DK64 A Button Challenge | DK Isles: Castle Lobby GB - 0xA @dk64abuttonchallenge86 | Uploaded October 2017 | Updated October 2024, 8 hours ago.
Another GB in the "I found a better strategy so this isn't super difficult anymore" series. Expect a few more videos like this. Figuring out the damage boost directly onto the boulder is a revelation that will probably come back in future videos.
I'm pretty sure this is the first video without using a phase trick.
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Every video on this channel assumes you've already completed some relevant subset of previous videos. Notably, every video will assume A is held from either starting the file or the previous press. Unless otherwise noted, the A button will -NEVER BE LET GO- during this run except immediately preceding another A press. This is because a held A button allows a lot of useful things such as buying moves, more potent dismounting, autojumping, faster swimming, rocketbarrel, and more. I will not be using the "0.5 A" notation because it does not add anything meaningful - as long as it takes an A press to start a file you can always have A held before a section.
For more information on progress, see: kaztalek.com/dk64abc
The first tab shows progress for this channel. The second shows overall progress, most of which has no videos.
Some tricks used here:
Lag boosting / Lag clipping: DK64 runs at a low FPS sometimes. To keep the game as smooth as possible, the developers sped up movement per frame when the frame rate drops to compensate. By maximizing lag (often through orange explosions), we can abuse this. Since Y-speed (height dimension) is unaffeced by lag, but XZ-speed is, increasing lag allows for further jumps. Also, the increased speed from lag can allow wall clips in any sufficiently laggable area.
Tag Barrel Storage: There are numerous ways to active this glitch, but by far the most relevant is leaving crouch position just before entering a tag barrel. After doing this you can move with the tag barrel options still up. This allows you to tag Kongs from further away, but also many, many follow-up glitches - at least 12 will be used in low A! Some other critical features of TBS include stopping "stored position" from regularly updating, canceling moves while preserving their states, allowing wrong Kong interactions, and locking the camera to prevent loading.
Another GB in the "I found a better strategy so this isn't super difficult anymore" series. Expect a few more videos like this. Figuring out the damage boost directly onto the boulder is a revelation that will probably come back in future videos.
I'm pretty sure this is the first video without using a phase trick.
---
Every video on this channel assumes you've already completed some relevant subset of previous videos. Notably, every video will assume A is held from either starting the file or the previous press. Unless otherwise noted, the A button will -NEVER BE LET GO- during this run except immediately preceding another A press. This is because a held A button allows a lot of useful things such as buying moves, more potent dismounting, autojumping, faster swimming, rocketbarrel, and more. I will not be using the "0.5 A" notation because it does not add anything meaningful - as long as it takes an A press to start a file you can always have A held before a section.
For more information on progress, see: kaztalek.com/dk64abc
The first tab shows progress for this channel. The second shows overall progress, most of which has no videos.
Some tricks used here:
Lag boosting / Lag clipping: DK64 runs at a low FPS sometimes. To keep the game as smooth as possible, the developers sped up movement per frame when the frame rate drops to compensate. By maximizing lag (often through orange explosions), we can abuse this. Since Y-speed (height dimension) is unaffeced by lag, but XZ-speed is, increasing lag allows for further jumps. Also, the increased speed from lag can allow wall clips in any sufficiently laggable area.
Tag Barrel Storage: There are numerous ways to active this glitch, but by far the most relevant is leaving crouch position just before entering a tag barrel. After doing this you can move with the tag barrel options still up. This allows you to tag Kongs from further away, but also many, many follow-up glitches - at least 12 will be used in low A! Some other critical features of TBS include stopping "stored position" from regularly updating, canceling moves while preserving their states, allowing wrong Kong interactions, and locking the camera to prevent loading.
![Starting File and Vine Barrel - 4xA [OUTDATED PAST 58 SECONDS - Press 4 not needed!]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/l9YApl1VJUk/hqdefault.jpg "Starting File and Vine Barrel - 4xA [OUTDATED PAST 58 SECONDS - Press 4 not needed!]
The start of any DK64 ABC has a lot of presses - 3 in the first 5 seconds (a 4th, not long after, was included in this video that is now skipped. See https://youtu.be/2QVu2chvHRc ) . But we will keep the A held from the start and not press A again until we have a vast majority (over 95%) of the major collectibles in this game.
Welcome to the DK64 101% ABC, home of some of the most amazing and complicated strategies youll find outside of SM64 itself. For more information on total progress, see: https://kaztalek.com/dk64abc
DK64 isnt as level-based as SM64, so exactly what is accomplished in these videos may vary quite a lot. Every video will assume youve already completed some relevant subset of previous videos to get to that point. Notably, every video after this point will assume A is held at the start. Unless otherwise noted, the A button will -NEVER BE LET GO- during this run except immediately preceding another A press. This is because a held A button allows a lot of useful things such as buying moves, more potent dismounting, autojumping, faster swimming, rocketbarrel, and more. No distinctions will be made between 0xA and 0.5xA because A can always be held from starting the file or a prior press, and so distinguishing between the two has no benefit.
By the way, a casual player would need to press A 9 times instead of 4, so 5 presses saved already in this small segment.
Some tricks used here:
Phasewalking: With an angle in the (150, 180) degree range (lower bound varies), leaving first person will give you the ability to pass through objects. Normally this ability is lost in 2 frames, but by continuously modifying the moving state by having a neutral stick every other frame we can walk forward with this ability. If done underwater, no special stick movement is needed; this variation is called Swim Through Walls.
Voiding: Going too far Out of Bounds will place you back at the start of whatever level youre in (with a few exceptions). However, this only happens after watching the Enter DK Isles CS - before that all voids will take you to the treehouse. This is used to get a useful autojump.
Autojump: Holding A while loading an area will cause you to jump upon gaining control (assuming no special cutscenes play). This is used here to get a moonkick off the tree, and is a very useful way to get a jump state.
Moonkick: Cancel an aerial attack by landing and then follow it with a kick to go soaring in the air for a short period of time. Note that you need to be in a jump state to do an aerial attack - walking off a ledge is insufficient. This will come into play a lot during the run.
Dismount: Upon reaching the top of most climbable objects you will automatically dismount into a jumping state. This is used to start another moonkick here.")
