though 1% of my game update development. Nonetheless, this is a genius explanation of an absolutely genius group of runners. Thanks for putting this Goliath of a video together.
Two Goombas walk into a bar
The first is pushed out by the collision detection
The other freezes in place
The first says "I knew it, you're a clone, you' were going to make this our only interaction! I thought you said you were in for something long term!"
The second says "Gimmie 12 hours and I'll show you something really fun!"
It's been a while, hasn't it. From humble beginnings to parallel universes and HOLP manipulations. The A Button Challenge has come a long way, and I thank everyone in the community for explaining, analyzing, and, most importantly of all, testing the many ideas and experiments throughout the years.