![SM64: Collecting A Star During Death-By-Lava [Glitch Demo] @Superdavo0001](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/szh637BuDdw/sddefault.jpg)
Uploaded March 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This particular glitch came up as a topic of discussion on a SM64 conversation, so I thought I'd make this video to clear things up, and demonstrate some cool glitches in the process.
[UPDATE: I've been told that it's possible to collect the star if you do it before you reach 0hp - LLL red coins can be done this way]
[UPDATE 2: Kaze has said that he added this on purpose, as he didn't like that vanilla did not allow it]
Basically, it's been found that if you collect a star while dying, the star-dance is cut short, and Mario dies. However, he keeps the star. Since the death animation is far shorter than star-collection, this has saved time in TASes on two levels (Behind Chain Chomp's Gate, Mystery Of The Monkey Cage).
This glitch is often known as the Death-Star glitch, or DSG.
In these levels, the star is collected after dying by either going out-of-bounds, or falling to the death barrier, which are quite difficult to achieve, and require rather specific terrain.
A more obvious idea would be to use lava - after all, you bounce up after hitting it, so reaching nearby stars shouldn't be hard!
Unfortunately, however, the SM64 devs spotted this, and made the stars intangible while Mario's in the lava-bounce animation, making this strategy impossible in regular SM64.
However, for some reason, in the ROMHack SM64: Last Impact, it was discovered a while ago (by me :-)) that the star does not become intangible, for some reason. It is therefore possible to collect the star while dying from a lava-bounce, which saves a fair few frames wherever it's used.
I used this glitch in my TAS of the "Hexagon Heat" minigame (which features in this video).
Enjoy!
This particular glitch came up as a topic of discussion on a SM64 conversation, so I thought I'd make this video to clear things up, and demonstrate some cool glitches in the process.
[UPDATE: I've been told that it's possible to collect the star if you do it before you reach 0hp - LLL red coins can be done this way]
[UPDATE 2: Kaze has said that he added this on purpose, as he didn't like that vanilla did not allow it]
Basically, it's been found that if you collect a star while dying, the star-dance is cut short, and Mario dies. However, he keeps the star. Since the death animation is far shorter than star-collection, this has saved time in TASes on two levels (Behind Chain Chomp's Gate, Mystery Of The Monkey Cage).
This glitch is often known as the Death-Star glitch, or DSG.
In these levels, the star is collected after dying by either going out-of-bounds, or falling to the death barrier, which are quite difficult to achieve, and require rather specific terrain.
A more obvious idea would be to use lava - after all, you bounce up after hitting it, so reaching nearby stars shouldn't be hard!
Unfortunately, however, the SM64 devs spotted this, and made the stars intangible while Mario's in the lava-bounce animation, making this strategy impossible in regular SM64.
However, for some reason, in the ROMHack SM64: Last Impact, it was discovered a while ago (by me :-)) that the star does not become intangible, for some reason. It is therefore possible to collect the star while dying from a lava-bounce, which saves a fair few frames wherever it's used.
I used this glitch in my TAS of the "Hexagon Heat" minigame (which features in this video).
Enjoy!
![SM64: Collecting A Star During Death-By-Lava [Glitch Demo]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/szh637BuDdw/mqdefault.jpg "SM64: Collecting A Star During Death-By-Lava [Glitch Demo]
This particular glitch came up as a topic of discussion on a SM64 conversation, so I thought Id make this video to clear things up, and demonstrate some cool glitches in the process.
[UPDATE: Ive been told that its possible to collect the star if you do it before you reach 0hp - LLL red coins can be done this way]
[UPDATE 2: Kaze has said that he added this on purpose, as he didnt like that vanilla did not allow it]
Basically, its been found that if you collect a star while dying, the star-dance is cut short, and Mario dies. However, he keeps the star. Since the death animation is far shorter than star-collection, this has saved time in TASes on two levels (Behind Chain Chomps Gate, Mystery Of The Monkey Cage).
This glitch is often known as the Death-Star glitch, or DSG.
In these levels, the star is collected after dying by either going out-of-bounds, or falling to the death barrier, which are quite difficult to achieve, and require rather specific terrain.
A more obvious idea would be to use lava - after all, you bounce up after hitting it, so reaching nearby stars shouldnt be hard!
Unfortunately, however, the SM64 devs spotted this, and made the stars intangible while Marios in the lava-bounce animation, making this strategy impossible in regular SM64.
However, for some reason, in the ROMHack SM64: Last Impact, it was discovered a while ago (by me :-)) that the star does not become intangible, for some reason. It is therefore possible to collect the star while dying from a lava-bounce, which saves a fair few frames wherever its used.
I used this glitch in my TAS of the Hexagon Heat minigame (which features in this video).
Enjoy!")
![[SM64 TAS] PU Navigation (Success!)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vqW3KPE3SGA/mqdefault.jpg "[SM64 TAS] PU Navigation (Success!)
I navigate to a PU (Parallel Universe), and back again, in order to bypass the wall in HMC and collect the star Navigating In The Toxic Maze. This took about 9 minutes in total, and is NOT a useful strategy for collecting this star.
Why did I do this? To see if I can navigate PUs using TAS, out of general curiosity. It seems like there arent particularly many TASers who can navigate PUs like this, so I decided to set myself the challenge.
In the end, it was extremely difficult, even in this simple case where I always moved along the X-axis, stayed QPU-aligned for the entire journey, and always remained on flat ground. The angle-perfect maneuvers took a lot of attempts to get right, and a fair amount of Maths was needed to navigate blindly in the QPU grid!
Anyways, heres a run-down of what I do in the video:
• First, I activate the lift. As it drops, I mess about a bit to pass the time. (well, so YOU can pass the time - it only made it take longer for me!)
• When the lift reaches the bottom, I begin long-jumping. I hold this state until Im near the top, when I PBLJ (pause-buffered backwards long-jump, I needed to buffer otherwise Id fall off the lift at my angle) to gain speed. I initially have about 9 QPU (2,359,296) speed, but it immediately drops to a bit over 8 QPU. I then jump, lowering it to a bit over 6 QPU speed.
• I then punch repeatedly until my speed drops to just above the syncing speed, before aligning myself with the X-axis, moving myself 48 PUs, and a small distance forwards (past the wall).
• I then turn around, and punch repeatedly again until my speed drops to exactly the syncing speed, before moving 48 PUs back, returning to the real universe on the other side of the wall.
• I then collect the star. Pretty trivial.
This strat is not optimal in any way. It wasnt intended to be.
At the end of the video, I also show a version with the coin/star counters hacked to show which universe Im in at any given time.
If you dont understand what any of this means, here are some links with more info:
A full description of PUs: http://pastebin.com/uH5GhHbp
Pannenkoek2012s ABC video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A&feature=youtu.be
Im thinking of making a tutorial about how to make a TAS with PU navigation. Would you be interested? Tell me in the comments!
Also, like/subscribe plz :-)")
![[TAS] Releasio 64: Snowmans Lost His Head In 3260 *WR*](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/w1gScNaXqlU/mqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Releasio 64: Snowmans Lost His Head In 3260 *WR*
Another Releasio star done, and once again its in CCM! I seem to find myself TASing this level a lot...
This ones pretty simple really - I was quite surprised to discover that you can get to the snowman instantly by punching though! After that, the TAS is just pretty much what youd do casually, with a couple of tricks to spice it up a bit. Ill probably re-do it with more spice at some point - after all, you can never have too much spice! :P
Anyways, enjoy, and dont forget to subscribe for more Releasio TASes! Theres still plenty to be done...
Finally, apologies for the audio issues.
Rerecords: 452")
![[TAS] Desert Mario 64 in 6:32:38.62 (really)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wtNvi4r5bWA/mqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Desert Mario 64 in 6:32:38.62 (really)
Yes. I actually did it.
In this video, Desert Mario 64, a ROMHack inspired by the infamous game Desert Bus, is completed as fast as possible, which, it turns out, is not very fast at all.
This is because the hack is just one near-endless flat plane with no other interesting geometry to exploit, as per the source material. The hack also adds a couple more features, in order to make the game more challenging:
• Mario has a heat-meter, which builds when hes on the hot ground. When it gets too high, Mario overheats & the floor is momentarily treated as lava, costing health
• The road Mario is on has a speed limit of 55 (units/frame). If he goes too far above that limit (i.e. over 58 units/frame), he rapidly loses health. This is actually pretty unlikely to present a challenge to anyone completing it in real-time, as reaching that speed requires several slidekicks to be chained together after a jumpdive, but for TAS this is a significant limit.
* Marios HP is slowly restored, so if you make any mistakes they wont last forever
Under these conditions, the optimal movement for long periods of time is to repeatedly slidekick, and use joystick inputs to stay as close to 58 speed as possible without actually exceeding it. This is because slidekicking is one of only a handful of movements which conserve Marios speed when its above 48 (because the game caps the speed for non-sliding ground movement at 48), and the only one which does not lose speed when performed (below ~95 speed, when the speed lost in the crouch-frame increases to match the speed gained while in the air). A small amount of time can additionally be saved by breaking the 58 speed limit for short bursts every time Marios HP is fully restored. During these bursts, the fastest movement is to continue slidekick chains while actually building speed, then perform a speedkick at the end of the chain when there is no longer time for another slidekick.
So how did I manage to TAS 6.5 hours of slidekicks optimally without losing my mind? The answer lies in their repeatability, as if I can efficiently perform a single slidekick I can just copy/paste those inputs many times to produce a full TAS.
That is actually more difficult than it sounds in this hack, and its all because of the 58 speed limit. Without it, I could just hold the joystick straight forwards & repeat the slide over & over & over again, but with it, I need to maintain a speed as close to 58 as possible without crossing it, requiring different joystick angles. The trouble with this is that the slidekick *must* end with the exact same speed, to a very high precision, otherwise over the course of the countless slidekicks in this run, Marios speed will begin to drift. Were it to increase, it would eventually cross the 58-speed limit at the wrong time, ultimately killing Mario. If it decreased, I would begin to lose time. Furthermore, maintaining the closest possible speed to 58 (and matching the speed exactly, as explained before) nearly always required greater input precision than could be achieved using forward-only joystick inputs. Thus, some lateral movement is needed, which also needs to be cancelled out, otherwise Mario will drift to the side until he hits the edge & bonks! Left/right joystick inputs also dont behave completely symmetrically, so no help there.
Achieving sufficiently precise speed/position matches proved to be very difficult, and even with the best circumstances I could manage I needed an additional correcting step, performed after each speed-limit abuse, to counter the slow leftward drift. Even with all this, by the end of the run, Mario still drifts noticeably to the left, which I correct at the very end for aesthetic reasons.
Because of the length of this TAS and the ability of small differences to accumulate through the many hours of the run, fully optimising this TAS down to the last frame is practically impossible. In fact, I believe around a second is savable just by getting even closer to 57.999... speed. However, I am happy with the level of optimisation of this run, and I see no need to push it further.
Now we know how this TAS was optimised, the next question is why I bothered at all. I have two answers for that:
• Because the idea of a 6.5-hour TAS of desert-bus straight-line movement is funny in an absurd kind of way
• Because optimising & efficiently TASing such a long straight-line is an interesting & unusual problem to solve (at least for a nerd like myself)
My playlist of TAS runs: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbYjr0fKUh3qCSR9CMqyJGhMcaObah7wU
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/superdavo0001
Kazes channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/KazeBG0
Total re-records: 4,099
Now get comfortable, this is gonna be a long journey...")
![SM64 Last Impact - Bee Mushroom Without Talking To Queen [TAS]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xyWhbe6nOjY/mqdefault.jpg "SM64 Last Impact - Bee Mushroom Without Talking To Queen [TAS]
In this video, I test the idea of clipping past the guard bee in Harried Honey Hive in order to grab the bee mushroom. Turns out you can get the mushroom, but you cant escape again! :(
The result was a pretty interesting TAS with a cool BLJ though, so I thought Id upload it.
Some extra thoughts for anyone who may want to try this for themselves:
• There are no useful BLJs inside the blocked area, with which to
escape. Theres one on top of the door, but I couldnt make it work
- Mario would just jump off the door.
• I couldnt find a way to clip through the wall generally. I may be
missing something though.
• Getting the mushroom like this may not be necessary anyway - most (if not all) stars could probably be collected mushroom-less. Ill have to look into a few of them, but most are definitely possible...
Hope you enjoyed this little video - if you did, dont forget to subscribe! Ive already got a 100-sub video to finish making...")
![[Speedrun WR] SM64 Ztar Attack 2: Any% in 5:22](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yy8UwP1HM9g/mqdefault.jpg "[Speedrun WR] SM64 Ztar Attack 2: Any% in 5:22
Join my Discord!: https://discord.gg/GJdHvSCwRp
My playlist of TAS runs: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbYjr0fKUh3qCSR9CMqyJGhMcaObah7wU
My non-TAS speedruns: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbYjr0fKUh3qLn2MKhSVPfIi0zidQd7up
My Twitter (where I often post minor TAS stuff): https://twitter.com/superdavo0001
My Bluesky (for if Elon finally kills Twitter for good): https://bsky.app/profile/superdavo0001.bsky.social
Super Mario 64 TASing/ABC Discord server: https://discord.gg/ECskvyF
Super Mario 64 ROMHacks server: https://discord.gg/BYrpMBG
ROMHack Info:
Name: SM64 Ztar Attack 2: A Blast to the Past!
Creator: TheGael95 (https://www.youtube.com/@TheGael95)
Previous WR: 8:09.866 by @Tomatobird8 https://youtu.be/whGnwkNu4ks?si=OgKdFo8BmX9HY1tD
Previous warpless WR: 33:45 by @Phanton404 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/537269903
Well this is an unexpected way to break a world-record!
This run uses a bizarre glitch I found recently, in which going to the Game Over screen seems to corrupt the save file in a number of weird ways, including losing Marios cap and giving him 182 stars. Most notably though, it unlocks the wing cap box, which in this hack contains the path to the final boss! This means if I can die 10 times I can skip straight to the end, rather than having to use a different corruption involving the cannon opening bob-omb in 2-4 (see Tomatobirds run for that).
Finding the fastest way to die 10 times was kinda tricky, as there are no death floors in the hub, and you have to get pretty far into 1-1 before you find any there. In the end I opted to complete 1-1, collect the star, and use the checkpoint there to repeatedly go back & die. Tbh Im not sure why I entered 1-2, I didnt need to lol. To complete 1-1 fast, I also implemented a handy BLJ on the mushrooms, which is fairly consistent and saves a few seconds if done well.
Interestingly, because it doesnt require any warp-rooms or the level-hub at the bottom, this run should actually qualify as warpless, saving an insane 28 minutes from Phantons already impressive record!
The run is very improvable as I kinda just wanted to show it off, I could definitely fix the execution flaws with more attempts.
...Ok yeah you know what this is from the date it was uploaded, but whats *actually* going on? The corruption glitch is legitimate, but based on my testing seems to be an emulator-specific quirk, as I only got it to occur in Project64 1.6. Heck, for all I know I could just have a cursed emulator or something. Because of this (and the fact this would make any% quite dull tbh) I suspect this run wouldnt count as legitimate. Still, I felt it would be a fun thing to show off to celebrate April Fools Day, and I hope you all enjoyed it!")
![[TAS] Releasio 64: Tiny Evil Penguin In 1370s *WR*](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yzCuIqdFuSw/mqdefault.jpg "[TAS] Releasio 64: Tiny Evil Penguin In 1370s *WR*
2187 by Ethan White: https://youtu.be/ZbjgC7_K1Ek
↓
2022 by The Fastest Doggo To Ever Live Like Got Damn: https://youtu.be/cNtI3cYtK0A
↓
1727 by Ethan White: https://youtu.be/9y23vNCURHQ
↓
1370 by me :-)
I was hoping to save a few frames here and there when I started TASing, but I never for a moment thought Id find 3.5 seconds worth of time-saves!
Play-by-play of what I did:
• First, I enter the level. As I fall, I press B, which causes me to momentarily gain hyper-speed, moving backwards for a single frame, and landing conveniently near the slope to the penguin.
• Next, I jump up to the baby penguin. I do this by doing a big jump first, then mashing A on alternate frames, which I believe to be the fastest method of reaching the top.
• Once Im at the top, I stop. Conveniently, the 200spd Toad gains during the jumps causes me to stop right next to the penguin. I angled my jumps such that I stopped just behind the penguin, as close as possible.
• Next, I quick-turn, and walk towards the baby penguin, who has moved just out of my reach in the time it took to quick-turn (I dont think this can be prevented unfortunately). I do this optimally by using the joystick for 1 frame at the minimum speed that will allow me to grab the penguin again when I stop.
• Next, I lose my speed, and grab the penguin. I need to be stationary otherwise I will fly away with hyper-speed and not grab the penguin.
• Next, I gain hyper-speed, by performing an AB-kick. This allows me to clip through the wall, and begin falling towards the penguin. Because of the nature of the jump, and the high speed, Toad gains a vertical displacement of ~1250 units downwards, which shortens the freefall, saving time.
• I now fall towards the bottom area and the mother penguin. During this fall, I improve the camera angle, and manoeuvre Toad such that he will fall towards the edge of her interaction radius later, as close to the star as he can be. I was probably a little bit over-the-top with this, and it took a while to get right, but it worked, and actually had a rather tight margin.
• Next, I accelerate Mario forwards towards the mother penguin. I time this such that I ground-pound in the correct location on the last frame before landing, which I believe to be optimal. I then interact with the mother penguin as soon as Ive recovered from the ground-pound.
• Finally, I collect the star. The optimal way to do this (afaik) is to immediately jump for 3 frames towards it, and GP once underneath. Its worth noting that I was rather close to the edge of the hitbox when I collected the star, meaning that if I wasnt so precise with the targeting during the freefall earlier, I may not have reached it on that frame, wasting a frame in the run.
Re-records: 611
Dont forget to subscribe for more! :-)")
![[Speedrun WR] Peachs Fury: 25 Stars in 72670 IGT (SM64 Hack)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zFqYcj6OeWI/mqdefault.jpg "[Speedrun WR] Peachs Fury: 25 Stars in 72670 IGT (SM64 Hack)
Join my Discord!: https://discord.gg/GJdHvSCwRp
My playlist of TAS runs: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbYjr0fKUh3qCSR9CMqyJGhMcaObah7wU
My non-TAS speedruns: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbYjr0fKUh3qLn2MKhSVPfIi0zidQd7up
My Twitter (where I often post minor TAS stuff): https://twitter.com/superdavo0001
Super Mario 64 TASing/ABC Discord server: https://discord.gg/ECskvyF
Super Mario 64 ROMHacks server: https://discord.gg/BYrpMBG
ROMHack Info:
Name: Peachs Fury
Creator: Kaze Emanuar (https://www.youtube.com/c/KazeEmanuar)
Previous WR: 73123 by Keldon: https://youtu.be/rJQuBe8GoB8
Oh boy its been a while!
This video shows my current personal best and current world record time in Peachs Fury, a ROMHack made by Kaze Emanuar. I believe the time saved was largely through the use of faster strats. I think my execution was better in some places but its tough to compare overall as both me and Keldon naturally made errors in different places.
To answer a very obvious question: Many platforms were grey because I was using the wrong emulator graphics plugin. I was using LINKs GlideN and didnt bother changing to Jabo because it often freezes up, and I didnt want to risk that happening in the middle of a run.
This hack is really fun to play and its speedrun is very nice as well. The hardest part of the run for me is the Chuckyas early on, as its very difficult to grab & throw one without being grabbed by another before youre done. My execution of at section in this attempt was pretty bad and is definitely something Im going to try and improve in the future.
Regarding the many, many changes Kaze has made to the game engine, the vast majority of them are certainly for the better. Having the game run at 60fps is pretty crazy, and the changes made to the movement all feel really smooth, making the game a little more forgiving in casual play and giving plenty of opportunities for different movement in speedruns. I do find that I have a couple of issues sometimes though:
• The cloud powerup has a habit of activating when I really dont want it to, especially when jumping from steep slopes. I slidekick off the tower at 4:30 rather than jumping for this exact reason.
• Sometimes the camera can randomly start spinning, and require mashing the opposite direction to stop it. I think this depends on how long you hold the direction for, and its quite annoying, though it didnt happen in this run.
• Related to this, the camera can randomly move way up high or way down low. I think this is the same phenomenon but with vertical camera movement, and as its slow to correct I ended up just unbinding the C^ and C-down buttons to stop it happening.
• Im not sure what this is about and it isnt an issue, but sometimes when I press B to dive I seem to end up kicking. Not a problem, I just dont understand it lol
Overall though, I really love this hack, and its combination of skill-based platforming and nicely designed treasure-hunting, and Im hyped to see what Kaze can do with this engine in his larger projects!
This run was quite a long time in the making, after StarrlightSims set an impressive 74893 early on, I decided to make that time my goal, but before I could get there, Keldon came in with a huge time-cut! I set this as my new goal and incorporated their routing improvements, and after some grinding, I eventually got my time down enough to take the record!
Im definitely going to try and improve this run in future. I can still take a good few seconds from it with the current route. I may stream some attempts at some point, and if so, Ill definitely tweet about it before I do!
Apologies for the lack of videos in recent times, Ive been more than a little too distracted by Minecraft-related shenanigans and I havent really found anything to upload. I do have a big project Ive been asked to encode though... but youll have to wait & see ;) Hopefully you wont have to wait another 8 months for another Davo upload lol
PS hate to get political but Slava Ukraini, and screw those committing atrocities against them. Theres not a lot we can do atm but not falling victim to propaganda aimed at dismissing or minimising the significance of the atrocities is an important step for all of us.")
![The very basics of Java [Part 1 - Advanced Hello World]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ziiSrJSXtro/mqdefault.jpg "The very basics of Java [Part 1 - Advanced Hello World]
My very first video on the subject of programming, in this one, I show you how to make the famous Hello World! code, before adding to it - in this case by showing how long it takes to run. Any ideas? Tell me in the description! In the next video, I will probably create a window so the message will actually appear. Please subscribe! Ive got a lot of other videos planned! Like space? I have videos for that!
If you are finding this interesting, check out TheJavaHubs tutorials! I got all my knowledge from them.
Sourcecode:
package helloworld;
public class HelloWorld{
//Variables
private long beforeTime, afterTime, diff = 0;
public HelloWorld(){
beforeTime = System.nanoTime();
log(Hello World!);
afterTime = System.nanoTime();
diff = afterTime - beforeTime;
log(Time taken: + diff);
}
public static void main(String[] args){
HelloWorld hw = new HelloWorld();
}
public void log(String s){
System.out.println(s);
}
}")
