Pikmin 2: What if the Day Counter Overflows? @grassdigger8695

Grassdigger The current day is stored as a 4-byte unsigned integer. This means that it can be any number in between 0 and 2^32-1 = 4,294,967,295. Note that 0 represents day 1, 1 represents day 2, and so forth. Theoretically, you could end the day over 4 billion times and overflow the day counter (though it would take 5000 years to do this). What would happen? Does anything interesting happen when playing day 1 again?

To test this, I used the debug mode on Dolphin. This allowed me to change the value at certain memory addresses. The memory address for the current day is 00b0fbd8. This memory address, along with others, can be found here: pikmintkb.com/wiki/Pikmin_2_memory_addresses

First, I'll briefly talk about how the mail works. If you're on day 0, the game won't let you scroll to the left. However, if you're on any day later than 0, and you scroll to day 1, you won't have the option to scroll further left, even though there are more mail messages there.

Now, let's talk about what happens if you play on day 1 again. Nothing strange happens until you land. Then, many of the day 1 mechanics return! There is infinite daylight (so no Sun clock is located at the top of the screen), there is no music, you can't access the Red Onion (or the ship, or other Onions), and you can't end the day (you also can't escape from a cave). In most case scenarios, the only way you can end the day is by having both captains lose their health, but you could also get an extinction if all of the living Pikmin are in the field.

Another point of interest: the Ujadani in Wistful Wild appear on day 1. They appear on any day that's 1 more than a multiple of 30. I imagine some of you have not encountered this creature before, but you can learn about them here: pikminwiki.com/Ujadani

What if we land in Valley of Repose on day 1? Will any of the objects that normally spawn on day 1 be there? Interestingly, the answer is no. Instead, the objects in Valley of Repose will match exactly with how you left the map previously. Even the Snagret can show up on day 1.

On a side note, the object spawning behavior acts very strangely when I hack the day counter to certain big numbers. Oftentimes, all of the day-dependent objects would disappear entirely! You could see this somewhat at the start of the video in Awakening Wood. I have no idea why this happens, there's a chance that it's a result of me hacking the day, but I think that there are misunderstood game mechanics at play.

Lastly, I show what happens if I land in Perplexing Pool for the first time on day 1. Nothing strange happens while landing, and all of the objects that normally spawn before day 10 are present (you can see which objects these are here: pikminwiki.com/Perplexing_Pool)
However, there is one very interesting object that shows up, and that's a new cave that appears in the landing site. We call it caveinfo. It appears on days 1 or 2 in Perplexing Pool, and I will show some experiments with it in the next video. (Cliffhanger!)

Special thanks to Espyo for helping me figure some things out so that I could test all of this!

updated 6 years ago

Pikmin 2: What if the Day Counter Overflows?

Grassdigger 2018-08-24 | The current day is stored as a 4-byte unsigned integer. This means that it can be any number in between 0 and 2^32-1 = 4,294,967,295. Note that 0 represents day 1, 1 represents day 2, and so forth. Theoretically, you could end the day over 4 billion times and overflow the day counter (though it would take 5000 years to do this). What would happen? Does anything interesting happen when playing day 1 again?

To test this, I used the debug mode on Dolphin. This allowed me to change the value at certain memory addresses. The memory address for the current day is 00b0fbd8. This memory address, along with others, can be found here: pikmintkb.com/wiki/Pikmin_2_memory_addresses

First, I'll briefly talk about how the mail works. If you're on day 0, the game won't let you scroll to the left. However, if you're on any day later than 0, and you scroll to day 1, you won't have the option to scroll further left, even though there are more mail messages there.

Now, let's talk about what happens if you play on day 1 again. Nothing strange happens until you land. Then, many of the day 1 mechanics return! There is infinite daylight (so no Sun clock is located at the top of the screen), there is no music, you can't access the Red Onion (or the ship, or other Onions), and you can't end the day (you also can't escape from a cave). In most case scenarios, the only way you can end the day is by having both captains lose their health, but you could also get an extinction if all of the living Pikmin are in the field.

Another point of interest: the Ujadani in Wistful Wild appear on day 1. They appear on any day that's 1 more than a multiple of 30. I imagine some of you have not encountered this creature before, but you can learn about them here: pikminwiki.com/Ujadani

What if we land in Valley of Repose on day 1? Will any of the objects that normally spawn on day 1 be there? Interestingly, the answer is no. Instead, the objects in Valley of Repose will match exactly with how you left the map previously. Even the Snagret can show up on day 1.

On a side note, the object spawning behavior acts very strangely when I hack the day counter to certain big numbers. Oftentimes, all of the day-dependent objects would disappear entirely! You could see this somewhat at the start of the video in Awakening Wood. I have no idea why this happens, there's a chance that it's a result of me hacking the day, but I think that there are misunderstood game mechanics at play.

Lastly, I show what happens if I land in Perplexing Pool for the first time on day 1. Nothing strange happens while landing, and all of the objects that normally spawn before day 10 are present (you can see which objects these are here: pikminwiki.com/Perplexing_Pool)
However, there is one very interesting object that shows up, and that's a new cave that appears in the landing site. We call it caveinfo. It appears on days 1 or 2 in Perplexing Pool, and I will show some experiments with it in the next video. (Cliffhanger!)

Special thanks to Espyo for helping me figure some things out so that I could test all of this!

Coffin Dance in Pikmin 2 (500 Sub Special)

Grassdigger 2020-05-16 | It's okay I reset so all my Pikmin are still alive don't worry ;)

I'm a little late to the punch on this video... we've had 500 subscribers for a few months now, and the original Coffin Dance video (youtube.com/watch?v=j9V78UbdzWI) is now a month and a half old. Still, better late than never... enjoy! And thanks to all you viewers and subscribers for helping this channel get so far!

P.S. I'm not sure how the purples didn't pick me up at the end of the video, but at least it looked cool

Pikmin 2 Glitch: Wheres Your Pellet, Posy?

Grassdigger 2020-05-14 | The user PikHacker recently made me aware of certain object caps in Pikmin 2. He found one of these caps at memory address 0x801f9674: 48 pellets. This cap includes the pellets found on living pellet posies. This made me wonder what would happen if there were already 48 pellets on the map, and a pellet posy matured.

This required specific conditions to test. Only Valley of Repose and Awakening Wood have pellet posies that mature later in the day, and of these 2, only Awakening Wood could have more than 48 pellets appear at once. If the limit didn't exist, there could be 50 pellets in Awakening Wood. Note that 6 of these pellets are the blue pellets by Decorative Goo, but these pellet posies disappear permanently when killed or once we reach day 31. Thus, we can only perform this glitch in Awakening Wood in between days 11 and 30, inclusive. And I had to take special care when setting up this test not to kill the blue pellet posies by Decorative Goo.

In the video, I killed every enemy that could drop pellets. Furthermore, this video was tool-assisted, as I used savestates to ensure that each enemy I killed dropped the maximum number of pellets they could drop.

Once the pellet posies mature, we reach the cap of 48 pellets before the last 2 pellet posies mature, which normally hold the yellow 10-pellet and the 20-pellet. Since the game will not allow more than 48 pellets to exist at once, when these 2 pellet posies mature, their pellets do not appear! It seems as though the developers took special care to code a failsafe for what pellet posies should do if they can't spawn a pellet in their flowers. Honestly, I was expecting a crash when I tested this.

Nothing drops when one of these pelletless posies are killed. Furthermore, there seems to be no way to recover their pellets without simply ending the day (or entering a cave), and reloading the map.

Note that when the pellet limit is reached, other enemies will also not make more pellets appear under any circumstances. Flint and Glint Beetles will drop nothing when flipped over the first time, for example.

Here are the other object caps that PikHacker shared with me:
Collision sphere: 128
Particle effects: 512
Nectar drop/spray: 24
Pikmin seed: 100
Captains: 2
Enemy corpse: 64
Spray berry: 64
Upgrade treasure: 11
Normal treasure: 32
Pikmin: 100

Pikmin 2 Glitch: Captains in Onion Menus

Grassdigger 2020-05-05 | Recently, user "mr brocoli" found a new glitch I'll call Knockback Extension, which takes advantage of how captains behave inside of an Onion Menu.

Say Louie is following Olimar. You've probably seen Louie catch up to Olimar while an Onion Menu is on screen, even when Louie was far away. However, we can do more than that with Onion Menus.

Say we dismiss Louie next to an enemy. If the enemy chases Louie, he has AI that makes him run around the enemy to keep himself from being attacked. This can be rather amusing:
youtube.com/watch?v=hNy91_BFiWY
However, this will also happen inside of an Onion Menu. Louie will pick a spot that he wants to run to, and he'll finish running there in an arc, even when the Onion Menu is up.

If Louie is chomped by an enemy while he's running and Olimar opens an Onion Menu, Louie will continue running in the same direction while being in the "chomped" state. Once the menu closes, he'll finish being chomped.

Now here's the most interesting use of Onion Menus with captains. Say Louie receives knockback from an enemy shaking, and Olimar immediately pulls up the Onion Menu. Louie will continue sliding backwards in the knockback state! This is huge, because captains interact differently with sloped walls while in knockback.

Oftentimes, we use Chrysanthemums to knock us up certain sloped walls, 2 instances can be seen in Lugia Skip:
youtube.com/watch?v=a4s4xanjJlc
However, with Knockback Extension, we can know receive the knockback from a Chrysanthemum (or any enemy for that matter) anywhere we like! Assuming that spot is in a straight line from an enemy, that is.

In this video, I demonstrate that Knockback Extension can get us out of bounds behind the ship in Awakening Wood, which previously required Wollywog Superjumps to perform:
youtube.com/watch?v=kygNCNCdBWU&t=2m35s

If we could perform this Knockback Extension to get us OoB without the Napsack, this could be quite useful, as we could enter White Flower Garden much faster than current methods let us. However, the aforementioned AI that makes Louie run around an enemy proves to be very annoying. I had to use the Napsack to keep Louie from running around so that he could receive knockback. It's worth noting that if another enemy is nearby, then Louie only runs from one of them, so the other enemy could still knock Louie back. Props to user EBTKS Paddy for mentioning this to me. But it will still be very difficult to knock Louie in a specific direction.

Here is some information about the knockback state:
-As soon as a captain lands on ground after being in air, his knockback ends.
-There are 2 different types of knockback states. A captain always starts in a slower knockback state that looks like he's falling backwards. However, after this captain collides with an object, such as an enemy, Onion leg, the Ship, or even another captain, he enters a faster knockback state that looks like he's dabbing in the direction he's moving. Both states seem to be effective at climbing sloped walls.
-You can push the other captain while in knockback.
-You cannot climb a vertical wall while in knockback.

Lastly, I demonstrate that we can do Knockback Extension with the Red Bulborb in Valley of Repose. I know the user PikHacker has been trying to use this glitch to get up the nearby ledge so that we can skip the underwater wall. However, we haven't found a way yet. If we did, Blue Pikmin could be ignored in speedruns, as we would no longer need them to access the rest of Valley of Repose.

Pikmin 2 Glitch: New OoB Thingy

Grassdigger 2020-05-03 | This was a quick video I threw together to show a new technique to get out of bounds in Awakening Wood that doesn't require the Napsack or any enemies, it's literally just running up a slope. I used the Rush Boots in this video, as you get a better launch up a slope if you have more speed, obviously. However, if we don't need the Rush Boots to do this trick, I expect this trick would be quite useful, as this would let us get past the nearby black wall immediately, granting us access to Hole of Beasts and White Flower Garden much faster than current techniques let us.

Note: this trick is very similar to another trick that lets us get to Shower Room early, both involve running up a slope:
youtube.com/watch?v=B3ofhF82GB4

Pikmin 2 TAS: Napsack in 0 Minutes

Grassdigger 2020-05-01 | This video is tool-assisted, meaning that I used savestates and frame-advance to show that this floor can be completed in 0 minutes.

Pikmin 2 records how many minutes you have spent in a file. However, it only counts how many whole minutes you have spent. If I select a file, play for 2:59 and save + reset, the game only counts this as 2 minutes of playtime. Because of this, it is possible to pay off the debt in just 1 minute: youtube.com/watch?v=CbvG03nNJ2s
Before today, we could collect all treasures in 19 in-game minutes. HSS0136 has beaten the game in 23 minutes here: youtube.com/watch?v=KCxmtdn_PhQ
HSS0136 saved 2 more minutes since then. Here are the minute saves:
White Flower Garden 3: youtube.com/watch?v=fpVKMgk7RwM
Valley of Repose: youtube.com/watch?v=6-tMPXP69JY
I also saved 2 more minutes somewhat recently. Here are those minute saves:
Submerged Castle 2: youtube.com/watch?v=nMSybTmlERo
Subterranean Complex 5: youtube.com/watch?v=3Ni0ro_9Zeg
And because of the minute save shown in this video, we can now complete Pikmin 2 in 18 minutes!

A year and a half ago, Pikmin 2 Speedrunner Node videoed the Napsack treasure behaving strangely:
youtube.com/watch?v=Dskcl01PdDY
Then, HSS0136 tried to abuse this behavior to collect the Napsack in under 1 minute here:
youtube.com/watch?v=mCkp5DlbNlc

In short, this behavior occurs because the Napsack occupies the same space as the Snagret's corpse (which is its head), and once the head becomes a carryable object, it pushes the Napsack outwards. Apparently, outwards is always in the direction of its beak, because that's where Napsack is always pushed. However, this becomes complicated because the camera plays a huge role in what kind of behavior we see. If the Napsack is always on camera, there's minimal pushing. If the Napsack is off-camera while it appears, then it will receive a reasonable push. However, to get the kind of push we desire, we have to first let the Napsack be off-camera, then put it on camera at the same time that the Snagret's corpse becomes carry-able (which coincides with its ghost appearing). For whatever reason, if done correctly, the Napsack will receive a huge push, which enables it to be collected much faster.

HSS0136 managed to get a time of 1:05 for collecting the Napsack, which was a lot faster than what we previously thought was possible. However, I found a handful of optimizations:
-Bump into Pikmin at the start, instead of whistling
-Use only White Pikmin
-Wait to use a spicy spray until right before attacking the Snagret (flowered whites run faster when not spicy)
-Dismiss Pikmin onto the Snagret's head, killing it before it can shake its head 3 times
-Pick up the Napsack quicker
-Lockout Skip (use the geyser at the same time Napsack is collected)
Together, along with frame-perfect textbox advancing and cutscene skipping with TAS, I just barely collected the Napsack in under 1 minute! And I really mean just barely, I timed myself at around 59.9 seconds. I would be very surprised if anyone managed to achieve such a time without TAS.

There was 1 problem I ran into my first time TASing this. When you perform Lockout Skip, sometimes you can crash, as shown here: youtube.com/watch?v=EZWnmIx_JBo
On my first TAS, this happened seemingly randomly. I had to toss away 4 frames to avoid the crash. However, on my second TAS, this crash wasn't a problem.

Pikmin 2 Glitch: Draining Water Without Blues

Grassdigger 2020-04-25 | There's a very precise spot you can throw non-blue Pikmin so that they can attack the plug before they start drowning. In the video I show this with purples, since they deal more damage, but you can also do this trick with other types. I'm not sure if this trick will be useful for anything, since it takes so long, but perhaps a faster method will be found!

One thing that's worth mentioning, I thought that damage was dealt to the plug when a Pikmin hits it with its sprout, and particles fly off the plug. However, when you look at the moment the plug gets destroyed, no Pikmin had just hit it, so I don't know if there was a delay, or if my assumption was wrong.

There is one silly thing that's now possible. With this trick, we can now get to Bulblax Kingdom without the Napsack, whites, or yellows. This means the first cave we enter in Awakening Wood can now be Bulblax Kingdom, which wasn't possible before.

The song I used: youtube.com/watch?v=xYG60huMr_k

Pikmin 2: Beady Long Legs in 2x A Presses

Grassdigger 2020-04-13 | Ever wondered how many A Presses it takes to defeat Beady Long Legs? No? Well you're finding out anyway. It's 2.

This video features a glitch found by ToolAssistedPikm: youtube.com/watch?v=AImjtZv1Rqc

On the Japanese version of Pikmin 2, it's possible for any type of Pikmin to attack the feet of Beady Long Legs. I don't understand the mechanics completely, but it has to do with a Pikmin's angle being stored from when it was last latched to something. This is easy to see for yourself aboveground (if you have the Japanese version): simply land in Perplexing Pool, grab some Pikmin from an Onion (this works better if you don't whistle them off the legs), and have them attack Beady Long Legs's feet when he falls from the sky.

You might wonder why I couldn't do this in 1x A Presses or even 0. I couldn't do 0 because there's nowhere for a Pikmin to store its latching angle on this floor except for Beady Long Legs's head. Also, only having 1 Pikmin latched isn't enough to get the glitch, for whatever reason, so a second A Press is necessary. At 4:30 in ToolAssistedPikm's video, you can see that 1 Pikmin doesn't get the glitch. But once 2 Pikmin are thrown on top of each other on Beady Long Legs, 1 of them can get the glitch, and it can attack Beady Long Legs's feet.

In Pikmin 1, you can defeat Beady Long Legs in 1 A Press, as Mokaygee demonstrates here:
youtube.com/watch?v=V87bFAPan7A

Pikmin 1 and 2 both have low A-press playthroughs on YouTube.
Pikmin 1: (Mokaygee) youtube.com/watch?v=11x5TBPMVXI&list=PL1tbaKnaSPjev6FPFdYMsGRpf6EUZbpy6
Pikmin 2: (xHaii) youtube.com/watch?v=4MN4yp_ns3o&list=PLxWuTfQmHaJZncIRh-DxwqM7gqIwqkVDb

The music was Slide from Super Mario 64: youtube.com/watch?v=_sG5YwPtetk

Pikmin 2: Low-Piklopedia Challenge (Part 2)

Grassdigger 2020-04-06 | How does one do a Pacifist completion of Pikmin 2? Well, the game keeps track of all enemies we've killed and plants we've encountered in the Piklopedia. What if we could beat the game with nothing on the Piklopedia? Unfortunately, this doesn't seem possible with current knowledge. So let's do the next best thing instead: let's beat the game with the smallest Piklopedia possible. And by smallest, I mean the fewest distinct entries in the Piklopedia, and the fewest creatures defeated. Also, by beat the game, I mean paying off the 10,000 poko debt. If there's enough interest, I'm also willing to determine the lowest Piklopedia possible for collecting all treasures.

Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=VwFvwHKfwdc

A list of glitches/techniques used in this challenge:
Pushing Toady Bloyster: youtube.com/watch?v=6RXSo1jSjzM
Destroying Poison Vents without Whites: youtube.com/watch?v=JjEhVFUBPCI
Getting to Snagret Hole: youtube.com/watch?v=jBa6usXNsJQ
Wollywog Superjump: youtube.com/watch?v=Hk2boQZTmI4
This last video demonstrates an easier way to do Wollywog Superjumps with bitter sprays.
I also show off a way of destroying the poison wall by Subterranean Complex without whites at 20:02. Props to user Ultizeta for the idea behind this!

A list of songs used in this video:
Piklopedia. youtube.com/watch?v=KBR1iAEkU9I
VIII. youtube.com/watch?v=PCc2JRS_EBc
IX. youtube.com/watch?v=3NVr4DVB1ng
X. youtube.com/watch?v=CKAc3nYEatw
XI. youtube.com/watch?v=QZMJmepjL1w
XII. youtube.com/watch?v=tLlNQtkDWLo
XIII. youtube.com/watch?v=sjZAoCFnpWU
youtube.com/watch?v=cXlXumJNppc
XIV. youtube.com/watch?v=eTdVSCSQ610
youtube.com/watch?v=QXek8llLL1s
XV. youtube.com/watch?v=gFjz7Wc4tAc

Timestamps:
Intro: 0:00
Bulbser's Kingdom: 0:55
The Great Outdoors: 5:54
Shower Ambiance: 8:38
Snagging Treasures: 12:35
A Calm Winter's Night: 16:52
Explosions! Chaos!: 19:56
The Final Trial: 30:20
Conclusion: 36:58

One more thing: thanks to user JHawk's Cave Generator tool for helping me make diagrams of Subterranean Complex 5.

Pikmin 2: Low-Piklopedia Challenge (Part 1)

Grassdigger 2019-08-23 | How does one do a Pacifist completion of Pikmin 2? Well, the game keeps track of all enemies we've killed and plants we've encountered in the Piklopedia. What if we could beat the game with nothing on the Piklopedia? Unfortunately, this doesn't seem possible with current knowledge. So let's do the next best thing instead: let's beat the game with the smallest Piklopedia possible. And by smallest, I mean the fewest distinct entries in the Piklopedia, and the fewest creatures defeated. Also, by beat the game, I mean paying off the 10,000 poko debt. If there's enough interest, I'm also willing to determine the lowest Piklopedia possible for collecting all treasures.

Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=kbMknebhTEI

A list of glitches/techniques used in this challenge:
Day 1 Extinction: youtube.com/watch?v=IieBje4CqMo
Lugia Skip (tutorial): youtube.com/watch?v=jBa6usXNsJQ
Wollywog Superjump: youtube.com/watch?v=Hk2boQZTmI4
This last video demonstrates an easier way to do Wollywog Superjumps with bitter sprays.
It also shows how a Wollywog can fall OoB in Perplexing Pool.

I also alluded to the A-Button Only Challenge when getting yellows in this video. Here is how I got yellows without whistling:
youtube.com/watch?v=gto6icWk90g&t=1m54s

A list of songs used in this video:
Piklopedia. youtube.com/watch?v=KBR1iAEkU9I
I. youtube.com/watch?v=RxtxfmPWec0
II. youtube.com/watch?v=YxbCEfPeANo
III. youtube.com/watch?v=TXTo9Ck5liM
IV. youtube.com/watch?v=7j2eBLEOqeo
V. youtube.com/watch?v=IVH6Gl7W0hI
VI. youtube.com/watch?v=rmtKHo7GB64
VII. youtube.com/watch?v=LuOZm_PSpDs

Timestamps:
Intro: 0:00
Prologue: 1:56
The Great Awakening: 5:13
The Battle for the World: 9:30
Olimar Goes On Vacation: 13:22
Going for Gold: 17:24
Getting the Blues: 20:25
Glutton's Race: 24:38

Here are some things to think about while waiting on Part 2:
How will I enter Subterranean Complex?
How will I avoid letting Volatile Dweevils blow up?
Are there other treasures inside enemies that I can collect? If so, how?
Stay tuned to find out :)

Pikmin 2 Glitch: Careening Dirigibugs Holding Air

Grassdigger 2019-07-16 | I found this glitch after asking one simple question: What happens when Pikmin 2 loads too many objects? In multiple video games, strange behavior can occur when too many objects are loaded. Here's 1 recent example: spawning too many objects was the key to finding the infamous Barrier Skip for The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: youtube.com/watch?v=gtc-RojbdyQ

So I started thinking of ways to make unlimited objects appear. There are a handful of enemies that spawn objects, but most of the time, these objects are destroyed after some time. These enemies include the Gatling Groink, Armored Cannon Beetle Larvae, and Burgeoning Spiderworts. Other enemies spawn objects that have a cap on them. For example, there is a cap on the number of Bulborb Larvae or nectar drops that can be loaded at once.

However, there is one enemy that I figured could spawn unlimited objects: Careening Dirigibugs. So I made a plan:
1. Bitter spray them while they're holding a bomb. Note that the bombs will petrify slightly earlier than the Careening Dirigibugs.
2. As soon as the bitter spray wears off, use another. If you miss the half-second window, you will spray the Careening Dirigibugs again.
3. Let the Careening Dirigibugs make another bomb.
4. As soon as the bitter spray wears off again, repeat these steps indefinitely.

However, it didn't take long for me to discover that Careening Dirigibugs can't spawn bombs indefinitely. There's actually a bomb cap! For Subterranean Complex sublevel 6, this cap is 4. Once there are 4 bombs in the map, the Careening Dirigibugs will fail to make more bombs, and they'll simply hold air instead! Don't be mistaken: they aren't holding an invisible bomb. Otherwise, when they drop it, there should still be an explosion after some time. I'm not sure if this glitch has any use, besides making Careening Dirigibugs harmless while the bomb cap is met.

While recording, it seemed like I got inconsistent results for the bomb cap on sublevel 2. I had a couple of off-camera experiments that concluded that the bomb cap is 15 for this floor, so I assumed that I overlooked something when I got 14 for the bomb cap (if the other Careening Dirigibug was holding a bomb, its bomb would also have contributed to this bomb cap).

In the meantime, I'm not sure if there's a good way to spawn unlimited objects in Pikmin 2. While my original idea for a new glitch hasn't come to fruition yet, at least I found something interesting.

While editing this video, I had a theory on how the game determines what the value for the bomb cap will be. There isn't an obvious correlation between the 15 bomb cap for sublevel 2 and the 4 bomb cap for sublevel 6, but there is 1 sensible explanation. On sublevel 6, there are 2 Careening Dirigibugs, and in normal gameplay, they can't have more than 1 active bomb of theirs blowing up before they make another one. So it makes sense to make the bomb cap be twice the number of Dirigibugs on the map. As for sublevel 2, if we assume the floor can have 9 bombs spawn naturally without a Dirigibug, then simply add twice the number of Dirigibugs on the map, which is twice of 3, and we get 15. However, I did an experiment off-camera on sublevel 7, where there's only 1 Careening Dirigibug, and it could spawn more than 2 bombs, it even spawned more than 4. In light of this, either my theory is incorrect, or the formula is this:
2 x (Careening Dirigibugs) + (MAX number of bombs on a floor)
Since sublevel 7 is so large and dense with bombs, it makes sense that the total number of bombs on the floor doesn't always meet the max number of bombs allowed. Anyway, I encourage you to do some experiments of your own to find the bomb cap formula, or verify this one! Please let me know in the comments what your results are if you do so.

Pikmin 2: A Detailed Analysis of Dismissing

Grassdigger 2019-05-30 | In this video, I go over the details about what happens when you press X to dismiss your Pikmin. This is handy to know for people who play the game, especially for speedrunners and challenge runners. There are some intricacies about dismissing that can get you into trouble.

In a nutshell, here's what happens. Each Pikmin has a point they must travel to when dismissed. Pikmin of the same type share the same point, so all reds are dismissed towards the same point, for example (and it doesn't matter whether these reds are leaf, bud, flower, or spicy). In general, this point will be the average of the positions of the Pikmin before they were dismissed (in other words, if the Pikmin were standing on a disc suspended in air, then the point would be where you could balance the disk in midair). However, this point will change location based on a few conditions. The point must be a certain distance from both leaders (whether active or inactive), and the point must be a certain distance from each point that the other Pikmin types travel towards upon dismissal. This should match what you've experienced in regular gameplay, as Pikmin tend to be spread out and far away from your leaders when dismissed.

Now let's discuss a few details I glossed over. Pikmin will spend a few seconds traveling towards their dismissal point in a straight line before becoming still and then idle. They will not always reach this point for the following reason. The point that Pikmin can dismiss towards can be anywhere, including in water, behind walls, and even above or under ground! When this happens, you'll notice that Pikmin jiggle in place for some time when dismissed, as they can't travel vertically. Most importantly, if the player is not careful, Pikmin may get dismissed towards a point inside a clog or behind a breakable wall. When this happens, these Pikmin will waste valuable seconds trying to walk towards this unreachable point before becoming idle and attacking the clog or wall.

There's one other interesting thing that happens when you dismiss Pikmin. For a few seconds, the player is unable to bump into any Pikmin. This is a sensible feature by the Pikmin developers, as when you dismiss, Pikmin will often bump into you as they travel to their dismissal points. Nobody wants the Pikmin they just dismissed to start following them again. This feature allows me to move wild Pikmin around by bumping into them. I've used this technique many times, my favorite example is obtaining 20/19 Pikmin on day 1 here: youtube.com/watch?v=V4CGO4YpLr4

Plucking Your First Red Pikmin Freezes Time

Grassdigger 2019-01-21 | Normally, Red Pikmin become unlocked on day 1. However, we can do day 1 extinction to avoid plucking a Red Pikmin until later. Here is HSS0136's discovery of day 1 extinction: youtube.com/watch?v=IieBje4CqMo

After this, I can experiment with plucking my first red on different frames in the day by using frame-advance. At first, I show that throughout the duration of plucking the first red, time is frozen. This is indicated by the "It is almost sundown. Hurry up!!" text being frozen on the screen. From other experiments, I also know that cutscene timers are frozen during this time. Note that after the Red Unlock Cutscene (the cutscene where the Red Pikmin and Louie run around), time resumes.

I also experiment with plucking the first red on the last possible frame before the "Call all of the Pikmin to you!" cutscene. What happens is interesting: the red is plucked during this cutscene, then the Red Unlock Cutscene plays immediately afterwards.

Lastly, I experiment with plucking the first red on the last possible frame in the day. What happens is that after the Red Unlock Cutscene, no gameplay occurs: the game goes straight to sunset, which I thought was interesting. The red enters the Onion as usual.

Note that throughout this video, boss music can be briefly heard after the Red Unlock Cutscene plays. No one knows why though.

At the end of the video, I have some fun with a Water Dumple. If you're curious on why the Water Dumple doesn't move, it's for the same reason that the Dwarf Bulborbs don't move in this video: youtube.com/watch?v=2YICHBJyHo8
The music I used at the very end is Rhythm Boxing from Wii Fit: youtube.com/watch?v=dXVr7kA25eg

Pikmin 2 TAS: Subterranean Complex 5 in 0 Minutes

Grassdigger 2019-01-12 | This video is tool-assisted, meaning that I used savestates and frame-advance to show that this floor can be completed in 0 minutes.

Pikmin 2 records how many minutes you have spent in a file. However, it only counts how many whole minutes you have spent. If I select a file, play for 2:59 and save + reset, the game only counts this as 2 minutes of playtime. Because of this, it is possible to pay off the debt in just 1 minute: youtube.com/watch?v=CbvG03nNJ2s
Before today, we could collect all treasures in 20 in-game minutes. HSS0136 has beaten the game in 23 minutes here: youtube.com/watch?v=KCxmtdn_PhQ
HSS0136 saved 2 more minutes since then. Here are the minute saves:
White Flower Garden 3: youtube.com/watch?v=fpVKMgk7RwM
Valley of Repose: youtube.com/watch?v=6-tMPXP69JY
I also saved a minute. Submerged Castle 2 used to take 2 minutes, but now it only takes 1 minute:
youtube.com/watch?v=nMSybTmlERo
And because of the minute save shown in this video, we can now complete Pikmin 2 in 19 minutes!

To complete this floor in 0 minutes, I have to make 2 trips: one trip to collect Mystical Disc in under 1 minute, and another trip to collect Adamantine Girdle in under 1 minute. Under normal circumstances, it takes too long for one of these treasures to be carried all the way to the Research Pod, since the paths on this floor are so long. However, I had the idea long ago that if we could somehow get the treasure to fall into the void below the Research Pod, then maybe it could respawn beside the Research Pod. This would greatly reduce how far the treasure would have to be carried.

For a while, I figured that we'd have to rely on some carrying glitch in order for the treasure to go out of bounds. But recently, I realized something that I should have realized sooner. I have seen dozens of instances of treasures getting a significant bounce when something like a rock or nectar egg drops from the sky on one. So then I figured that we could have a bomb or a volatile dweevil drop from the sky on top of the treasure, and then it could bounce out of bounds!

However, there were a couple caveats with this plan. First of all, I need RNG on my side, since the floor layout must have a treasure right to the side of the Research Pod, and a bomb or volatile dweevil must drop somewhere along the treasure's path. I had to experiment with different floor layouts before I found ones that would work. Secondly, the walls on the side of the floor often get in the way of a treasure going out of bounds. Getting around this was pretty complicated...

You see, treasures behave differently depending on if they're on camera or off camera. For example, treasures that are glitched into the ground will often fall through the ground once they go off-camera. Another example is this: the Unspeakable Wonder will often get stuck on the snowman's head, but it gets unstuck when placed off-camera. I don't understand exactly what the difference is, however, it seems that treasures lose some collision when off-camera. In this case, the treasure does not collide with the walls of Subterranean Complex 5, and this allows it to bounce through the walls and into the void!

This allowed me to collect Mystical Disc in under a minute. However, it turns out that it wasn't necessary for Adamantine Girdle to be off-camera, as it was able to get a large enough bounce to go over the wall. Getting both of these treasures to bounce correctly was much harder than it looked, I had to experiment with a lot of different timings on when to whistle and when to switch leaders (which puts the treasure off-camera). Note that having the treasures fall into the void was not enough, if it fell too far away from the starting area, it would respawn on the lower path. It's even possible for the treasures to respawn behind the Research Pod, where treasures normally could not go.

The only other thing worth mentioning is this napsack carry glitch: youtube.com/watch?v=kdRuIKwfdNA&t=1h15m34s
I'm not sure who found it, but it was probably HSS0136. Thanks to this glitch, I was able to get around on this floor much quicker.

I doubt that anyone will be able to pull this off in real-time. The reason I was able to go so fast was because I knew exactly where the treasures, bombs, and hole were. Without knowing these things, the player would have to find these things and make a plan immediately, and then execute the plan perfectly. I doubt this is possible.

ANNOUNCEMENT: I now have a Discord server! Feel free to join: discord.gg/XSNuwC

What Would a 5-Day Completion Look Like in Pikmin 2?

Grassdigger 2019-01-05 | There are a lot of misconceptions about the theoretical 5-day completion. Some don't know that it would become possible if we just find a way into Emergence Cave on day 1, and some think that we could have unlimited Pikmin on day 2 if we did find a way. In this video, my goal is to clear these misconceptions and more by showing to the finest detail what day 1 would look like.

There are probably 2 ways we could get to Emergence Cave on day 1. Either we find a way to get on top of the ledge by the landing site, or we find a way to get through the 35-weight paper bag. It's worth noting that if we find ourselves past this paper bag without Pikmin, we can obtain Pikmin with this trick: youtube.com/watch?v=OmR-JbgrjMM

Once we get to Emergence Cave, we can obtain purples. Then, we can crush the 35-weight paper bag and go to Emergence Cave again. If we collect Spherical Atlas and transform all our reds into purples, then Rest Skip takes place, which I cover in this video: youtube.com/watch?v=ChcaITxJxJs
Because of Rest Skip, the day doesn't end when we collect Spherical Atlas. Then, we can collect our first aboveground treasure, which ends the day automatically. For the next 4 days of the 5-day completion, we would complete each of the 4 maps in one day. In particular, on our return visit to Valley of Repose, the day would not end abruptly at any time.

Now, there's something important to note. No other pellet posies appear on day 1 besides the 5 by the Red Onion. Because of this, it appears as though we can only have 21 Pikmin by the end of day 1. However, we actually can do better than this, but it is pretty complicated and utilizes a couple of obscure glitches.

First, it's important that we do Cutscene Timer Storage on the Safe Louie timer. If you're unfamiliar with Cutscene Timer Storage, here's a playlist of videos to help you understand it: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSM88llr5kvtc9txkZCaAkLAyPMlCC2vu
Because of this, we can play day 1 normally without killing the dwarf bulborb, since we gained the ability to switch to Louie early. Then, we can obtain 16 Pikmin as usual, and we go to Emergence Cave twice. If we transform all our reds into purples, the Red Onion will start making sprouts. Because of this, we can get 19 purples by obtaining reds this way. Then, we harvest the dwarf bulborb and enter Emergence Cave one last time to end up with 24 purples and 1 red.

However, we can still do better! After having 25 Pikmin, we can actually kill and harvest a cannon beetle! I've demonstrated how to do this on the Wii version before: youtube.com/watch?v=D7f_D2brJjs
However, we can also do this on Gamecube, thanks to a swarming trick I've shown here: youtube.com/watch?v=ReFzanO0KXw
Killing the cannon beetle without Pikmin deaths is difficult, since I don't have much control on the battle. However, I can help out by putting the cannon beetle off-camera, which makes it inactive as long as a Pikmin isn't too close to it. When inactive, the cannon beetle won't shoot a rock at my Pikmin.

Once the cannon beetle dies, it can drop two 5-pellets. As I showed in the video, it's possible that we can harvest both 5-pellets and the cannon beetle corpse. If we're really lucky, the 5-pellets can both be red. Thus, we can end up with a grand total of 43 Pikmin by the end of day 1. We've more than doubled our Pikmin with the help of these glitches! Still, Awakening Wood was hard enough to complete in one day when we started the day with 95 Pikmin, so it's still unclear if we can complete the map if we start with 43 instead.

Pikmin 2 Glitch: Bitter Sprays from Spicy Drops

Grassdigger 2018-12-28 | This glitch was first documented by Claris Robyn here: youtube.com/watch?v=47aYAtpIN7Q&t=5m23s
HSS0136 also does the glitch in this video: youtube.com/watch?v=Jh2HZSlOmQE

For a long time, we didn't understand this glitch. We all thought that the glitch happened because a petrified enemy was killed just before a spicy drop was consumed, and that the glitch didn't have to do with the drops that come out of the petrified enemy.

Then, Minty Meeo did this glitch without having bitter sprays, meaning that it could not have happened because of a petrified enemy being killed. Here is the video Minty Meeo provided for proof: youtube.com/watch?v=9oCeBMo_v5Y
Then, Flying Pandoral Dog suggested to me that the glitch happened to Minty Meeo because a nectar egg broke at the same time he drank a spicy drop. While this may not have been the case for Minty Meeo, this caused me to find out that as long as a nectar drop appears at the same time a spicy drop is consumed, you obtain a bitter spray!

The window for this glitch is pretty lenient: 7 frames, about a quarter of a second. It will work as long as a nectar drop appears, but it won't work if a spicy drop or mittites appear instead. The nectar can appear from nectar eggs, Honeywisps, Beetles, or grass (grass digged).

Things get even more interesting. If a bitter drop appears at the same time a spicy drop is consumed, the glitch occurs. In fact, if the reverse experiment is performed (drinking a bitter drop at the same time a spicy drop appears), you get a spicy spray instead of a bitter spray! But if nectar or a bitter drop appears instead, you still get the bitter spray.

There's only one theory I have that ties all these things together. I believe that the game keeps track of what drop a leader is drinking, but when a nectar/spicy/bitter drop appears after the drop has disappeared, the game thinks that this new drop is the one being consumed. To make this theory work, it follows that if it were possible for a leader to drink a nectar drop, he would get a bitter spray. Perhaps bitter sprays are the "default" spray that leaders obtain.

The nice thing about this glitch is that now it's possible to obtain bitter sprays without collecting bitter berries. This is certainly handy for some challenge runs, such as 6-day runs (where getting bitter sprays on day 3 is too time consuming) and possibly low-igt runs (where we could collect 10 spicy berries instead of 10 bitter berries, which may save a minute, since spicy berries are easier to obtain). This may even be practical for speedruns, if the player is low on bitter sprays.

One more thing: while it's now possible to get both sprays by just collecting spicy berries, it's been possible for a while to get both sprays by just collecting bitter berries. It turns out that if you collect bitter berries before spicy berries, both spray drops will drop naturally, which HSS0136 shows here: youtube.com/watch?v=1i3taHkR2LQ

Pikmin 2: The Secret of the Flying Pikmin Glitch

Grassdigger 2018-12-06 | If you are unfamiliar with the Flying Pikmin Glitch, let me explain how you can easily do it to Yellow Pikmin in normal gameplay. First, do Early Blues: youtube.com/watch?v=C-hbTQGdHnk
Then, go to Perplexing Pool and enter Submerged Castle. This will put 5 yellows into the Yellow Onion, even though yellows have not been discovered yet. Next, withdraw these yellows from the Yellow Onion, and enter Citadel of Spiders. Then, have a Swooping Snitchbug throw a yellow into the ground, and pluck it. This will make Yellow Pikmin "unlocked", but their Onion remains undiscovered. Thus, the Yellow Onion will now be glitched when you're aboveground. Lastly, in order to see Yellow Pikmin fly, withdraw yellows from their Onion as it's booting up, like Marty does in this video: youtube.com/watch?v=iywR3PTuXIA

Note that this glitch can also be done to Blue Pikmin, but it is much harder. Currently, this glitch cannot be done to Red Pikmin in normal gameplay. If you're curious how I managed to do this glitch with Red Pikmin, it involved Moon Jump and a cheat code that unlocked all areas, as shown here: youtube.com/watch?v=FbMeJYibp14

However, if you are familiar with the Flying Pikmin Glitch, then you may be surprised to know that the higher Pikmin fly, the larger they become! I was able to verify this by following the flying Pikmin with Moon Jump. Let me explain why I think this happens. When Pikmin first exit the Onion, they appear tiny. Then, as long as the Pikmin are in the "exiting Onion" state, it appears that the developers made them increase in size proportional to how far away they are from where they first exited the Onion. However, the Flying Pikmin Glitch is caused by Pikmin staying in the "exit Onion" state while moving upwards. Since they never touch the ground, the Pikmin stay in this state and keep growing.

Here's one interesting thing to mention that I didn't realize until now: I believe that these Pikmin's sizes are being scaled by large *negative* numbers. This would explain why all of the Pikmin are upside down, since they are normally upright when exiting the Onion.

As time progresses in the day, these flying Pikmin become inconceivably large. By noonish, Olimar is much smaller than even one of the Pikmin's toes. It truly is a sight to behold.

At the end of the video, I also use Moon Jump to show that there's actually a hole in the ceiling of Emergence Cave sublevel 2 at all times.

Pikmin 2: What if Red Pikmin could be Skipped?

Grassdigger 2018-11-29 | By never whistling the wild reds on day 1, we can effectively skip Red Pikmin. Currently, there is no way to end day 1 without whistling the wild reds. However, if I hack the day to be day 2, I can Go to Sunset. If I land back in Valley of Repose after this, things look almost the same, except the dwarf bulborb is gone, causing the wild reds to be idle. Unfortunately, there's not much to do in Valley of Repose. Even if we go oob, we need Pikmin following us to enter a cave.

Thus, I use a Gecko Code that makes all areas unlocked so that I could test more things. Note: 1 side effect of this Gecko Code is that some objects don't load into the map, such as bulborbs in Awakening Wood. Regardless, I can now obtain yellows (and blues later) in order to do more experiments.

First, let's discuss some minor effects. Even after obtaining yellows and blues, no Onions appear in the pause screen. The Red Onion does not follow me after sunset or in the area select screen. If no Pikmin are unlocked, the Pikmin screen in Today's Report stays blank until I press A. Plucking other Pikmin types before plucking a red has no effect. Landing for the first time in Awakening Wood with the Yellow Onion is like landing for the first time in Perplexing Pool with the Blue Onion.

Next, let's discuss Pellet Posies (namely, the ones that can switch colors). Their color always starts off as red for a couple of seconds. Then, their color cycles between the Pikmin types that I've unlocked. This behavior is the same in the Piklopedia. Queen Candypop Buds also have this same behavior. In fact, Queen Candypop Buds can be used while red! But not so fast...

I actually can't use candypop buds until I crush a paper bag. This is because leaders and Pikmin are immune from enemy attacks until then. (However, the candypop buds have interesting behavior when not usable. You see, when they give Pikmin immense knockback, the candypop bud actually "thinks" it has captured the Pikmin. After they try to capture 5 Pikmin, they no longer give Pikmin knockback. Then, interacting with the candypop bud in any way makes it close immediately, but it has no Pikmin to spout, so it just opens again right afterwards.) Espyo documented this effect first: youtube.com/watch?v=n7R0wSesM_U&t=5m8s
But once I crush a paper bag, I can get back to testing other things.

Now, I can throw Pikmin into a Queen or Crimson Candypop Bud. Note that Crimson Candypop Buds, like Violet ones, always appear, even though I've never encountered the respective Pikmin type, while other candypop buds have the opposite behavior. However, plucking my first Red Pikmin while underground in any scenario will cause a crash!

According to the crash log (thanks to Uncle Punch for providing the Gecko Code to let us see this on emulator), the game crashes because there is no Red Onion. You see, after you pluck your first Red Pikmin, a cutscene plays of the Red Pikmin chasing Louie. The location of this cutscene must take place right next to the Red Onion, but if the Red Onion doesn't exist, there is nowhere for the cutscene to take place. Hence, a crash occurs.

However, if I pluck reds with the Pluckaphone and immediately pause and escape the cave, I can obtain these reds without triggering the cutscene I just referred to. HSS0136 first documented this here: youtube.com/watch?v=E2khRpMt3Zo

The first natural thing to test is what happens if these reds pick up a pellet/corpse. Well... a crash happens! This crash also happens if purples/whites randomly decide to carry towards the Red Onion. As you might suspect, the crash happens since the Red Onion does not exist outside Valley of Repose yet.

What happens if these reds try to enter the Onion while I enter a cave or during sunset? Well, somehow they succeed! (Interestingly, the reds just follow the leader all the way to the ship during the sunset cutscene.) Putting reds in their Onion for the first time causes a cutscene to play, and when this cutscene plays outside of Valley of Repose, we get a glitch called Coordinate Displacement, which scrap651 first found: youtube.com/watch?v=kQWOk0BhrMM

Now, we can extract these reds from the Red Onion in Valley of Repose. We can also carry things to the Red Onion, and we can successfully pluck a red, since the Red Onion is here. Doing this makes the pause screen and Pellet Posies act normal. However, if we still skip whistling the wild reds, more interesting stuff happens!

A glitch happens that you may have seen happen to the Yellow Onion before: youtube.com/watch?v=nEwEtPxpWOQ&t=27m34s
Basically, when you pluck a red/yellow/blue but never whistle the respective wild Pikmin, the Onion is never "discovered". Thus, it doesn't act properly. It won't fly with you, but it does appear in every landing site, and Pikmin can exit/enter it. It also has a boot-up animation when Pikmin are inside, and it doesn't make a sprout when an extinction occurs.

Getting Purples in Wistful Wild WITHOUT Unlocking Them

Grassdigger 2018-10-16 | Before this video, there were exactly 2 ways to obtain Pikmin without unlocking them. Both are documented in this video by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=E2khRpMt3Zo

1. Whistle buried Pikmin with the Pluckaphone, and immediately pause and escape the cave.
2. Start plucking a Pikmin, let a cutscene play, and after the screen fades back in, immediately pause and escape the cave.

Here's the reason why it's complicated to pause and escape a cave after a new Pikmin is plucked but before the Pikmin type is discovered: Normally, as soon as a leader starts plucking a new Pikmin, the game keeps the player from pausing until the cutscene of the new Pikmin type plays. However, we get around this by using the Pluckaphone to pluck, or by interrupting the pluck with a cutscene.

Unfortunately, neither technique allows us to obtain purples in Wistful Wild. We currently cannot obtain the Pluckaphone without unlocking purples. On the other hand, there aren't many cutscenes we can play in Cavern of Chaos sublevel 5. Now, there are some cutscenes we can play once, such as flowering a Pikmin, using a spicy spray, etc. However, not all cutscenes allow us to pause once they finish for some reason.

Enter my new technique for plucking Pikmin without unlocking them!
1. Put 2 Pikmin sprouts in the ground.
2. Press A next to one of the sprouts while a secondary leader follows you.
3. Immediately cancel plucking the first sprout by pressing B. The secondary captain will continue to pluck the second sprout.
4. Delve deeper or escape with a geyser while the secondary captain plucks the second sprout. Profit!

Here are some applications of this new technique:
-It's now faster and easier to make a save file that's impossible to beat (as done here: youtube.com/watch?v=3_fxk9yRY30).
-We can obtain purples in Wistful Wild, as shown in this video.
-We can obtain a Pikmin type in a cave without discovering it and delve deeper with it instead of exiting the cave immediately.
-In theory, we are 1 step closer to collecting Doomsday Apparatus without unlocking purples, though there are still many obstacles in our way. Namely, having 100 purples at one time doesn't seem feasible with this technique, especially since only 1 purple is obtained per visit.

Note: I used some hacks to make my life easier when recording this video. Namely, I used Moon Jump to get to Emergence Cave quickly, and I used a code that unlocks all areas to get to Wistful Wild quickly. I plan on doing at least 1 video with Moon Jump in the future, stay tuned!

100,000 Views! (+Channel Update)

Grassdigger 2018-09-09 | This video is mostly a channel update, but I realized I had 100,000 views on this channel, so I wanted to thank you all for choosing to watch my videos! Also, I know I don't really ever ask for likes, comments or subscriptions, but I appreciate all of them.

So here's what's going on with my channel. While I'm in school, I won't post very many videos. If I do post videos, they will probably take place around breaks, such as Christmas. However, unlike previous years, I now have Pikmin 2 on my computer, so I can play it whenever I like. Obviously, I don't have very much time to do this. But when I do have time, I'd like to test stuff. Now, documenting the things that I test will take too much time, so here's what I've decided to do:

If you're really curious about what would happen if "blah," please leave a comment! When I have spare time, I'll try to test it out, and then I'll leave a reply on what happens. If the results are interesting, I'll try to make a video on it when I have ample time. I left an example of what such a comment could look like. Note that I'm more likely to test things that won't take too much time to set up.

Note that I can test a variety of things on my emulator. I can hack various addresses to be certain values (like the day counter), and I can have cheat codes active, like moon jump. However, I probably won't test things that could never be feasible in regular gameplay.

Here is a list of topics that I'd like to do a video on when I get the chance:
-Plucking a Red Pikmin Underground can Crash Pikmin 2
-What if the Poko Total Overflows?
-Collect Doomsday Apparatus without Unlocking Purples? (I found a new trick that could make this possible, but I'm not sure yet.)

I'll add to this list when I come up with more things that I want to make a video about!

Pikmin 2: 0 Day Completion? (Day Overflow)

Grassdigger 2018-08-30 | I recommend watching this video first: youtube.com/watch?v=yZmwfjCdLW8
In that video, I discuss what would happen if the day counter overflows. Now, I'll show what happens if the debt is paid on certain days around the overflow. These results should translate easily to what happens if every treasure is collected on certain days.

Note: in order to pay off the debt in this video, I hack the debt counter (which is at address 0x00942a7c) to be at least 10000.

As shown in the video, 0 is the best record we can get in the Results Screen for Days Spent. 1 goes below 0, and so does the number before 0. Thus, it's safe to assume every number goes below 0. Interestingly, the number before 0 is displayed with dashes.

Now, let's discuss Semantics. If someone spent 5000 years going to sunset so that they could beat the game on day 0 (perhaps it's possible with Relativity shenanigans...), would you call this a 0-day completion? I personally wouldn't: I would call it a 4,294,967,296-day completion. Just because the game displays 0 doesn't mean you actually spent 0 days to complete the game.

There's a similar situation in Super Mario 64: there's a challenge that involves getting as many stars as possible without collecting coins. The game keeps track of the high coin scores at each course, so at the end of the challenge, these high scores better be 0 in each course. However, this high score is only 8 bits, so if the player were to get 256 coins (by cloning), the high score for that course would still be 0 afterwards. Regardless, this run would no longer be considered "coinless," even though the high score for each course would still be 0.

With all this said, a 5-day completion is still up in the air. Is it possible, or is it not possible? I hope we'll find out one day!

Note: in the video about overflowing the day counter, I said that 0 was the highest day in the game. This is because during the day, the displayed day is actually one bigger than the internal day. However, after the day ends (right before the Results for the Day), the internal day counter increments by one. Thus, there's no need for the game to add 1 to this number when displaying what day today's email was received, for example. This is why 0 is the best possible record that can be seen in the Results Screen for Days Spent. tl;dr, day 0 is like an ace card in poker: it's the biggest day in some contexts, and the smallest day in other contexts.

Pikmin 2: Resuming Your Expedition in 0 Minutes (in Theory)

Grassdigger 2018-08-27 | Pikmin 2 records how many minutes you have spent in a file. However, it only counts how many whole minutes you have spent. If I select a file, play for 1:59 and save + reset, the game only counts this as 1 minute. Because of this, it is possible to pay off the debt in just 1 minute: youtube.com/watch?v=CbvG03nNJ2s
It is possible to beat the game in just 20 minutes. HSS0136 beat the game in 23 minutes here: youtube.com/watch?v=KCxmtdn_PhQ
HSS0136 saved 2 more minutes since then. Here are the minute saves:
White Flower Garden 3: youtube.com/watch?v=fpVKMgk7RwM
Valley of Repose: youtube.com/watch?v=6-tMPXP69JY
I also recently saved a minute. Submerged Castle 2 used to take 2 minutes, but now it only takes 1 minute:
youtube.com/watch?v=nMSybTmlERo

One of the current places we have to spend a minute is when we decide to "Resume Your Expedition" after paying off the debt. This is because there are a lot of cutscenes, and there isn't a place we can force the game to save quick enough after the cutscenes. However, in this video, I show a theoretical way we can save in under a minute after selecting a file that just paid off the debt.

I recommend watching this video: youtube.com/watch?v=yZmwfjCdLW8
In that video, I explored what would happen if we spent 5000 years going to sunset so that we could overflow the day counter and land places on day 1. One of the things I showed was the existence of a cave in the landing site of Perplexing Pool that we call caveinfo. It can spawn there on day 1 or 2. Since it's so close to the landing site, I figured it could help us have a quick way to save the game after returning to the planet. By the way, here's a video of mine where I explored caveinfo more: youtube.com/watch?v=wiePAx-OJ20

caveinfo spawns in Perplexing Pool on day 1 or 2. Thus, if I want to enter this cave after paying off the debt, I need to pay off the debt on day 0 or day 1. Paying off the debt on day 1 would be tricky, since the current route gets Pink Menace as the last treasure before reaching 10k pokos (paying off the debt always takes 4 minutes, and Pink Menace takes 1 minute on its own, but together, they take 4 minutes). Thus, we'd have to get the whites necessary for collecting Pink Menace quickly on day 1, since we can't get the whites from the ship. I didn't want to bother showing that this was possible without adding any minutes, so I decided to pay off the debt on day 0, which is certainly possible without adding any minutes.

Now, I show that resuming your expedition on day 1 can be done in 0 minutes! It's not too exciting, I just pluck a red Pikmin with the Pluckaphone and immediately enter caveinfo. The red sprout can be placed in the ground by simply getting a red extinction prior to paying off the debt. Also, I show that we can get to day 2 without losing any minutes. Since I can't end the day by going to sunset, I thought it was necessary to show this. To make the day end, I simply let both leaders lose their health while inside caveinfo. Notice that at the end of the video, I show that I've spent 59 minutes playing this file before and after day 1.

Note that this strategy does not save a minute on its own. This is because currently, Spiny Alien Treat is combined with resuming your expedition, as together, they both take 1 minute. However, Spiny Alien Treat takes 1 minute on its own. Thus, no minutes have been saved from a full run yet. We have to find a way to collect Spiny Alien Treat without losing any more minutes.

I don't think Spiny Alien Treat can be collected on its own in under a minute. However, there's hope that it can be collected with Temporal Mechanism in under 2 minutes. Currently, Temporal Mechanism is barely collected in under 2 minutes, but if charging is implemented, there may be enough time to also collect Spiny Alien Treat without adding a minute.

If this does save a minute, then obviously, this doesn't change the number of minutes that a human needs to beat Pikmin 2, since paying off the debt on day 0 takes 5000 years of going to sunset (it takes even more time when doing a low in-game timer run, since you have to reset every time you save after going to sunset). Still, it's fun to think about how low the in-game timer can go in theory!

Going to Sunset for 5000 Years May Softlock Your File!

Grassdigger 2018-08-26 | I advise watching this video first: youtube.com/watch?v=yZmwfjCdLW8
In that video, I show the consequences of playing on day 1 for a second time. A lot of day 1 mechanics return. Most importantly for this video, there is infinite daylight, I can't go to sunset, and I can't access Onions.

Since I can't access Onions, if all of my Pikmin are inside Onions or the ship, then I will be stuck with 0 Pikmin for the entire day, so ending the day by paying off the debt, collecting all treasures, or collecting the first aboveground treasure in Valley of Repose is off the table. Also, getting an extinction would be impossible. Thus, the only way we can get the day to end is by having both captains be down, since sunsets don't occur on day 1.

There are a few ways that we can make it impossible for both captains to die. One way would be killing all of the enemies in all maps so that they don't spawn on day 1, but I'm not sure if this would work. While I previously showed that objects in day 1 are copied from the last time you've visited that map, we don't really understand how object spawning behavior works, so it's hard to be certain if this idea would work in practice.

However, there's an easier way to make sure that there's no way for both captains to die.
First, I do day 1 extinction (which was found by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=IieBje4CqMo)
Now, on day 2, I pluck the red sprout so that it enters the Onion. Now, I (theoretically) end the day for 5000 years so that I land in Valley of Repose on day 1 again. Since I have not crushed the paper bag yet, both leaders are invulnerable, and there's no way to crush a paper bag with 0 Pikmin. Therefore, even if we could have an enemy attack a leader, he wouldn't take damage. Since there's no way for the day to end, this file is stuck on day 1 forever.

I also show a couple more interesting things that can happen if you land in Valley of Repose on day 1 again before you crush any paper bags. Namely, the leaders cannot whistle one another, and Olimar cannot whistle any Pikmin (though Pikmin can follow him for a short time if Olimar plucks them). These results are very similar to some results found by Espyo when he used hacks to see what would happen if we could enter Emergence Cave on day 1: youtube.com/watch?v=n7R0wSesM_U&t=3m45s
Also, when the first red Pikmin is plucked on day 1, the special day 1 Valley of Repose music begins to play.

Pikmin 2: Exploring caveinfo

Grassdigger 2018-08-26 | I advise watching this video first: youtube.com/watch?v=yZmwfjCdLW8
In that video, I showed the basics of what would happen if we could overflow the day counter and play on day 1 again. I left that video on a cliffhanger when I showed that there was an extra cave that spawned in Perplexing Pool when I visited there on day 1. Now, let's check it out!

Some early things to notice: the cave shows that it's completed with 0/0 treasures, but there are some treasures in the cave. The cave's name is displayed as "Emergence Cave", but there are challenge mode textures behind it when each sublevel loads.

Now I'll briefly discuss each sublevel...
1: Looks a lot like Dream Den sublevel 2, but includes an Ivory Candypop Bud and a geyser. There is also a Petrified Heart located where the Implement of Toil ended up being placed.
2: Very similar to the previous floor, but the Groink tower's base is a bit different. Note that the Gatling Groink doesn't drop anything.
3: Looks like Glutton's Kitchen 5. Not only is there a Petrified Heart, but a Tear Stone too. The bulborbs are all snow-type.
4: This floor is pretty unique, but there's not much to it. There are snow bulborbs, a Petrified Heart, and a Tear Stone.
5: This last floor looks like Submerged Castle 2, but with a lot of differences. There's a Spotty Bulbear, Crimson Candypop Buds, a Volatile Dweevil, no walls, and no Waterwraith.

Note that it's technically possible to delve deeper on floor 5. However, the game crashes when trying to load sublevel 6. In spite of this, we do know what the remaining levels would look like, and they can be seen in this page: tcrf.net/Pikmin_2/Unused_Caves/caveinfo_Dungeon
According to the information here, there is also a Regal Diamond in floors 3, 4, and 5. It must have been inside an enemy in each case, which would explain why I missed it in all 3 floors.

Lastly, I see what happens if I collect a treasure (in the video, I collect a Tear Stone). From my experiments off-camera, I know that if a treasure is collected from a previous floor, then it won't appear in any subsequent floors. Also, if I collect 1 or more treasures, the "Cave Complete!" text will appear when I leave the cave, but the text won't appear if 0 treasures are collected, even though there are 0 treasures displayed inside this cave. At the end of the video, I show that the Tear Stone no longer appears in Bulblax Kingdom after I collect it in caveinfo, even though the game shows that 0 treasures have been collected in Bulblax Kingdom.

Pikmin 2: Collecting Conifer Spire without Yellows?

Grassdigger 2018-08-19 | Now that we can collect Decorative Goo without tearing down the electric gate, it's natural to wonder what other electric gates can be skipped. Furthermore, if we could skip destroying the electric gate in Wistful Wild, we could actually beat Pikmin 2 without unlocking yellows! Currently, there is 1 electric gate in Perplexing Pool that must be destroyed. However, if I repeatedly enter Submerged Castle without unlocking yellows, then 5 wild yellows enter their Onion per visit. Then, I can withdraw these yellows from the Onion and use them to destroy the electric gate, even though yellows are not unlocked. Here is a video of this: youtube.com/watch?v=V9rEXxVjLVw
However, the yellow Onion won't follow us until we unlock yellows, which means these yellows can only be used in Perplexing Pool. So the electric gate in Wistful Wild is really the 1 place where unlocking yellows is necessary at the moment.

First, I used the Fiery Blowhog to go oob. Then, I brought a squadron of Pikmin to Conifer Spire, and I tried to see if charging it could allow me to have it clip through the electric gate. Charging is a recent glitch discovered by muratsubo: twitter.com/muratsubo/status/977499568085508096

Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful. However, I haven't lost hope yet. Perhaps Conifer Spire simply needs more speed to clip through the electric gate. Or, maybe there's a way to have Conifer Spire go around the electric gate to the left or right. Regardless, I would definitely not rule out a yellowless playthrough being possible in the future.

Note that Noamoa16 also tried doing this shortly after charging was found: youtube.com/watch?v=_1viNr5Wp0o
I suppose that I just wanted to try this out myself... it never hurts to be thorough.

Skipping the First Paper Bag: Completion

Grassdigger 2018-08-18 | This is a continuation of my other 2 videos about Skipping the First Paper Bag...
-How to Skip the first paper bag: youtube.com/watch?v=xNHH5X8D_Fw
-Collecting everything but Courage Reactor: youtube.com/watch?v=QUK2uisu6oQ

Now, I show that we can indeed collect Courage Reactor, meaning that Pikmin 2 can be completed without crushing the first paper bag! There are not many games that can be beaten without solving the first puzzle, but Pikmin 2 is one of them.

First, I get to Courage Reactor by utilizing a new napsack carry spot that I found: youtube.com/watch?v=jeWWRJSOtv8
Then, I spend a good chunk of time charging Courage Reactor with 4 groups of 19 whites. Charging was discovered by muratsubo: twitter.com/muratsubo/status/977499568085508096

Now, I need to give Courage Reactor a few jolts to put it where I want it. I showed how to put Courage Reactor to the left of the paper bag in my last video. In fact, I used the exact same clips as I did in the last video, since I used savestates. Once it's here, I need to jolt the Courage Reactor to a corner between 2 invisible walls.

In my previous video, Courage Reactor clipped out of bounds shortly after it got in this spot. However, it doesn't always clip through the ground, sometimes it's simply carried to the other side of the paper bag. I'm not sure why the Pikmin decide to carry it here, but it only seems to happen when they are in that corner.

Now, I whistle a purple off of Courage Reactor, and use a momentum throw to put it back on. Note that the momentum throw has to hit the ground in such a way that the purple flies further than it normally would. Now, when the Courage Reactor is carried again, the same glitch happens again, but in the other direction. Once the Courage Reactor is on the other side again, it partly clips through the ground, goes on a brief detour, and reaches the ship shortly after!

This method is extremely difficult, much harder than Goo Clip in my opinion. I could not have done it without savestates, and I don't advise anyone to try this method on console. It's just way too luck dependent.

But that's it! After I collect Courage Reactor, I head to Frontier Cavern to collect Rush Boots, and now everything in Valley of Repose has been collected! Ironically, if I come back, I'm stuck in the landing site. This is because the napsack carry spot doesn't work with the Rush Boots, since I can't walk up the slope anymore for some reason.

Looking back, it's incredible how many glitches had to come together in order to make this possible. C-stick mechanics and the fact that the Reunion Cutscene places Olimar and Louie in the same coordinates were used to get past the first paper bag the 1st time. Then, the new napsack carry glitch had to be used to get around the paper bag in the future. The mysterious carry glitch was used to collect a few treasures. And lastly, charging, purple momentum throws, and more strange carry behavior allowed Courage Reactor to be collected. I love it when a challenge requires so many different glitches! Where else would you see these glitches come together to accomplish the same goal?

The music used at the start of the video is Digital Memories by Unicorn Heads, provided by YouTube.

Skipping the First Paper Bag: A Christmas Miracle

Grassdigger 2018-08-14 | This is a continuation of this video: youtube.com/watch?v=xNHH5X8D_Fw
In that video, I showed how we can collect 197/201 treasures if we never crush the first paper bag. Be sure to watch the video if you don't know how I did this. Previously, I couldn't collect Courage Reactor, Utter Scrap, Temporal Mechanism, and Fossilized Ursidae. Let's see if we can collect some of these treasures!

HSS0136 was kind enough to comment on the previous video, informing me about a way to carry Temporal Mechanism and Fossilized Ursidae around the first paper bag! The method was found by ZEOKU on May 2014. Here's a video: youtu.be/SqRxUOPMjW8

The method is very inconsistent... I had to use savestates multiple times when collecting these treasures. I also don't have a good idea on why it works. However, I'm 99% sure that that the glitch depends on the treasure's position in relation to the nearest waypoint when the treasure is picked up. When the treasure is picked up nearby a waypoint, the Pikmin jerk the treasure to the side in order to pass through the waypoint. If the treasure is close enough, but not too close, the treasure continues to move sideways. This is my very basic understanding of this glitch. Note that the position by the waypoint changes depending on the treasure. The position for the Fossilized Ursidae is different than the position for Temporal Mechanism before the carry glitch happens. More information about carrying (such as what waypoints are and where they are located in Valley of Repose) can be found here: pikminwiki.com/Carrying#Paths

After I came up with this very basic understanding, I had the tools I needed to find a way to collect Utter Scrap using a similar method. I found a spot where the treasure would jerk sideways, so I experimented with picking up Utter Scrap in the vicinity of that spot. Eventually, Utter Scrap got carried straight to the landing site, right by the paper bag! It's interesting that this instance of the glitch acted very differently than the previous 2 instances, but I'll take it.

Now, Courage Reactor is all that remains. We can collect every other treasure in Valley of Repose. (In the area select screen, I had also skipped Rush Boots, which is because the napsack carry glitch in the landing site doesn't work with the Rush Boots. If Courage Reactor can be collected, then we can simply collect Rush Boots last.)

I looked for ways to collect Courage Reactor for a while. First, I tried using the same carry glitch that allowed the previous 3 treasures to be collected. There are a few waypoints in the path of Courage Reactor, and I was able to get Courage Reactor to be jerked sideways by 3 of them. However, I couldn't pull off the carry glitch. I have hope that it can work; however, there's a lot I don't know about the glitch. It's possible that the glitch doesn't work with smaller treasures, like Courage Reactor.

I also tried a method that's similar to Goo Clip. First, I spend a good chunk of time charging Courage Reactor with 4 groups of 19 whites. Charging was discovered by muratsubo: twitter.com/muratsubo/status/977499568085508096
First, I showed that Courage Reactor cannot fly over the paper bag, it always stops at the waypoint in front of the paper bag. Next, I tried having Courage Reactor clip through the invisible walls surrounding the paper bag, similar to Goo Clip: youtube.com/watch?v=RMbCLqP1p8Q
I could put Courage Reactor beside basically any section of the invisible wall surrounding the paper bag. However, I couldn't get it to clip through anywhere. I could put Courage Reactor in interesting locations, such as on the paper bag or the nearby block.

The most interesting thing that happened with this charging experiment occurs near the end of the video. For some reason, Courage Reactor started moving rapidly to the right, up in the air, and when it fell, it clipped through the ground, where the Pikmin continued to rapidly move it around before it hit the abyss. Then, it respawned along with a few Pikmin who were carrying it. I couldn't get this to happen again, but if the Pikmin could cooperate and carry the Courage Reactor towards the landing site while oob, it's possible that this could allow Courage Reactor to be collected. In the meantime, I'm not sure if collecting Courage Reactor is possible, but I believe that it will be found!

Here is the list of music used in this video (provided for free by YouTube):
Carol of the Bells, by Quincas Moreira
If I Had a Chicken, by Kevin MacLeod
Game Plan, by Bad Snacks

Pikmin 2: Two More Softlocks on Day 1

Grassdigger 2018-08-11 | Note: a softlock is when you are unable to progress through the game except by resetting. I can't even pause and end the day, since it's day 1.

A while ago, I showed a day 1 softlock that can happen on Wii: youtube.com/watch?v=zmSOSSavOno
However, this isn't a softlock on the GC version, since day 1 extinction can be done to end the day. If you haven't heard of day 1 extinction, have you been living under a rock? Just kidding. HSS0136 discovered it, here it is: youtube.com/watch?v=IieBje4CqMo

While day 1 extinction can prevent a softlock from happening, it also causes the 2 softlocks shown in this video. (Cut off one head, two more will take its place!) In the first softlock, simply let 2 or more Pikmin fall into the abyss anytime between Louie approaching the red Onion and crushing the paper bag. Now, crushing the paper bag is impossible. Thus, there's no way to collect a treasure. Also, there's no way for Louie's Pikmin to die, so I also can't get an extinction. The only other way to end the day is by letting both leaders die, which is also impossible. Therefore, I am truly softlocked, and I'm forced to reset.

The second softlock is a little more involved. This one takes place after the paper bag is crushed, once 20 Pikmin are in the field. First, make sure one of your reds are flowered. Next, put this red beyond the 35-weight paper bag, which I demonstrated here: youtube.com/watch?v=OmR-JbgrjMM
Note that I'm not softlocked yet. In the above video, I showed that I could hold a leaf Pikmin and switch to flowers by using the D-Pad in order to pick up the flower red that's beyond the paper bag. But if I lose all of my leaf reds, then this flower red would become stuck past the paper bag. Day 1 extinction allows me to lose the rest of my reds. Now, I'm softlocked, with no way to end the day. I can't get an extinction, since there's no way to retrieve the red past the paper bag. I also can't collect a treasure, or let both leaders die. Again, I'm forced to reset. Note that I used a different method to do day 1 extinction, which wasn't necessary, but I thought I'd show it. I first showed it in this video: youtube.com/watch?v=lqtkYdUWcKo

Note: since day 1 extinction is integral to both of these softlocks, these softlocks cannot be performed on the Wii version.

Here is one more unrelated day 1 softlock that can be done on GC or Wii, found by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=KLQCTs8F30I

Pikmin 2: Other Peoples Crash Logs

Grassdigger 2018-08-09 | UnclePunch recently found a way to open crash logs in Pikmin 2! So I've been revisiting some old crashes in order to see exactly what they say. To open crash logs, press A, B, X, R, L, DPad Left, DPad Down, DPad Up, DPad Right, and Z in that order, with each button press about a half second apart.

In previous videos, I showed crash logs for crashes I found:
Disabling a wrong cutscene timer: youtube.com/watch?v=cPqyk5PyL-E
My other crashes: youtube.com/watch?v=jlXVbN2pz8U

Now, in this video, I show crash logs for crashes found by other people.
-Extinction Crash (by Really_Tall): youtube.com/watch?v=11mPwK5ayGs
-Softlocked Leader Crash (by HSS0136): youtube.com/watch?v=X_3K6nFSRDM
-Treasure Delivery Crash (by Noamoa16): youtube.com/watch?v=R8Gst5gWvYM

The first crash log gave me absolutely no information at the top, unfortunately. Interestingly, this is the only crash I know of that says "EXCEPTION OCCURRED!" instead of "USER HALT!", but I'm not sure why.

The second crash log has gibberish at the top. At least we know that the crash happens in "screenMgr.cpp," so the game probably didn't like something about the screen. This may have to do with the absence of the HUD while I controlled a softlocked Olimar.

The last crash said "fail to open Kantei!" I believe that Kantei is Japanese for Appraisal, but I'm not sure. However, this would make sense, as the crash happened during the "appraisal" of the Spherical Atlas, where its name and price are stated. In the video, I implied that this crash only happens Exploration Kit items, but this is actually incorrect! This crash can happen with other treasures too, and the crash log still says "fail to open Kantei!"

At the end of the video, I show some breadbug shenanigans. I was trying to record a crash in Glutton's Kitchen, but I couldn't get one to happen. However, I did manage to capture some strange behavior with breadbugs pulling treasures very quickly.

If you have any other crashes that you know of that I haven't shown a crash log of yet, please let me know!

Pikmin 2 TAS: Confection Hoop in 1:03

Grassdigger 2018-08-08 | This video is tool-assisted, meaning that I used savestates and frame-advance. I used Dolphin as my emulator and OBS to record. Props to Ethan Hurst for helping me set these things up!

Pikmin 2 records how many minutes you have spent in a file. However, it only counts how many whole minutes you have spent. If I select a file, play for 1:59 and save + reset, the game only counts this as 1 minute. Because of this, it is possible to pay off the debt in just 1 minute: youtube.com/watch?v=CbvG03nNJ2s
It is possible to beat the game in just 20 minutes. HSS0136 beat the game in 23 minutes here: youtube.com/watch?v=KCxmtdn_PhQ
HSS0136 saved 2 more minutes since then. Here are the minute saves:
White Flower Garden 3: youtube.com/watch?v=fpVKMgk7RwM
Valley of Repose: youtube.com/watch?v=6-tMPXP69JY
I also recently saved a minute. Submerged Castle 2 used to take 2 minutes, but now it only takes 1 minute:
youtube.com/watch?v=nMSybTmlERo

In this video, I wanted to see if Submerged Castle 2 could take 0 minutes. This requires collecting Confection Hoop at its location in this video in less than 1 minute. However, it doesn't look like this is feasible with standard techniques. There is some potential for a time save when getting 30 blues to pick up the Confection Hoop, as this takes 6 seconds, but I don't see how 3 seconds could be saved here.

I'm kinda glad that this didn't work out, as I think that collecting both Chocolate Cushion and Confection Hoop in under 2 minutes by utilizing charging is much cooler. When you think about it, it's surprising that collecting a close and a far treasure in under 2 minutes is possible, whereas collecting just the close treasure in under 1 minute is not (currently). That just shows how much time charging and multi-tasking saves! This being said, I would be happy if some obscure glitch/technique would allow for Confection Hoop to be collected in under 1 minute. Then, Pikmin 2 could be beaten in 19 in-game minutes.

Skipping the First Paper Bag: A Pikmin 2 Challenge

Grassdigger 2018-08-06 | This challenge is the culmination of a lot of glitches, including a few recent ones!

First of all, day 1 extinction is required, which HSS0136 demonstrates here: youtube.com/watch?v=IieBje4CqMo
This way, we aren't forced to crush the paper bag on day 1. Now, I need to grow around 64 reds, which is why the video starts at day 9.

Next, I need to find a way to crush the 35-weight paper bag from the landing site. Why would this help me skip the 15-weight paper bag? Well, do you recall the reunion cutscene that plays when this paper bag is crushed? Quote Balrog discovered that this cutscene can play if ANY paper bag is crushed for the first time. Furthermore, he shows that this cutscene will place both leaders into the same coordinates as usual (which is out of bounds in Awakening Woods). Here is the video where he shows all of this: youtube.com/watch?v=23_qJcGWEjk
This cutscene isn't the only one that places captains into specific coordinates. Some cutscenes can be played in areas where they are not intended to play in, which causes a glitch we call Coordinate Displacement: youtube.com/watch?v=kQWOk0BhrMM

But how can I crush the 35-weight paper bag from so far away? One hyphenated word: C-Stick. I previously showed that we can get a Pikmin past the 35-weight paper bag on day 1: youtube.com/watch?v=OmR-JbgrjMM
And now, I can use a similar technique to get Pikmin on the 35-weight paper bag! I simply swarm a small group of 5 Pikmin around the invisible walls that surround the 15-weight paper bag. Then, once they're on the big gray block, I can C-Stick them onto the 35-weight paper bag. However, I can't dismiss them here, or else they will always walk off the paper bag. (This is because when you dismiss, all Pikmin of a certain type try to reach a common point, which is the average of their positions. Since I have more Pikmin following me in the landing site, this point will be off of the paper bag.) So instead, I move away from the 5 Pikmin while using the C-Stick to make sure they stay on the paper bag, and they'll stop following me once I'm far enough away. Note that it's important that 34 Pikmin are following me, as Pikmin can swarm far away from the leader if 34 Pikmin are in my army. This mechanic is also important for Lugia Skip. Kap discusses this at the start of his tutorial: youtube.com/watch?v=jBa6usXNsJQ

Up to now, I've been using emulator tools. This is because placing 5 reds onto the paper bag is pretty tricky, and if I messed up, I would lose a lot of valuable time. So this has been sort of like a TAS, but less optimal. I didn't use frame-advance for anything, except for the first time I withdrew reds from the Onion, which I did just for fun.

Once the paper bag is crushed and the cutscene plays, I am placed inside of the 15-weight paper bag! There's not much I can do while inside. Even if I crush the paper bag with a leader inside, I can't clip through any walls. Fortunately, I can go through the paper bag from here!

Note that if I carry objects to the paper bag, they can't be carried past it, even though this wouldn't happen in normal gameplay. I previously showed this when I picked up Courage Reactor before crushing any paper bags: youtube.com/watch?v=WXU0nreITyc

Regardless, I can go to Emergence Cave, unlock purples, and collect the Spherical Atlas. I tried using purples to put 24 weight on the paper bag to see if it would still get crushed, and alas, it seems like any weight greater than 15 will also crush the paper bag. Anyways, I can now discover every Pikmin type, go to the 3 other maps, and complete them, all without crushing the first paper bag!

But how could I ever complete Valley of Repose? I can't play the reunion cutscene again, so there's seemingly no way to get past the paper bag now. HOWEVER, I recently found a new napsack carry spot, which I actually discovered while searching for a way out of the landing site! Here it is if you haven't seen it yet: youtube.com/watch?v=jeWWRJSOtv8
I can also bring blues with me, which means that I can officially go anywhere in Valley of Repose!

However, at the moment, completing Valley of Repose isn't looking too good. While I can complete every cave and collect Pink Menace, Spiny Alien Treat and Unspeakable Wonder, the other 4 treasures pose a big problem. This is because they must be carried in a path that goes through the paper bag, even though they could theoretically go around it on a path by Emergence Cave! Also, even when the bridge is built and only blue Pikmin are carriers, Fossilized Ursidae and Temporal Mechanism are carried towards the paper bag. So as of right now, we can *almost* skip the first paper bag and complete the game. We just need to find a way to collect these 4 treasures. I feel like charging could help us out with this, which muratsubo discovered a few months ago: twitter.com/muratsubo/status/977499568085508096

Pikmin 2: More Experiments with Crash Logs

Disabling a Wrong Cutscene Timer Crashes Pikmin 2

Grassdigger 2018-08-04 | UnclePunch recently found a way to open crash logs in Pikmin 2! So I've been revisiting some old crashes in order to see exactly what they say. To open crash logs, press A, B, X, R, L, DPad Left, DPad Down, DPad Up, DPad Right, and Z in that order, with each button press about a half second apart.

In this particular video, I analyze crashes that occur when I try to play a Terminal cutscene while a cutscene timer is active that doesn't correspond with the Terminal. I will use terminology from past videos about cutscene timers, so if you haven't seen any videos about cutscene timers, I highly advise watching the videos in this playlist first: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSM88llr5kvtc9txkZCaAkLAyPMlCC2vu
I've ordered the videos in this playlist so that you'll have the easiest learning experience. If you haven't seen the videos in this playlist, my captions in the video will be confusing, as well as the rest of this description.

First, I try to play the Hey Pikmin Terminal (by having Pikmin follow closely to me) while the Louie Instructions Timer is active. This causes the game to crash. Then, when I open the crash log, the very top says the following:

CurrTimer (5) : disableTimer(4)

This is fantastic! Many of my hypotheses have now been confirmed, such as the existence of cutscene timers, the existence of unique cutscene timers, only one timer can be active at a time (since only one timer can be "CurrTimer"), timers can be disabled (which seems to happen when a Terminal plays), and that crashes happen when the game tries to disable a timer that doesn't match the current timer. In addition, we now know the in-game names for these cutscene timers! The Louie Instructions Timer is referred to with the number 5 in the game, and the Hey Pikmin Timer corresponds with the number 4 (what are the odds that I would call Timer 4 the Hey Pikmin Timer, since Hey Pikmin is sometimes called Pikmin 4...).

Now we can find the internal names for the cutscene timers that we all know and love!
I repeated the crash that Espyo documented a while ago: youtube.com/watch?v=FLpHJXZakTU
This told me that the Safe Louie Timer is referred to with a 3 and the Sprout Timer is referred with a 1, as the crash log said:
CurrTimer (3) : disableTimer(1)

So to recap, here are the cutscene timer names as they stand right now:
Timer 1: Sprout
Timer 2: - - - - - -
Timer 3: Safe Louie
Timer 4: Hey Pikmin
Timer 5: Louie Instructions
Now, the only cutscene timer we haven't seen in the crash log yet is the You Appear Lost Timer. I find out what its number is by letting it be the current timer while Timer 4 is disabled. Take your guesses on what the number is! If you guessed 2, you are...

wrong... wait, what? As the next crash log shows, the You Appear Lost Timer (the CurrTimer) is referred to with a... 7? How could this be? What happened to Timer 2 and Timer 6? Something strange is going on here. Either there are no timers that match with 2 or 6... or there are more cutscene timers to be found! If you have any information or ideas on why the You Appear Lost Timer would be called Timer 7 by the developers, please let me know in the comments.

From now on, I tried to crash the game while each cutscene timer (that we know of) was the current timer. So next, I stored the Sprout Timer, and went to a file where I could crush the paper bag before the timer ended, which would make the game try to disable the You Appear Lost Timer. Sure enough, the crash log showed that the CurrTimer was 1, and it tried to disable Timer 7.

Lastly, I wanted the Hey Pikmin Timer (Timer 4) to be the current timer during a crash. This was pretty tricky, as disabling Timer 4 wouldn't cause a crash, and there isn't enough time once Timer 4 became active to disable Timer 1 by plucking my first red. Thus, I needed to disable Timer 7 by crushing a paper bag. Fortunately, this was possible to do. I basically copied the steps to storing the Hey Pikmin Timer (youtube.com/watch?v=sWq_uQiJbYQ) up to crushing the paper bag. Then, I needed the You Appear Lost cutscene to play so that Timer 7 wouldn't be the current timer anymore. Finally, I could crush the paper bag, and just before it finished crushing, I could whistle the 1 wild red that I hadn't whistled yet, and if I timed this correctly, I would get the crash. As expected, the crash log said:
CurrTimer (4) : disableTimer(7)
(Fun fact, this is the opposite order as the crash log from the 3rd crash.)

Pikmin 2 Glitch: New Napsack Carry to Emergence Cave

Grassdigger 2018-08-02 | The Napsack Carry Glitch is one of the oldest game-breaking glitches in Pikmin 2's history. It allows captains to be carried up walls and go places that they shouldn't be yet, such as OoB or past a wall.
TRex Quisite discovered this 5 and a half years ago by Glutton's Kitchen: youtube.com/watch?v=RKNTujFpuIs

Then, HSS0136 went through the whole game and found many, many other useful locations where we could do this glitch, here they all are:
To Snagret Hole (in water): youtube.com/watch?v=kCUK3WCSoac&t=3m50s
To Glutton's Kitchen (in water): youtube.com/watch?v=kCUK3WCSoac&t=6m9s
To Wild Yellows: youtube.com/watch?v=kCUK3WCSoac&t=7m4s
To the Citadel of Spiders trunk: youtube.com/watch?v=znN8DPn3YNk
To Dream Den: youtube.com/watch?v=znN8DPn3YNk&t=37s
To Subterranean Complex (1): youtube.com/watch?v=znN8DPn3YNk&t=2m2s
To Chance Totem: youtube.com/watch?v=46t1OUwmxXc&t=18s
To Yellow Onion: youtube.com/watch?v=bXiVifnDYrc&t=30s
To Subterranean Complex (2): youtube.com/watch?v=nGUj4qAwAL8&t=2m25s
To Frontier Cavern: youtube.com/watch?v=nGUj4qAwAL8&t=2m45s
To Snagret Hole (dry, blue): youtube.com/watch?v=bBM29VTQzjo&t=1h15m24s
To Snagret Hole (dry, yellow): youtube.com/watch?v=Mnk8fc7Oni4&t=25s
To above Snagret Hole: youtube.com/watch?v=Mnk8fc7Oni4&t=48s
To Bulblax Kingdom: youtube.com/watch?v=xVitUEHs7yo

EDIT: ShadowLugia found another Napsack Carry Glitch to Air Brake:
youtube.com/watch?v=uLoD-mCDJgE

These were all found over 5 years ago, and no more were found aboveground since then.
There are also 3 napsack carry spots in caves. One is on the final floor of Bulblax Kingdom: youtube.com/watch?v=zkHq-4mlc5Y&t=10m33s
Another spot is in Subterranean Complex 5: youtube.com/watch?v=kdRuIKwfdNA&t=1h15m34s
One last spot is in Glutton's Kitchen 6: youtube.com/watch?v=zpMTHQ3qHpU&t=2m43s
I'm not sure if HSS0136 found these, or when they were found. Regardless, me and other Pikmin 2 players thought that all possible napsack carry spots were found by now. However, we were wrong!

Now, we can use the napsack to go directly from the landing site to the area with Emergence Cave. Doing this is incredibly difficult, I think this is the hardest napsack carry glitch of all the ones listed (which may explain why it took us so long to find it).

Note that this glitch only seems to work with Olimar, and with either a red or blue carrying him. First, I lie down by the ledge towards the right without sliding backwards (I should get a slight kick to the side instead). Then, when I get carried up, I wake up, but I'm not done yet. I'm on a slope that I can't seem to get up entirely. Instead, I need to slowly move rightward, and use the napsack again in a particular spot. (If I were to keep moving rightward, I would fall off.) Now, I can get carried from here up the ledge, and once I wake up, I'm done!

The hardest part of this trick seems to be walking up the slope. I advise playing with different camera angles, and always walking forward. If you fall off to the left, adjust the camera angle to the right, and vice versa.

This trick doesn't have too many uses at the moment. I'll show one use for this trick in an upcoming video. However, if we ever found a way to have the napsack on day 1, then we could definitely get to Emergence Cave on day 1. This would probably make a 5-day completion possible.

EDIT: This glitch does NOT work if you have the Rush Boots.

Pikmin 2 TAS: Submerged Castle 2 in 1:55

Grassdigger 2018-07-31 | This video is tool-assisted, meaning that I used savestates and frame-advance. I used Dolphin as my emulator and OBS to record. Props to Ethan Hurst for helping me set these things up!

Pikmin 2 records how many minutes you have spent in a file. However, it only counts how many whole minutes you have spent. If I select a file, play for 1:59 and save + reset, the game only counts this as 1 minute. Because of this, it is possible to pay off the debt in just 1 minute: youtube.com/watch?v=CbvG03nNJ2s
Before today, we could collect all treasures in 21 in-game minutes. HSS0136 has beaten the game in 23 minutes here: youtube.com/watch?v=KCxmtdn_PhQ
HSS0136 saved 2 more minutes since then. Here are the minute saves:
White Flower Garden 3: youtube.com/watch?v=fpVKMgk7RwM
Valley of Repose: youtube.com/watch?v=6-tMPXP69JY
Submerged Castle 2 used to take 2 minutes, but this video shows that it can be done in just 1 minute. Notice that the "Time Played" statistic on the save file was 2:09 before, and 2:10 after. Therefore, Pikmin 2 can now be beaten in 20 in-game minutes!
(Think of this as the A-Button Challenge: how low can the in-game timer go?)

I previously did this sublevel in 2:05 here: youtube.com/watch?v=WjSpfRZpadY
I still think that RTA can get sub-2, but it's very, very difficult. If you haven't seen the above video yet, I advise reading the route that I used in that video in quotations here:

"First, I need the Research Pod on the low ground, because if it's on the high ground, then 1 treasure will have to be carried much farther. Also, I want the Chocolate Cushion to be far away, since it is lighter and easier to charge. If I don't get this good RNG, I need to reset.

Now, I want 55-60 Pikmin for Chocolate Cushion, and 40-45 Pikmin for Confection Hoop. I use a spicy spray ASAP on the 60ish Pikmin, but I want to use another spicy on half of these Pikmin to extend their spicy timers. I need to keep track of which Pikmin are on different timers. While the 60ish Pikmin tear down the wall, I take the other 40ish Pikmin, spicy them, and put them on the other wall.

Now, I try to get 20 of the 60ish Pikmin on the Chocolate Cushion ASAP. I want these Pikmin to be on the shorter spicy timer. When their spicy timers wear out, I whistle them, and C-stick the Pikmin in my army in such a way that the spicy Pikmin will grab Chocolate Cushion before the non-spicy. Then, I quickly spicy the remaining Pikmin, and replace the non-spicy carriers with spicy carriers. This is a net effect of 2 charges. If done perfectly, the Chocolate Cushion is carried at the speed of white flowers.

From here, I get Pikmin on Confection Hoop and start tearing down the barrier to the next sublevel. Charging Confection Hoop can save a little bit of time if done well, but I didn't do it well in the video. Lastly, I want to delve deeper at the exact same time that the last treasure reaches the Research Pod, which saves 0.5ish seconds. I didn't do this in the video."

Most of the route is the same as in that video, but there are a few differences. First of all, I did RNG manipulation by waiting in the title screen to get a good floor layout. Secondly, I started the floor with Louie, which meant that both leaders would be separated to begin with. Thus, I could just switch to Olimar after I put 58 Pikmin on the first wall instead of walking all the way to the Research Pod. Thirdly, I whistled 23 out of 58 Pikmin before the wall was completely destroyed. These Pikmin were on the shorter spicy spray timer, and it was easy to put them on the Chocolate Cushion first. Fourthly, TAS made charging the Chocolate Cushion very fast and optimal. This is where most of the timesave came from. Also, I didn't bother charging the Confection Hoop, as it was still collected before the Chocolate Cushion. Lastly, I was able to delve deeper at the exact same time that the Chocolate Cushion was collected.

Props to muratsubo for discovering charging (twitter.com/muratsubo/status/977540083719880705), I couldn't have done this without charging.

Note that Comfort Cookie is also a treasure on sublevel 2 inside the Bulbmin. However, it's pretty trivial to collect it and delve deeper in 0 minutes.

Now Submerged Castle 2 takes a minute, but there's still a chance that it could take 0 minutes. We would need to collect Confection Hoop at its location in this video and delve deeper within a minute. Then, we would come back to this floor and collect Chocolate Cushion in this same location in the same manner in 0 minutes.

By the way, I had to lose some video quality in order for the footage to not lose frames. Hopefully, I can optimize some settings in order to have good quality and no lag!

Pikmin 2: Courage Reactor Blocked by Paper Bag

Grassdigger 2018-07-28 | Day 1 Extinction is required to do this experiment. HSS0136 discovered this glitch here: youtube.com/watch?v=IieBje4CqMo
Once I do Day 1 Extinction, I can grow 50ish reds without crushing any paper bags by day 6. Now, I'm ready to show that we can carry Courage Reactor before any paper bag has been crushed.

Once again, this trick takes advantage of C-Stick mechanics. First, have 34 Pikmin in your army. This allows Pikmin to be swarmed very far from the active leader when the C-Stick is in use. This mechanic is also important for Lugia Skip. Kap discusses this at the start of his tutorial: youtube.com/watch?v=jBa6usXNsJQ

Next, throw a few flower reds towards the spot in the video, and quickly whistle them. If done quickly enough, then these reds will stay on the slippery slope. Finally, just hold the C-Stick forwards. The flower reds will fight the slope. If you move more to the right, the Pikmin will have an easier time climbing the slope. After enough time, the Pikmin will cross the one-way invisible wall that is supposed to keep Louie from throwing Pikmin to Olimar before the paper bag is crushed on day 1. Now, it's a simple matter to swarm these red Pikmin over to Courage Reactor.

If you want to see more ways the C-Stick breaks Pikmin 2, I recommend watching these recent videos of mine:
-Draining the Water in Valley of Repose Early (Wii): youtube.com/watch?v=ReFzanO0KXw
-Draining the Water in Valley of Repose Early (GC): youtube.com/watch?v=ReFzanO0KXw
-Getting a Pikmin past the 35-weight paper bag on day 1: youtube.com/watch?v=OmR-JbgrjMM
Soon, I'll upload a video on crushing the 35-weight paper bag before the 15-weight paper bag, which has unintended consequences!

At the end of the video, I show that Pikmin that aren't in a safe zone will die from sunset if the Courage Reactor is collected. This is important to know when routing speedruns of this game, since a lot of time would be lost if the player lost a bunch of Pikmin after collecting the first aboveground treasure in Valley of Repose.

Pikmin 2: Beyond the Paper Bag on Day 1

Grassdigger 2018-07-26 | In this video, I show that we can get a Pikmin past the 35-weight paper bag on day 1. There are invisible walls all around the paper bag, making this pretty difficult. This requires 20 reds, one of which must be a flower.

Basically, I can get a flower red to climb the slope to the right of the paper bag by C-sticking. Once it has climbed as far as it can go, I can move it slowly to the left until it slides past the invisible walls. Now, I can officially C-stick it past the paper bag.

This trick isn't too useful at the moment. However, this could potentially help us reach Emergence Cave on day 1. If we could find a way to get a leader past the paper bag, we can definitely reach Emergence Cave. Before I found this trick, a leader that got past the paper bag may have been stuck with no way past the wall in front of Emergence Cave. Now, we can use this trick to get a Pikmin to a leader past the paper bag in order to destroy the wall that's in the way. In a way, we're halfway to figuring out how to reach Emergence Cave on day 1!

I also show that the invisible walls are one-way, which means that a Pikmin can go through them from the other side.

At the end of the video, I show that we can get a few whites from the landing site to the Pink Menace by C-sticking them with 34 Pikmin in my army. While useless, this shows how powerful the C-stick is. Note that it's important that 34 Pikmin are following me, as Pikmin can get really far away from the leader if 34 Pikmin are in my army. This mechanic is also important for Lugia Skip. Kap discusses this at the start of his tutorial: youtube.com/watch?v=jBa6usXNsJQ

Pikmin 2: Update on Draining the Water Early

Grassdigger 2018-07-25 | Previously, I showed that we can drain the water in Valley of Repose before destroying the underwater wall for the Wii version of Pikmin 2: youtube.com/watch?v=sOQ0v0EijYc
Now, I show that we can drain the water early on the Gamecube version too.

The key to doing this is C-stick mechanics. Pikmin can fight against slippery slopes when I use the C-stick. For some reason, I didn't realize this until recently, so I thought that getting Pikmin to the upper area of Valley of Repose was Wii-only for a long time. Because of this realization, I'll be able to do something new on day 1, which you'll see in my next video.

Another important C-stick mechanic is that Pikmin can travel far away from the leader if I have 34 Pikmin in my army. This allows me to get blues all the way to the plug while the leader is on the other side of the underwater wall. This mechanic is also important for Lugia Skip. Kap discusses this at the start of his tutorial: youtube.com/watch?v=jBa6usXNsJQ

One other thing: I only want a few blues to be following me before I dismiss them by the drain. This is because of dismiss mechanics. When Pikmin of a specific type are dismissed, they all go for a particular point. This point is calculated as the average of the positions of the Pikmin (as long as this position isn't too close to the leader). Notice that if more blues were following me, then these blues would be further away from the drain. Consequently, the position that the blues dismiss towards will be further away from the drain, as the positions of these extra blues would affect the average position.

Just like on the Wii version, draining the water early isn't too useful, as it still requires blues. However, it could be useful on playthroughs with limited blues, as destroying the underwater wall and the plug with just a few blues would take much longer than just destroying the plug.

Pikmin 2 Wii: Draining the Water in VoR Early

Grassdigger 2018-07-21 | It is possible to drain the water in Valley of Repose before destroying the underwater wall blocking the path to the drain. It isn't too helpful, as blues are still required to destroy the drain. However, in certain playthroughs that are limited in blue Pikmin, it would be advantageous to destroy the drain before destroying the underwater wall, as the wall would take forever to destroy with just a few blues.

First, I throw blues to the area that you normally don't have access to until the underwater wall is destroyed. The blues can be thrown here because of the extra throwing range that the Wii version offers. I showed this technique once before in this meme speedrun, where I collect a Cannon Beetle corpse as quick as possible: youtube.com/watch?v=D7f_D2brJjs

Next, I C-stick the blues to be by the underwater wall. Lastly, I need to C-stick them towards the drain and dismiss them there. It's important that I have around 35 Pikmin in my army when I do this, as Pikmin can swarm further away from the leader when this number of Pikmin follow me. This is also important when doing Lugia Skip. Kap discusses this at the start of his tutorial: youtube.com/watch?v=jBa6usXNsJQ

One other thing: I only want a few blues to be following me before I dismiss them by the drain. This is because of dismiss mechanics. When Pikmin of a specific type are dismissed, they all go for a particular point. This point is calculated as the average of the positions of the Pikmin (as long as this position isn't too close to the leader). Notice that if more blues were following me, then these blues would be further away from the drain. Consequently, the position that the blues dismiss towards will be further away from the drain, as the positions of these extra blues would affect the average position.

At the end of the video, I show that we can collect Dream Material while the cutscene that focuses on it plays. I was hoping that this would cause another instance of Object Restoration Failure, but nothing strange happened. If you want to know more about Object Restoration Failure, check out this video and read the description: youtube.com/watch?v=1lIIQSkPB6E
Here is another video about collecting treasures during a cutscene: youtube.com/watch?v=Q-C5rgYp9t4

Pikmin 2: 6-Day Completion, No Deaths (Day 6)

Grassdigger 2018-07-19 | 6-Day Completion is finally possible! I collect every treasure in 6 days, spending 3 days in Valley of Repose and just 1 day everywhere else. I also don't let Pikmin die. Thanks to many people's contributions that made this possible!

Day 5: youtube.com/watch?v=iedtejpschQ
Day 7: youtube.com/watch?v=37MdQ2bEbOY

It is complete! Surprisingly, Wistful Wild isn't that hard. I didn't even use any out of bounds glitches in this video. The only real "glitch" in this video is where I use the Gatling Groink explosions to kill the poison vents inside the wall, but this is more of a "trick" in my opinion, and it's so old that I don't even know who found it.

There is an out of bounds trick that can be helpful in Wistful Wild: youtube.com/watch?v=eO1TpBpLFws&t=1m
(I don't know if Claris Robyn was the first to find this.) However, since I already had a ton of blues, it made more sense to just tear down the underwater wall and destroy the plug at the start of the day with 95 blues while I brought 5 Pikmin to Cavern of Chaos to complete it. This was much more convenient and maybe even faster.
Note: It is possible to beat Cavern of Chaos with just 2 purples and 1 white: youtube.com/watch?v=nCK3c7Ljc1I
I brought in 2 more purples than this, so it wasn't too bad.

Everything else that happens is very straightforward. One interesting thing to note is that 7:45 in the video, 6 flower purples had grabbed onto the Armored Nut and then got withered. However, these 6 leaf purples still carry it at the speed of flower purples. This is because a treasure's speed only updates when Pikmin grab onto it or let go. This is why charging is possible. You've probably seen me use charging with spicy sprays on day 3 of this playthrough, but it is also possible to charge a treasure by utilizing a Withering Blowhog: youtube.com/watch?v=wPY7j1y96FM

I showed the Titan Dweevil fight in this video for novelty's sake. However, I used some interesting techniques. Namely, I showed off that the Flare Cannon will always shoot in the direction of your active captain. Thus, I would often lure it to shoot in one direction while I attacked the Titan Dweevil from the other side. I even attacked the Flare Cannon with yellows while it was in use once. Also, something very strange happened during this fight. At 14:23 in the video, the Titan Dweevil chose to move around while a bunch of Pikmin were attacking the Comedy Bomb. Normally, it starts an attack after it has taken 6 hits. Clearly, it had taken more than 6 hits by this time. Perhaps it couldn't see me because I was behind it? I don't know, but it would be very nice to know, especially since it would be useful for various challenges such as the A-Button Challenge: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxWuTfQmHaJZncIRh-DxwqM7gqIwqkVDb

Note: If you want too see an incredibly difficult, extremely strategic Titan Dweevil fight, I highly recommend checking out this video of mine: youtube.com/watch?v=d-0tndGxvkc
I defeated the Titan Dweevil by just pressing A and using the control stick, and without any Pikmin deaths. This means that I can't whistle Pikmin away to safety during attacks, and I can't whistle to save them if they are suffering from a hazard. In addition, I could not use sprays, change the camera or use the C-stick, which would have also been helpful. These things combined make this fight one of the hardest things I have ever done in Pikmin 2, I would say that it's even comparable to this 6-day completion.

Now let's touch on the Results Screen. The first slide of the Results is what this whole playthrough strived for: 6 Days, and 0 Pikmin Lost. This is perfect, unless we can find a way to get to Emergence Cave on day 1. Then, by using Rest Skip (youtube.com/watch?v=ChcaITxJxJs), a 5-day completion would be theoretically possible. However, Awakening Wood might become too difficult if we can't start with 95 Pikmin.

Next, the Pikmin stats appear. It's actually possible to get 30 for "Pikmin Born," as shown here: youtube.com/watch?v=_KS3wK7-qPM
This happens when Submerged Castle is entered multiple times before yellows are unlocked, as 5 wild yellows are created each visit without counting as births.

My high score for red, yellow and blue Pikmin born is "- - - - - -". This happens when you start with 5 wild Pikmin, but end the game with less than 5 by utilizing Candypop Buds. Likewise, I can get the high score of 0 for white and purple Pikmin born. Fun fact, I meant to get exactly 99 purples born to show that this number can be less than 100, but I forgot about the purple that disappeared on day 4. Oops.

Lastly, there's the Time Spent stat, which is more than meets the eye. There is quite a lot of strategy involved in optimizing this. I recommend learning more from the description of this video, where I theorize how the stat could drop from 21 min to 20, youtube.com/watch?v=WjSpfRZpadY

Pikmin 2 Glitch: Creating an Invincible Pikmin (At What Cost?)

Grassdigger 2018-07-16 | It has been previously shown that Pikmin can walk into poison while a treasure is being collected: youtube.com/watch?v=dgJCf2-HB4k

However, strange things happen when the "Pikmin are Suffering" cutscene plays afterwards. If the Pikmin is already dead by the time this cutscene plays, then no Pikmin appear in the cutscene. But if the Pikmin was in the process of dying from poison when the cutscene plays, more interesting things happen (once the cutscene has ended).

Basically, the game treats the Pikmin as if it's still in the process of dying from poison; but now, it will never finish this process. This means that the Pikmin cannot be interacted with in any way. As a result, the Pikmin is immune from attacks, such as explosions. Unfortunately, the Pikmin is also frozen in place, and leaders cannot pick it up, whistle it, bump it, or dismiss it. Thus, this glitch is not useful at the moment.

Different things happen to the poisoned Pikmin depending on if I delve deeper or pause and escape the cave. If I simply pause and escape the cave, the Pikmin dies. In the video, my Pikmin count went from 15 to 14 after I paused and exited the cave. However, if I delve deeper, the poisoned Pikmin is shown jumping down the hole with the rest of my army, and it appears with me on the next floor as if nothing even happened. While the Pikmin lives, it actually incremented my number of deaths. This is referred to as a False Pikmin Death, which was discovered by Sonic8000: youtube.com/watch?v=7mu5dfuqa4k
As you can see, the False Pikmin Death in my video and in Sonic's video occur exactly the same way. In both videos, we delve deeper after poisoned Pikmin start dying, but before their ghosts appear. The only difference is that in my video, the Pikmin was stuck in this state. (If you're interested, I used False Pikmin Deaths to get 1000 deaths in Dream Den, something you're never supposed to do in regular gameplay, which bugged out the results screen at the end of the cave: youtube.com/watch?v=CGjlDQJPZBQ)

Now, this Invincible Pikmin Glitch is a part of a larger group of related glitches. We still don't know the full breadth of this class of glitches. I shall give this class of glitches the name: Object Restoration Failure. In general, an Object Restoration Failure glitch occurs when a cutscene focuses on an object, and the cutscene ends when the object is in an irregular state. Then, it seems like the game tries to restore the object back to the world, but it fails, often by perpetually keeping the object in its irregular state when the state was supposed to be temporary. Here are the 2 other Object Restoration Failure glitches:

1. Ghost Bag...
v1: youtube.com/watch?v=WKbO8-YvHfY
v2: youtube.com/watch?v=KLQCTs8F30I
The "You Appear Lost" cutscene focuses on the paper bag. If this cutscene finishes while the paper bag is being crushed, v2 of the glitch happens. The game seems to treat the bag as if it's still being crushed, but this state is now permanent. On the other hand, if the cutscene finishes after the paper bag is crushed, v1 of the glitch happens. More info on the "You Appear Lost" cutscene and its effects on the paper bag can be found here: youtube.com/watch?v=YSiGdVAktXo

2. Glitchy Spray Drop: youtube.com/watch?v=kHO56TppCRk
More of this glitch: youtube.com/watch?v=6FDqn0LihkI
A cutscene plays that focuses on a spicy/bitter spray drop that is shrinking because the secondary leader is drinking it. If the cutscene ends while the spray drop is shrinking, then the game fails to restore the spray drop to the world: the spray drop is forever stuck in its "being drank" state. Thus, a captain will start drinking it, but he can't stop drinking it without some intervention. Stay sober, kids.

There is one more glitch that acts like Object Restoration Failure, but I'm not sure if it's the same. Some cutscenes force captains to stand up, even if they're napsacked, softlocked, or dead: youtube.com/watch?v=wU6_DJCCJIk
However, this glitch seems to occur because the cutscene requires them to stand, not because of how they are restored to the world after the cutscene.

The reason I bring this all up is because I feel like there's more Object Restoration Failure glitches to be found. Take the set of all objects such that there exists a cutscene that focuses on the object. Each of these objects have glitch potential if we can put them in an obscure state while the cutscene focuses on it.

Fun fact: At the end of this video, I went to Dream Den level 8 on a file with every treasure collected, but as you can see, I had skipped many tutorial cutscenes in my playthrough. This is because this was actually the file from my completed A-Button Only Challenge, where I couldn't use sprays, and hazards were insta-deaths (youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSM88llr5kvveNRCMXH9pU5FQ3zhwhKnz).

Pikmin 2: 6-Day Completion, No Deaths (Day 5)

Grassdigger 2018-07-14 | 6-Day Completion is finally possible! I collect every treasure in 6 days, spending 3 days in Valley of Repose and just 1 day everywhere else. I also don't let Pikmin die. Thanks to many people's contributions that made this possible!

Day 4: youtube.com/watch?v=03C_BA0GQfQ
Day 6: Coming soon

Not many glitches are used here to complete the rest of Valley of Repose in a day. However, we can skip destroying the poison wall by using the Napsack, which was discovered by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=nGUj4qAwAL8

The hardest part about this was killing the Fiery Bulblax without sprays and without deaths. However, if I attack its back while it tries to get back to its home, the attacking Pikmin are pretty safe.

Once I complete Valley of Repose, I enter Subterranean Complex 2 more times so that I can make 15 more purples per visit from sublevel 8. I also make 18 more blues per visit from throwing 2 reds into 2 Queen Candypop Buds. Once I'm finished with Valley of Repose, I have 95 blues and 99 purples, all flowered. After I visit Cavern of Chaos in Wistful Wild, I'll be able to collect the Doomsday Apparatus.

Pikmin 2: 6-Day Completion, No Deaths (Day 4)

Grassdigger 2018-07-12 | 6-Day Completion is finally possible! I collect every treasure in 6 days, spending 3 days in Valley of Repose and just 1 day everywhere else. I also don't let Pikmin die. Thanks to many people's contributions that made this possible!

Day 3: youtube.com/watch?v=kmvkIu78OO0
Day 5: youtube.com/watch?v=iedtejpschQ

Day 4 without commentary: youtube.com/watch?v=RU874sqiPAo

Here is a list of the glitches that I utilize in this video:
-Landing site oob by Claris Robyn. youtube.com/watch?v=fyjt_1s53Hg
-Napsack carry glitch (by Glutton's Kitchen) by TRex Quisite. youtube.com/watch?v=RKNTujFpuIs
-Yellow Onion napsack by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=bXiVifnDYrc
-Carrying treasures through water by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=AmqzPQkyvFo

Perplexing Pool has been beaten in 1 day quite a few times in other 7-day completions. However, I decided to challenge myself in 2 ways.

First of all, I decided to do Perplexing Pool on day 4. This means that I don't have the Rush Boots, which would have aided me in various ways. Obviously they help me go faster. Also, there are 2 ways of reaching Shower Room early, but they are much harder without the Rush Boots:
-Claris Robyn's method. youtube.com/watch?v=fyjt_1s53Hg
-HSS0136's method. youtube.com/watch?v=B3ofhF82GB4
I also found a new way to reach Shower Room early without relying on the Rush Boots, but it seems unreliable and slow: youtube.com/watch?v=ahA0eYR95h0
Note that if I had done Valley of Repose on day 4 instead, I would have had to pay off the debt before reaching Perplexing Pool. This is possible by farming enemy corpses, but I didn't want to do this.

My second self-imposed challenge for this day was that I tried to avoid visiting a cave more than once. This made me avoid farming Pikmin from Queen Candypop Buds. Since I started day 4 with just 16 blues, this limited how many blues I'd have (unless if I took the time to grow blues aboveground). However, I had a small incident with a purple... so I ended up visiting Shower Room twice to make 5 more purples. But I did this at the end of the day, so doing this didn't aid me in completing Perplexing Pool in one day at all.

Let me explain the incident that I had with the purple Pikmin. If I enter a cave with a Pikmin in an enemy's mouth, it will actually disappear. This was first documented by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=cwNLhjO7Gdg
A Pikmin was in a Cloaking Burrow-nit's mouth when HSS0136 entered White Flower Garden, and it consequently disappeared: it didn't count as a death. In my video, a purple was in a shearwig's mouth as I entered Submerged Castle. Thus, it vanished, even though the shearwig was dying. This is why I had 24 purples instead of 25 after I was in Submerged Castle. However, as you can see at the end of my video, I still have 0 deaths. Note that a side effect of this glitch is that it looked like the purple entered Submerged Castle with me, but it wasn't with me inside the cave, which is a tad unfortunate. If you're interested in more ways that Pikmin can disappear, I recommend viewing my 2 videos here:
youtube.com/watch?v=2G0Wk5LdIPU
youtube.com/watch?v=cWnpOg534ZU

At the end of the video, I mentioned that repaying the debt in 3 days is possible. If you're curious, here are a couple of videos:
HSS0136's 3-day debt repayment. youtube.com/watch?v=6AtzGdasVkY
Noamoa16's 3-day debt repayment (on Wii). youtube.com/watch?v=LkSxYa_X-ZM
In both videos, the player had to collect all enemy corpses, including over 1000 mittites from nectar eggs, in order to obtain enough pokos.

Pikmin 2: 6-Day Completion, No Deaths (Day 4) *No Commentary

Grassdigger 2018-07-12 | 6-Day Completion is finally possible! I collect every treasure in 6 days, spending 3 days in Valley of Repose and just 1 day everywhere else. I also don't let Pikmin die. Thanks to many people's contributions that made this possible!

Day 3: youtube.com/watch?v=kmvkIu78OO0
Day 5: youtube.com/watch?v=iedtejpschQ

Day 4 with commentary: youtube.com/watch?v=03C_BA0GQfQ

Here is a list of the glitches that I utilize in this video:
-Landing site oob by Claris Robyn. youtube.com/watch?v=fyjt_1s53Hg
-Napsack carry glitch (by Glutton's Kitchen) by TRex Quisite. youtube.com/watch?v=RKNTujFpuIs
-Yellow Onion napsack by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=bXiVifnDYrc
-Carrying treasures through water by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=AmqzPQkyvFo

Perplexing Pool has been beaten in 1 day quite a few times in other 7-day completions. However, I decided to challenge myself in 2 ways.

First of all, I decided to do Perplexing Pool on day 4. This means that I don't have the Rush Boots, which would have aided me in various ways. Obviously they help me go faster. Also, there are 2 ways of reaching Shower Room early, but they are much harder without the Rush Boots:
-Claris Robyn's method. youtube.com/watch?v=fyjt_1s53Hg
-HSS0136's method. youtube.com/watch?v=B3ofhF82GB4
I also found a new way to reach Shower Room early without relying on the Rush Boots, but it seems unreliable and slow: youtube.com/watch?v=ahA0eYR95h0
Note that if I had done Valley of Repose on day 4 instead, I would have had to pay off the debt before reaching Perplexing Pool. This is possible by farming enemy corpses, but I didn't want to do this.

My second self-imposed challenge for this day was that I tried to avoid visiting a cave more than once. This made me avoid farming Pikmin from Queen Candypop Buds. Since I started day 4 with just 16 blues, this limited how many blues I'd have (unless if I took the time to grow blues aboveground). However, I had a small incident with a purple... so I ended up visiting Shower Room twice to make 5 more purples. But I did this at the end of the day, so doing this didn't aid me in completing Perplexing Pool in one day at all.

Let me explain the incident that I had with the purple Pikmin. If I enter a cave with a Pikmin in an enemy's mouth, it will actually disappear. This was first documented by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=cwNLhjO7Gdg
A Pikmin was in a Cloaking Burrow-nit's mouth when HSS0136 entered White Flower Garden, and it consequently disappeared: it didn't count as a death. In my video, a purple was in a shearwig's mouth as I entered Submerged Castle. Thus, it vanished, even though the shearwig was dying. This is why I had 24 purples instead of 25 after I was in Submerged Castle. However, as you can see at the end of my video, I still have 0 deaths. Note that a side effect of this glitch is that it looked like the purple entered Submerged Castle with me, but it wasn't with me inside the cave, which is a tad unfortunate. If you're interested in more ways that Pikmin can disappear, I recommend viewing my 2 videos here:
youtube.com/watch?v=2G0Wk5LdIPU
youtube.com/watch?v=cWnpOg534ZU

SMO: Crossing the Gusty Bridges Backwards

Grassdigger 2018-07-10 | Two big Odyssey Youtubers had previously tried to do this challenge, but they couldn't.
Nathaniel Bandy: youtube.com/watch?v=SW6G3F1HF3s&t=216s
Fearsome Fire: youtube.com/watch?v=Za48I6O2Evs&t=84s

The key to doing this level backwards is to climb up the moving platforms by wall-jumping between them. I time my wall-jumps right before the platforms move so that the other platform gets in position by the time I reach it. It's important that I stall before wall-jumping between the platforms. To do this, I do an extra wall-jump, Cappy throw and Cappy twirl before wall-jumping to the next platform. Depending on the time remaining, I'll also do an additional Cappy throw sometimes. Once I get on top of the platforms, the rest of the level is very straightforward.

Pikmin 2: How Real Men Get to Shower Room

Grassdigger 2018-07-07 | There are 2 documented ways of bypassing the electric gate to reach Shower Room early:
1. Found by Claris Robyn: youtube.com/watch?v=fyjt_1s53Hg
2. Found by HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=B3ofhF82GB4

Now, I show a third way to reach the Shower Room without breaking down the electric gate. This technique takes advantage of certain wollywog mechanics found by HSS0136...
Wollywog Superjump: youtube.com/watch?v=IHXSagmmcwo
Wollywog Super...bounce?: youtube.com/watch?v=kygNCNCdBWU

I originally wanted to use this trick on day 4 for my 6 day run: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSM88llr5kvv9yXdzT90DEv0-iOB2ErF1
I preferred this method over the previous 2 methods because the previous 2 methods are much, much harder without the Rush Boots. However, superbouncing to the Shower Room has a couple of problems. First of all, it is incredibly inconsistent. I can perform the superjump reliably, but it is rare for me to bounce when the wollywog lands, and it is also hard to bounce in the right direction. Secondly, performing the superjump is a bit slow and inconvenient, which made my original day 4 route suboptimal. Thus, I decided to scratch the old route and come up with a new one. Fortunately, the new day 4 route is much easier to do, yet I still managed to add some originality to it. I'll have it uploaded to Youtube in the matter of a few days.

Pikmin 2: 6-Day Completion, No Deaths (Day 2)

Grassdigger 2018-07-06 | 6-Day Completion is finally possible! I collect every treasure in 6 days, spending 3 days in Valley of Repose and just 1 day everywhere else. I also don't let Pikmin die. Thanks to many people's contributions that made this possible!

Day 1: youtube.com/watch?v=kiXY7ynw6ek
Day 3: youtube.com/watch?v=kmvkIu78OO0

There's not much to say about day 2. I want to end up with 66 reds and 29 purples, all flowered. Thus, once I've made all of the reds I need, I wait 4 minutes for them all to flower in the ground.

I also try to avoid playing some cutscenes. If I play the cutscenes on day 3 instead, I can let things happen in the world while the cutscenes play. Namely, there's a cutscene that plays 10 seconds after I have reds and purples following me for the first time (after purples are in the ship). Thus, I only let reds or purples follow me (after purples are in the ship), but not both. Also, I complete the day quick enough so that the cutscene that occurs just before the sunset countdown doesn't play.

Note: day 1 is extremely simple, most of it is just me waiting around for sprouts to flower. Thus, I will not include it in the 6-Day Completion playlist.

Pikmin 2: 6-Day Completion, No Deaths (Day 3) *No Commentary

Grassdigger 2018-07-03 | 6-Day Completion is finally possible! I collect every treasure in 6 days, spending 3 days in Valley of Repose and just 1 day everywhere else. I also don't let Pikmin die. Thanks to many people's contributions that made this possible!

Day 2: youtube.com/watch?v=xXq59DBpEME
Day 4: youtube.com/watch?v=03C_BA0GQfQ

Day 3 with commentary: youtube.com/watch?v=kmvkIu78OO0
Snagret Hole sublevels 6 and 7 with 2 purples: youtube.com/watch?v=2BfCylt5DD8

I have successfully completed Awakening Wood in 1 day! I am the fifth person that we know of to do this. Here are the others:
1. HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=govlosZaj-0
2. Baryte: No video
3. xHaii: youtube.com/watch?v=pTZYB1dTd4M
4. ShadowLugia: youtube.com/watch?v=W5ACKzAJ_tg
5. Me. However, I do think I'm the first to do this in 0 deaths!
I recommend watching these videos, we had different routes and unique play-styles.

Now, I list all of the discoveries that I utilize to complete Awakening Wood.
-EARLY BLUES by Claris Robyn. youtube.com/watch?v=jYQ2M3GqELM
-Napsack carry glitch by TRex Quisite. youtube.com/watch?v=RKNTujFpuIs
-Landing site napsack by HSS0136. youtube.com/watch?v=46t1OUwmxXc
-Bulblax Kingdom early by HSS0136. youtube.com/watch?v=xVitUEHs7yo
-Lugia Skip by ShadowLugia. youtube.com/watch?v=a4s4xanjJlc
-Charging by muratsubo. twitter.com/muratsubo/status/977499568085508096
-Goo Clip by eevee. youtube.com/watch?v=RMbCLqP1p8Q
-Goo Clip with 15 spicy sprays by HSS0136. youtube.com/watch?v=3qpv2wzSTiY
A huge thanks to these people for finding these things!

The breakthrough discovery in this list was charging. I'll briefly explain it here. We say that a treasure is "charged" when spicy leaf Pikmin lose their spice while they carry the treasure. To understand the glitch, it's important to know that leaf Pikmin have a carry speed of 1 and spicy Pikmin have a carry speed of 2. Now, when a spicy Pikmin picks up a treasure, it contributes 2 speed. Once the spicy Pikmin loses its spice and I whistle it off, only 1 speed is taken off of the treasure. Thus, the treasure has a net gain of 1 speed per leaf Pikmin that lost a spicy spray. Note that leaf white Pikmin have a speed of 3, while spicy white Pikmin have a speed of 4. Also, leaf purple Pikmin have a speed of 0.6, and spicy purple Pikmin have a speed of 1.6. Thus, leaf whites and purples would also give the treasure a net gain of 1 speed each. Note that any bud Pikmin would give the treasure a net gain of 0.5 speed each.

I greatly appreciate the Pikmin Speedrunning Discord for their contributions to this accomplishment. We tossed many ideas back and forth with each other, and we may have disagreed on certain things (such as whether to do early blues once or twice), but now 3 of us have managed to do Awakening Wood in 1 day. I once thought that discovering bitter sprays would be better than discovering spicy sprays, as we could get spicy drops from petrified enemies. However, urban from the Discord convinced me that collecting spicy berries would be faster. This is one example of many complications that we had think through with big brains.

I actually managed to do Goo Clip twice. However, 4 Pikmin died on my first attempt. Being the first person to do a 6 day run with 0 deaths was appealing, so I spent a few more hours before I managed to do Goo Clip again, but now with no deaths. Here is the video of the run including my first Goo Clip with 4 deaths: youtube.com/watch?v=hnV1AzYLI8A

Lastly, if you want to obtain a 6-day completion, feel free to try it out! But be warned that Goo Clip will be elusive, and you'll need to do it dozens of times before you'll get it, even with perfect execution. Thus, patience, composure, and reserves of sanity are required: be warned.

If I missed anything or didn't explain something from the video clearly, please feel free to ask about it in the comments!

Pikmin 2: 6-Day Completion, No Deaths (Day 3)

Grassdigger 2018-07-03 | 6-Day Completion is finally possible! I collect every treasure in 6 days, spending 3 days in Valley of Repose and just 1 day everywhere else. I also don't let Pikmin die. Thanks to many people's contributions that made this possible!

Day 2: youtube.com/watch?v=xXq59DBpEME
Day 4: youtube.com/watch?v=03C_BA0GQfQ

Day 3 without commentary: youtube.com/watch?v=-UcDWqeUgrk
Snagret Hole sublevels 6 and 7 with 2 purples: youtube.com/watch?v=2BfCylt5DD8

I have successfully completed Awakening Wood in 1 day! I am the fifth person that we know of to do this. Here are the others:
1. HSS0136: youtube.com/watch?v=govlosZaj-0
2. Baryte: No video
3. xHaii: youtube.com/watch?v=pTZYB1dTd4M
4. ShadowLugia: youtube.com/watch?v=W5ACKzAJ_tg
5. Me. However, I do think I'm the first to do this in 0 deaths!
I recommend watching these videos, we had different routes and unique play-styles.

Now, I list all of the discoveries that I utilize to complete Awakening Wood.
-EARLY BLUES by Claris Robyn. youtube.com/watch?v=jYQ2M3GqELM
-Napsack carry glitch by TRex Quisite. youtube.com/watch?v=RKNTujFpuIs
-Landing site napsack by HSS0136. youtube.com/watch?v=46t1OUwmxXc
-Bulblax Kingdom early by HSS0136. youtube.com/watch?v=xVitUEHs7yo
-Lugia Skip by ShadowLugia. youtube.com/watch?v=a4s4xanjJlc
-Charging by muratsubo. twitter.com/muratsubo/status/977499568085508096
-Goo Clip by eevee. youtube.com/watch?v=RMbCLqP1p8Q
-Goo Clip with 15 spicy sprays by HSS0136. youtube.com/watch?v=3qpv2wzSTiY
A huge thanks to these people for finding these things!

The breakthrough discovery in this list was charging. I'll briefly explain it here. We say that a treasure is "charged" when spicy leaf Pikmin lose their spice while they carry the treasure. To understand the glitch, it's important to know that leaf Pikmin have a carry speed of 1 and spicy Pikmin have a carry speed of 2. Now, when a spicy Pikmin picks up a treasure, it contributes 2 speed. Once the spicy Pikmin loses its spice and I whistle it off, only 1 speed is taken off of the treasure. Thus, the treasure has a net gain of 1 speed per leaf Pikmin that lost a spicy spray. Note that leaf white Pikmin have a speed of 3, while spicy white Pikmin have a speed of 4. Also, leaf purple Pikmin have a speed of 0.6, and spicy purple Pikmin have a speed of 1.6. Thus, leaf whites and purples would also give the treasure a net gain of 1 speed each. Note that any bud Pikmin would give the treasure a net gain of 0.5 speed each.

I greatly appreciate the Pikmin Speedrunning Discord for their contributions to this accomplishment. We tossed many ideas back and forth with each other, and we may have disagreed on certain things (such as whether to do early blues once or twice), but now 3 of us have managed to do Awakening Wood in 1 day. I once thought that discovering bitter sprays would be better than discovering spicy sprays, as we could get spicy drops from petrified enemies. However, urban from the Discord convinced me that collecting spicy berries would be faster. This is one example of many complications that we had think through with big brains.

I actually managed to do Goo Clip twice. However, 4 Pikmin died on my first attempt. Being the first person to do a 6 day run with 0 deaths was appealing, so I spent a few more hours before I managed to do Goo Clip again, but now with no deaths. Here is the video of the run including my first Goo Clip with 4 deaths: youtube.com/watch?v=hnV1AzYLI8A

Lastly, if you want to obtain a 6-day completion, feel free to try it out! But be warned that Goo Clip will be elusive, and you'll need to do it dozens of times before you'll get it, even with perfect execution. Thus, patience, composure, and reserves of sanity are required: be warned.

If I missed anything or didn't explain something from the video clearly, please feel free to ask about it in the comments!

Pikmin 2: Do Sunsets Kill Pikmin by a Wild Onion?

Grassdigger 2018-06-25 | In this video, I show what happens if I go to sunset with Pikmin on top of the stump where the yellow Onion can be found under 3 circumstances: before I discover yellows, as I discover yellows, and after I discover yellows. tl;dr, these Pikmin are safe as long as they are within a certain distance of the yellow Onion, but they are not safe if the yellow Onion is not there.

At the end of the video, I mess around with the bitter spray cutscene some more. I show that the camera always focuses on the spot where an enemy first became petrified. Even though the Careening Dirigibug fell into the abyss during the geyser cutscene, the next cutscene simply zoomed in on the spot where the Dirigibug became petrified. If the camera tried to zoom in on the Dirigibug, the game would crash, because the void killed it. If you want to see more bitter spray shenanigans, watch this video: youtube.com/watch?v=odjQFtCRXuA
If you're curious why the geyser cutscene played, please watch this video: youtube.com/watch?v=Va9BEA6eBII