RingRush
Headshot
updated
I am no longer working on this project (I've moved on to other ones), but thought it was worth posting this since it has some unique stuff in it.
The rest of the route would heavily use the bee to collect most things in levels:
Following here would be CC w/ bee, TTC w/ bee, GV w/ bee, MMM w/ bee,banjo,pumpkin
FP w/ banjo,walrus, CC w/ banjo (just for the witch switch), CCW spring notes and flower with bee
RBB w/ bee, FP w/ bee, MM w/ bee, SM w/ bee, BGS w/ bee,banjo,croc
Unlike many real-time runs you may have seen, this run assumes you are starting from a brand new Banjo-Tooie cart (with no prior save data). This is different than the most common RTA route, which requires having the boss replay menu unlocked through cheats or reaching the final area of the game in a separate file. Those runs use a glitch involving the replay menu to teleport Banjo to the final boss (DCW), but do not include the setup for unlocking that replay menu in their final time, making a ~27 minute run by their timing standards. I personally believe that any pre-file SRAM setup should be included in the final time for any%, so I do not use this warp glitch as it would be slower from that timing standard. This choice is also consistent with the most common TAS ruleset.
This run is played on the PAL N64 version of the game on the Bizhawk emulator. Apologies for graphical glitches in a few places - although some of the things that look different like fonts are from PAL and not the emulator. The PAL version is used because it can skip one cutscene the US version can't, and because the lower framerate allows for some faster bit clip spots. This is a calculated tradeoff, since the lower framerate means some tricks involving high jumps don't work (most notably, the usual version of Plateau Early). English text is used because it would take over 8 seconds to switch to another language, and there is not much text in the run.
This originally started as a low% project. But I realized that this route is probably faster than the currently planned any% TAS route (no SRAM), which was going to collect 3 additional moves in an effort to streamline things. Thus unless things change low% and any% are one and the same for TAS.
This run utilizes position microrounding codes to make the various bit clips easier (the thing where I fall through the ground). These clips are otherworldly precise (to a millionth of banjo's normal movement distance in a frame). Since this is meant to be a suboptimal demonstration, I'd rather save a month+ of my own time here. An actual TAS would develop ways to brute force inputs to get the same effect.
Link to the debut of this run which includes light commentary: twitch.tv/videos/1751288203
Overall it takes 25 B presses for a TAS to beat the game. No use of held B is required. Real time would require two additional B presses to learn Talon Trot and get Nabnut's acorn, and would use significantly more B presses on Mr Vile.
If the goal is just to defeat Grunty and not to get 100%, 6 B presses are needed: two Mumbo presses to raise the water level in the Lair and 4 Bottles presses to learn basic moves, eggs, beak buster, and flight.
In the interest of brevity, some obvious autodives and trivial skips were excluded from the montage. Any breakable not shown here that needs to be broken can be broken with eggs, beak buster, or Wonderwing.
Note: As with the BK A button challenge, pressing L+R+another button simultaneously is also banned. This is due to a quirk in how BK handles inputs, where a held input will be ignored while L+R is held and reactivated upon letting it go. Essentially, it lets you beat the game in only 1 held press, in the same way that you could beat SM64 by just holding A and unplugging/replugging the controller every time you need to trigger a jump.
1: By entering a talon trot animation while falling into a bit clip spot, you can do a subterranean mid-air jump to get past the door in Bottles house without collecting the first jiggy.
2: Grabbing a special honeycomb the frame you leave water allows you to float for the same reason as the clockwork tricks in my previous video.
3: After a dragunda despawn, you can honeyhop to the jiggy. May be good for a 100% TAS.
4: If you fall into a bit clip spot in a landing animation, you can actually backflip from within the spot. This is used to land behind the torch and reach the HFP kickball entrance from reverse. This strategy can be done in real time using a complicated setup.
5: Terry ends his first cycle after entering the damage animation 3 times. So to 1-cycle the boss you really need to make those damage sessions count.
6: You can jump the frame after the desacking animation to make the usual Sack jumping chain even crazier
7: This precise double damage boost is needed in a full game A button challenge if you don't get hybrid banjo. Dying to get back to Mumbo's skull cancels the spell he just cast.
8: You can't reach the spot at the start here, it is just for demo purposes. Washey can jump the frame after the full shooting animation ends, even in midair.
9: Same concept as a honeyhop.
10: Bit clip and swim in OoB water to the void plane at the bottom of any area (in this case, Quagmire). If you activate talon torpedo while voiding out, you get this weird effect.
11: In Banjo Kazooie, if you enter a skidding animation by reversing direction you can use the claw swipe move before Bottles teaches it to you.
Please ignore me stupidly using the word "jump" for things like running off an edge. A jump requires an A press. I am commentating because I felt the clips alone were too confusing, but that doesn't mean I have the patience or editing ability to write a script or do more than one take.
Uncommentated Version: youtube.com/watch?v=R4bTLC65Oyk&list=PLg-Ppil0zbjV1FMbS_zdgaDVt0uwqZwUC
I forgot to mention at the end, but an additional shoutout to the8bitbeast and ThatCowGuy for their work on finding and using bitclips.
This is not an A Button Challenge video. There are things in this game that require A presses that are not jumps, such as agreeing to play minigames or talking to Mumbo. I've been working on strategies for a full A-button challenge run of Tooie, and I might still make a follow-up to this video showing what additional strategies would be needed in that context.
For those more familiar with Banjo demonstrations, I did take advantage of the "short clip" structure to avoid using the position adjustment script within most of the clips.
0:00 Intro
1:14 Mayahem Temple Trip 1 + Reaching Plateau
5:26 Glitter Gulch Mine Trip 1
8:42 Witchyworld Trip 1
11:06 Isle o Hags
12:20 Mayahem Temple Trip 2
14:09 Glitter Gulch Mine Trip 2
15:31 Terrydactyland Trip 1
20:17 Jolly Roger's Lagoon
23:59 Grunty Industries Trip 1
25:09 Hailfire Peaks
30:37 Cloud Cuckooland
37:38 Terrydactyland Trip 2
41:00 Witchyworld Trip 2
44:20 Grunty Industries Trip 2
48:34 DCW Cleanup
58:20 Ending
This is currently not RTA viable since it requires a bitclip with solo Banjo, who lacks the movement tools we use to construct setups.
For people playing around at home with Scripthawk, you can use Game.setPosition(6641.71677, 200, 1677.18822) to reach this spot
This demonstration shows the game being beaten in the minimum amount of moves from Bottles - 5 out of 18 - including tutorial moves from Spiral Mountain. This run is on the US version for additional difficulty (although no additional moves). This is 3-4 moves less than the theoretical best for runs without tool assistance.
The five moves collected are high jump, feathery flap, beak buster, eggs, and flight. Among many other things, the first two are the best way to reach the lair with the broken bridge, beak buster is needed to raise the water level in the Lair, and eggs and flight are needed to beat Gruntilda. Most notable moves skipped are talon trot, flap flip, shock spring jump, diving, beak bomb, climbing, and rat-a-tat rap.
As is standard in modern Banjo tool-assisted demonstrations, position microadjustment codes were used to help with float clips/resets - everything shown here is possible without them, but they cut many months off the process of creating this.
- "Collectables" include anything on the Total Screen: Jiggies, Jinjos, Glowbos, Pages, Extra Honeycombs, and Notes. This is consistent with the speedrun definition of 100%, although this run also gets the untracked Mega Glowbo.
- For clarification, temporary form changes (playing as Mumbo or Wumba transformations) and abilities you start the game with (such as Talon Trot) are not considered learned moves.
- This run ends on last collectable obtained. The final boss is not beaten since the final boss cannot be beaten moveless.
This demo obtains: 60/90 jiggies, 42/45 jinjos, 23/25 extra honeycombs, 22/25 pages, all glowbos, all notes, and 0/24 jamjars moves. Real time runs cannot get anywhere near this much, as they currently have no way to get past the first two worlds.
Banjo Tooie on BizHawk is...not great. As such, there are some audio issues, and some light splicing to fix audio and avoid game crashes. Position microadjustment codes were used to help with float clips - everything shown here is possible without them, but they cut months off the process of creating this.
For additional details on the items that could not be collected, see here: http://bombch.us/DQu7
It should go without saying, but no cheats or game modifications were used in this video. You can do everything shown here on your own console with a wiimote - if you had the inhuman precision to do so.
All levels are optimized for the real time between confirming level selection in the menu and reaching "Mission Complete". This means no level restarts, pausing, or letting boss intro cutscenes play out for an advantage. In certain missions, respawning from a checkpoint can roll back the timer - this too is never used. Time Break is only used in LP12, where it is mandatory, and SO13, where it saves real time. In both cases, time breaks are minimized to optimize for real time instead of the in-game timer. For the total time shown at the end, the in-game level times are used for convenience.
For real time comparisons, you can see the spreadsheet here: http://bombch.us/C9xk . This tracks my individual mission times; all are world records at time of this upload (though a majority have not had competition in over a decade). Note that times marked with an asterisk are optimized for the in-game timer and may sacrifice real time, unlike the TASes shown here.
Of course, as with every TAS, my understanding of how to optimize the game grew as I worked through this project (which was not done in any coherent level order). If I were to start from scratch now I know more time could be saved, but I'm content to publish this for now. I'll never be able to escape this game so don't be shocked to see a v2 or at least some remastered levels at some point down the line.
Music added (all from the not-so-deep Secret Rings soundtrack): "Purple Pants", "Yellow Sneakers", "Results". I'm sorry, I really am.
If seeing this in your subscription box was a shock to you, you should follow my twitter @RusherOfRings for updates and clips of things I'm working on.
Chapters:
00:00 Evil Foundry
01:15 No Pearls
03:50 Ifrit Golem
04:15 Beat the Clock
08:15 Dinosaur Jungle
09:58 Collect Rings
14:09 Levitated Ruin
15:23 Rampage
20:43 Erazor Djinn
21:20 Head to Head
24:18 Pirate Storm
26:12 Diehard
30:43 Sand Scorpion
31:07 Basic Tutorials
32:58 Night Palace
34:37 Stealth Attack
36:23 Sand Oasis
37:47 Chain of Rings
39:57 Captain Bemoth
40:49 Perfect Challenge
44:13 Skeleton Dome
45:46 Hands Off
49:42 Alf Layla Wa Layla
51:23 Special Tutorials
53:03 Special Challenge
The slide-and-jump out thing halfway up the slope is actually passing over a float clip gap, which resets the slope timer.
No position hacks were used in this video but I am fairly confident this trick, in its current form, is not even remotely doable in real time. Still, now talon trot can be added to the list of moves that can be excluded when beating the game / setting up FFM.
All other talon trot spots in the game are skippable via clever movement, or a trick where you can repeatedly jump on a slope with wonderwing with proper timing.
Follow me on Twitter for more Secret Rings TAS clips: twitter.com/RusherOfRings
Or don't. When I'm done TASing all 110 levels I'll upload a compilation to YouTube.
twitch.tv/videos/643573551?t=1h23m03s
Description of the new setup:
Read the bits about beak barges and peck cancels from the original description below.!
Beak barge forward.
Put your stick at X=-35, look down, and double tap C-down quickly 6 times (this buffers specific angle changes). If you're having trouble holding the stick at that precise position, you can press L+R+Start when holding the opposite direction to do a stick reset. Beak barge again.
Look down again, put your stick at X=29, and then zoom in 3 notchs with amaze-o-gaze. Angle buffer once, then zoom fully out and angle buffer again. Leave first person, and then do a peck cancel.
Now first person and look down again, move the stick to X=35, zoom in 5 notchs. Do two angle buffers, then zoom out one notch and do another angle buffer. Do another peck cancel with a fully held jump and you should see no shadow below you.
Do a well-timed pause a bit after you land (make sure A isn't held at this point; this pause has a 0.05s window). If you see just your backpack, then hold up and A on unpause, then towards the loading zone, and press Z once you're past the electric gate.
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Old description:
Overview:
This trick skips to the final boss of the game without collecting the normal amount of jiggies required or using NG+ techniques. This uses the insanely precise float clipping found by The8BitBeast, and a specific location for it found by KaptainKohl. I was the first person to do this without hacking my position by finding this setup, and the first to perform it in real time on emulator.
Floating point clips are likely more positionally precise than anything you've ever done in a game - literally floating point precise in both coordinates here. To find this setup, I had to create a simulator and run through billions of movement combinations.
Caveats:
Note that the setup shown here was done using savestates and frame advance to speed up parts. The actual setup in a run would be slower with more pause buffering of the peck jumps and less perfect rotations. This also may not be possible on N64 due to additional lag - this is still being tested. But as of now there is good reason to believe it will work on the xbox or xbox one versions of the game. I decided to release this video prior to console verification to help people attempting this. In the event that this is proven impossible on anything but emulator I'll go ahead and unlist it.
Tech Details:
Moving:
Beak Barges: Make sure to let go of Z before the end of the move. You don't actually hit 0 speed as soon as you think you do, so wait around after beak barging before your next move at least as long as I do here.
Mini-Movement (Peck Cancel): Any time you see me jumping, I am doing a peck (B) and cancelling it the next frame with A. For actual attempts, I highly recommend just pressing B+start at the same time, and then hold A while unpausing (see the final peck for reference). It makes these 1 frame movements quite easy.
Rotation: In first person, as long as you cancel egg aiming (C-Down) and hold "full" right or left, you will always be facing a multiple of 3 degrees. Over half of the control stick range is considered full for this purpose - just make sure you don't hold small angles and you should be fine. You can also do right+start or left+start to easily rotate exactly 3 degrees. You don't need to hit the angle targets first try: you can keep adjusting left/right as long as you stay on the 3 degree axis.
Original setup:
1. Face 108 degrees. This is 6 rotational frames left of the start (90 degrees). Do two beak barges (remember, let go of Z and wait after).
2. Do two peck cancels.
3. Face 111 degrees (one rotational frame left). Do two peck cancels.
4. Face 117 degrees (two rotational frames left). Do one peck cancel.
5. Face 69 degrees (16 rotational frames right). Do 11 peck cancels.
6. Face 57 degrees (4 rotational frames right). Do one peck cancel.
7. Face 45 degrees (4 rotational frames right). Do one peck cancel.
8. Face 30 degrees (5 rotational frames right). Do one peck cancel.
9. Face 312 degrees (26 rotational frames right). Do one peck cancel. All of these should be pause buffered, but this one especially.
10. Now is the hard timing part. You have one frame you need to hold up (or up-right) and press A simultaneously. I find pausing makes it easier to hit this, but it isn't necessary. This is just timing you'll have to learn, though watching Banjo's arms and holding A after the unpause helps give you some timing aids.
11. Once you've started the feathery flap and moved the general right direction, the rest should be pretty easy. Just hold generally towards the loading zone and beak bust or bill drill once you're beyond the gate for some extra height to clip the loading zone. This is super lenient and easy.
This is an any% TAS of the N64 version of Donkey Kong 64. Unlike console any% runs of this game, this run starts with a fresh cartridge, which means no Mystery Menu features are pre-unlocked (such as DK Theater Intro Story). Starting with these features saves on the order of 4.5 minutes. However, starting with dirty SRAM (un-timed cartridge progression) is against standard TAS practice, less entertaining, and can be controversial. If you're curious, I plan to video-splice together parts of this run to show what it would look like with a console-like ruleset in the near future.
This run is 50.77 seconds faster than the previous iteration thanks to phasewalking, a new route to skip the orange barrel, and various other optimizations.
For more information, including a detailed explanation about what is happening, check out this video: youtube.com/watch?v=QKsRNoLyXO8
Emulation on BizHawk isn't perfect, notably around lag and loading, but DK64 emulation is miles ahead of what it was a few years ago.
For some additional author comments, see: [To be done]
Follow my alt channel if you want to see mind-blowing DK64 strategies in the A button challenge: youtube.com/watch?v=_72SBL0h3fE&list=PLj3wmr_v4uBvqMCvCnQkD2R_X_dkeoLmE&index=5
I post exclusive clips of TASes on Twitter sometimes, so follow me there if you want: @RusherOfRings
This leverages the fact that on a certain frame while accelerating you can do an extra high "short hop", and also that speed accelerates faster after running off an edge.
Jump and cancel are both frame perfect 1-frame presses. Not that this is hard.
Want to know my best times? docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KDXxDnuZm6nq1HFTFnCBAd6-odyBKkQTUQsZ5EUltSo/edit#gid=0
Want to see TASes of this game? I post a bunch on twitter all the time: twitter.com/RusherOfRings
Edit: I always suspected this was a scrapped developer cheat. I was kind of right - but it wasn't scrapped at all! More details elsewhere, but basically this is the start of a code that lowers the number of golden bananas required to clear B. Locker.
FBW without ISG found by me with a lot of help from Isotarge's ScriptHawk program.
If you want to see much crazier DK64 stuff, check out my A button challenge alt here: youtube.com/watch?v=AiKrwdAZ2hA&list=PLj3wmr_v4uBvqMCvCnQkD2R_X_dkeoLmE .
While there are cool sections (for example, 1:01:51 , 1:20:50 , 1:53:02 , 1:59:06 , 3:00:37 , etc), this is certainly not the most exciting A button challenge. But the fact that everything in the game can be reduced to 0 A presses is pretty amazing in its own right.
If you are an ABC fan and want to see a far richer and more impressive A button challenge, check out my alt channel for DK64 here: youtube.com/watch?v=AiKrwdAZ2hA&list=PLj3wmr_v4uBvqMCvCnQkD2R_X_dkeoLmE .
You can also find ABC information for a variety of games at http://kaztalek.com/abc .
Some common tricks in this video:
Kick Cancel: When you kick you gain some height but are locked in an animation and can't move. By grabbing a weapon at the start of the kick, you still get the height boost, but you can actually move around. This is a good substitute for small jumps, but is significantly shorter and slower than a full jump.
Chaos Control Glitch: Activate a checkpoint and then CC on the next frame to get an "infinite" chaos control. This is a very fast and potent way to move forward in a level if you don't care about kills or keys. However, certain points in many levels may stop or prohibit chaos controls. Most uses are just time savers (over a non-glitched chaos control + normal movement). I was considering trying to avoid using this glitch because its so powerful, but there is no way to get an A rank on The ARK - Normal without it.
Corner Boosting: Spindashing into a corner causes Shadow to "bounce" off it for a lot of height. This is used all over the place to cross gaps or ascend when a kick cancel is insufficient.
As a word of warning, this game starts out kind of slow. As sonic gains skills it will start to become quite fast.
100% for this game requires completing the Gallery (analog of Secret Book in SatSR). This requires getting all followers, all treasure, all weapons, all 5*s, master all styles, play all characters 10 times, visit the blacksmith 50 times, and encounter the gold slime.
Followers: Followers are based on score (1 follower for floor(score/1000)). Every stage has a maximum amount of followers from 100-600 that requires playing the stage several times. Getting all followers means playing every level 3-9 times, based on a speed-score tradeoff. Followers unlock useful skills, most notably the speed-boosting Wind Crest (at 10000).
Treasure/Weapons: Treasure is randomly generated after completing a level (with the exception of weapon/armor drops and villager gifts). Treasure can be used as equipment to boost score (among other irrelevant things) or can be used to forge swords. Swords are used to enhance the abilities of non-Sonic characters; only the best swords are equipped for this run.
5*s: For the most part these come automatically when optimizing for followers. In a few occasions I need to go out of my way to get extra score.
Styles: Sonic has 3 styles that control his abilities. Styles are leveled up through ranking stars. The game starts in Knight style which requires 400 stars to max, while the other styles require 450 stars. In most cases Cavalier is best in terms of speed. Each non-Sonic character also contributes to one of the styles, despite not benefiting from them.
Characters: A "play" requires starting and finishing a mission, then progressing back to the main menu (restarting a completed mission does not count). Lancelot (Shadow) is used quite a bit because of his high-scoring soul surge and a need to level up Knight style. Gawain is used as minimally as possible since he is so slow. Percival gets the occasional use because of her good wallrun, despite being slow at dealing with hoards of enemies.
Blacksmith: Because I have to visit the blacksmith 50 times anyways, I don't qualm too much about doing several visits for style changes.
Golden Slime: I imagine a lot of people will look at this video to find the golden slime...and not see it. I soul surge past it in Titanic Plains - Legacy: since it does not turn gold until it lands on the ground, you never get to see it. Basically, slimes have a VERY VERY small chance of being golden upon landing (determined when the slime loads). All you need for the award is one to randomly appear. I end up having to make a second visit to TP-Legacy to better manipulate this very low chance.
Titles: Certain things like killing 50 enemies or hurting 3 townspeople can give positive or negative "titles". Your 3 most recent titles are shown on the follower screen after a level. At first I thought these were just for treasury completion, but I learned early on these act as an invisible multiplier to your score in the follower computation. If all 3 titles are positive, score is worth 1.3x as many followers. Unfortunately, some "positive" titles do not properly increment the multiplier (the crown one for defeating all enemies in a level or beating an enemy on the second loop of a looping course). This ends up significantly effecting some level strategies and the overall level order, especially because some levels like Shrouded Forest - Mastery require killing all enemies and gaining this bad title.
Scoring: Here is some information on the scoring system. Studying these numbers reveals that it is far more efficient to go for triple and multi-attacks than perfect hits: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ij6laSLRhUedpOqy5YHGXRpM3O7ZPqMGDf0Lx-wyA6U
EDIT: I'm dumb this isn't even a softlock I just needed to leave this running another several seconds. You can run around Cranky's lab with this and then leave normally and warp to Japes.
To warp, you need to die and then void in a crown arena. You can't simply moonkick straight out as there is a damage barrier above the deathplane that stops you from voiding out. You need to time your kick to pass under this barrier to trigger the warp.
This is pretty old but afaik there is almost no documentation of this outside of old skype logs
This was recorded while creating this video: youtube.com/watch?v=_72SBL0h3fE
Watch it if you want to learn about some ridiculous things you can do with exploded boulders.
I’m uploading it to this channel because I think it demonstrates how interesting some of these DK64 ABC strategies are. I highly recommend if you like crazy DK64 stuff that you check out this channel. Crazier stuff is still coming.
This video is for people who’ve watched previous videos in the series. Thus it may reference some tricks you’re not familiar with. Here is a reference pastebin for tricks used: pastebin.com/u4VYcB16
We’re over 90% completion with no A presses since starting the file from the main menu.
For more information on progress for DK64 ABC, see: kaztalek.com/dk64abc
A word on held A buttons, taken from my alternate channel: ""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.""
youtube.com/watch?v=AiKrwdAZ2hA
Note that the commentary in this video is assuming you've been following along with the series, so if something is confusing you should probably check out the rest of the videos. :)
Every video on that 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.!!!!! An A press is an A press, saying its only half is just notation for games where differentiating matters.
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 uneffeced 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.
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".
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.
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.
Spawn Snag: You can grab "unspawned" GBs by being in the right area before they finish loading for the first time. Getting there is the hard part and requires some form of camera manipulation, often times using Tag Barrel Storage locked camera.
youtube.com/channel/UC7NpaX5YZ5pyXiibLU2E7fQ
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The start of any DK64 ABC has a lot of presses - 4 in the first 75 seconds. But we will keep the A held from vine barrel here and not press A again for days - until we have 265/281 of the major collectibles in this game.
Welcome to the DK64 101% ABC, home of some of the most amazing and complicated strategies you'll find outside of SM64 itself. For more information on total progress, see: http://tinyurl.com/ycz6vq2x
DK64 isn't as level-based as SM64, so exactly what is accomplished in these videos may vary quite a lot. Every video will assume you've 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.
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 you're 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.
This is an any% TAS of the N64 version of Donkey Kong 64. Unlike most any% runs of this game, this run starts with a fresh cartridge, which means no Mystery Menu features pre-unlocked (such as DK Theater Intro Story). Starting with these features saves on the order of 4-5 minutes. However, starting with dirty SRAM is against standard TAS practice, less entertaining, and can be controversial for a speedrun.
Emulation on BizHawk isn't perfect, notably around lag and loading, but DK64 emulation is miles ahead of what it was a few years ago.
For more information, including explanation on the weird stuff happening in this run, visit this link: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18827
For a commentated version of this run, visit this link: [Edit: Probably not going to make a properly commentated version. Some new tricks were found that might save 15-20 seconds so I'm going to redo this TAS instead in the next several months, and hopefully provide commentary then.
WIP doc: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q3-CPZ77oZQnznpV9VRAeOxAHTiTTF7_-lJKB0-w5ts/edit#gid=0
Just a tracker right now, no real info.
Holding A auto jumps upon entering most standard loading zones, including the lighthouse. Dismounting a pole gives you access to an aerial attack unlike most other methods of getting airborn.
I'll probably finish an actual run at some point in the future.
I'm mass unlisting old videos so why not. This was from 2 years ago, before a lot of tricks like modern dogadonkey were found. Contains a ton of bad strats, but some cool parts.
Getting all 40 blueprints in one A press. Project discontinued. This video is just splicing together some footage very poorly. Warning: contains dream sequences where it looks like I progressed, and then I went back and redid a section.
TAS rules imply a clean cart run, which means we can't start with mystery menu fairies and so a substantially more complicated route is needed. Turns out MMM is so powerful that it is worth collecting 6 fairies and turning into Rambi in Japes just to utilize it. This would be done after getting 2 fairies, rambi, and resetting out of japes.
We could easily also fit in story skip and first time warp text at the start of this route - I wasn't expecting such a huge time window at all.
To get sent to the right file afterwards it turns out we need to add a very minor change: a manually save on the pause screen before quitting at the end. May only add an additional frame or two. File 3 is needed as far as we know to make this work, and we can't use the traditional file check strategy since we want to pull Diddy's gun from the DK TV demo (to skip needing to unlock multiplayer).
Yes I currently plan to work on a DK64 TAS once several emulation issues get worked out. No I don't anticipate that to be any time in the next few years.
Read this before asking questions about what a LOTAD is, or any audiovisual issues:
http://pastebin.com/HFNfWDCE
(Youtube can't fit the full text)
LOTAD = Low Optimization Tool Assisted Demonstration
aka not spending time optimizing movement so I can finish a 5+ hour run in a few months while doing other stuff. Also the emulator is buggy and desynchs a ton and a myriad of other reasons why an optimized tas of this game is not worth the effort right now.
Everything in this video is property of Nahoc
Watch the original if you haven't already, its better than the actual 120 star TAS
youtube.com/watch?v=Tfo0OMbZ9ek
This was for personal curiousity; I wasn't planning to upload this. However there are bunch of little strats in this video that need to be documented, so you guys get to see I guess. This means for a TAS you wouldn't need to turn in any blueprints before Helm. This is not at all optimized (should be obvious), but savestates were used (should also be obvious). Don't worry about the graphics issues or the extra melon or the framerate issue with the Helm timer, this is most certainly possible on console.
Warning 1: The emulator I use is the most accurate known emulator for this game physics wise, but the graphics can mess up quite a bit especially for Tiny. Try to look past the weird graphical spiking on occasion.
Warning 2: To keep this at a reasonable length I make use of several cuts to trim trivial travel time.
Japes: Z slide off an edge with a gun out then c-up upon hitting it to swim with gun. If you swim over land (in this case, the cage holding a GB for DK), then you can c-up to maintain your skew while leaving water. This lets you pass through several areas that normally require Mini Monkey to squeeze through.
Aztec: An orange assisted reverse chimpy charge on the final gong lets Diddy clear the bonus barrel in the lobby without Tiny needing to PT twirl to it. A swim through walls allows you into the Klaptrap room without shrinking in Tiny's temple. A ledge clip performs the same role in the llama temple. The fairy in the 5 door temple can be reached with an orange clipping DK.
Entering the beetle race normally requires going mini and riding Squawks up to the top of a tall tower. Tag Barrel Storage + rocketbarrel allows Tiny to get the necessary height. Unlike most mini monkey loading zones, this one specifically checks to make sure you are mini. However, since Tiny usually cannot use rocketbarrel, the game can't distinguish between flying Tiny (Diddy's barrel move) and small Tiny (Tiny's barrel move). Finally, the hole at the top is too small for Tiny normally, so she needs to do a lag clip to reach the loading zone. This is accomplished through a relatively new glitch called feathercorruption, which involves shooting many, many feathers (since these stick in the wall instead of disappearing like other bullets) at near turbo controller speeds. Besides frequent crashes and heavy lag spikes this has some insane side effects, but I'll hold off on those until another video once these other effects are console confirmed. For a taste of what may be possible, see youtube.com/watch?v=do3rk3400tg .
Factory: A ledge clip gives you access to both the car race and the shooting gallery without Mini Monkey. The Mad Jack fight does not need ponytail twirl for the jumps and DK or Chunky make this a lot easier. Passing under the gate in the arcade room from OoB lets you backflip into it and avoid the mini monkey pipe. The gap at the top of the production room can be crossed with skid jump - kick jump - jump - aerial attack.
Galleon: Swim through walls is OP.
Forest: Skew allows entry into the stump without shrinking, and STW allows entry into the shed at night. TBS invisibility + a pause OoB + grabbing the high ladder on the mushroom sets up an extremely high tree warp that lets you PT twirl into the beanstalk GB without having to shrink and watch Squawks carry Tiny up. Since we can't PT twirl for this video, I replace that with a series of tree warp - jump - pause to reset warp location - fall - repeat to get closer to the GB.
Caves: There is a small gap where Tiny can jump into her mini-igloo from underneath (after a STW) to skip Monkeyport. Diddy can use lag to brute force his way into his blueprint cave without Tiny's help. Imperfect geometry leads to several narrow ledges out of bounds that Tiny can use to height boost up to her Mini Monkey cave.
Castle: The jump combination from Factory returns to skip PT twirl outside the dungeon. Lag clips avoid shrinking before the trashcan and entering the Museum with Tiny. A series of tricky jumps can skip twirling in the crypt. Heavy lag from feathercorruption followed by a ledge clip lets Tiny reach her car race without Mini Monkey or Monkeyport.
Helm: The upper area of DK Isles including the Helm Lobby entrance can be reached with a telegrab. The mini monkey pipe inside Helm can be skipped in a myriad of ways - here I use a moonkick OoB. Before heading to the Blast-o-Matic room, I use another moonkick on a misaligned ledge OoB to reach Tiny's room so I can clear her bonus barrel using DK instead of Ponytail Twirl (orange clipping back out to continue helm).
The fun doesn't stop there though - wander too far out of bounds, and you'll actually teleport to Hideout Helm! (Helm Late I guess). If you do this as the round is running out, then return to the fight, you'll be sent to DK's phase as the wrong kong after a brief interlude with Cranky. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that other kongs can use the blast barrels.
Japes: There are two steep slopes here, one I brute force up with oranges and the other I fall to from above.
Aztec: Normally you have to create and climb a steep incline to get to this bonus barrel. I moonkick there with DK to complete the barrel, then use TBS + moonkick so that Lanky can grab the banana.
Factory: Brute force + wall stall can climb the slope to free Chunky. Baboon balloon can be skipped with some clever jumps. Orangstand isn't needed for the production room if you just come from above via out of bounds.
Galleon: Enguarde gets a lot of height out of water, and backflips skip the rest of the balloon pads.
Forest: Instead of climbing a steep slope to get to a switch I just clip through the door it opens. The dreaded rabbit race, which many people find hard even with Sprint, can be made trivial with a well placed barrel. There is also a balloon pad on the way to the shed but you can climb a rope to skip it - even the designers knew this and placed bananas on the alternate route.
Caves: An orange clip skips ballooning to a pad which opens the door to Lanky's cabin. Inside, lagging the switch going down and long jumping during the cutscene lets you get enough of a head start to skip Sprint. Smart platforming lets you both ascend the igloo and the ice castle without the balloon. The superslide trick allows you to beat the race itself without Sprint - for more information and the full race see my previous video. Lanky's Kasplat here can be reached by taking warp 5 after rocketbarreling to the pillar - this is almost certainly the intended method, not the balloon trick speedrunners use.
Helm: There are a myriad of ways to climb the slope at the start of helm, such as the classic tiny kick-jump method or any%'s wallslaps. For this video I opted to show a way nobody has seen before - switching kongs during a kick out of tag barrel range to lock DK into a fast slide that ignores slippery slope physics. Too bad you are invisible. The barrel to shut down the Blast-o-matic is very easily doable without sprint.
Isles: With K Lumsy gone and using the trick from Crystal Caves, Lanky just barely misses reaching the GB here in time without Sprint. Or does he? Apparently just being close to the cage when the timer runs out is enough to prevent it from closing on you. Similar to Aztec, a TBS moonkick can skip ballooning to the top of castle lobby.
Castle: Giving you Sprint in the greenhouse is a joke - it is very easy without. Balloon can be skipped in the dungeon with some good damage boosts to walk on the instakill acid. Instead of sprinting to get past a gate before it closes, you can just clip the nearby torch and go around.
And then comes the wind tunnel room, where for some reason I use Baboon Balloon? I never said I was skipping using Lanky's moves - this video shows that you can skip UNLOCKING Lanky's moves. Magically, the pad in this updraft room can be used even without ever purchasing the move! This actually holds true for any pad in Castle, but not for any other Lanky pad or barrel in the game. A bit of an unfortunate cop-out, but despite this the fact that we can skip Cranky complete with Lanky and still get everything else in the game is just ridiculous.