Randomly Generated N64 Games | Punching Weight [SSFF]

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What if I told you some Nintendo 64 games have an endless amount of content? Here's random generation on the N64!
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☠Credits ☠
Written by Derek Alexander & Grace Kramer
Shot by Grace Kramer & Derek Alexander
Edited by Soberdwarf ► / @soberdwarf
Intro / Outro Music by ► hellstar.plus
#stopskeletons #nintendo64 #excitebike

[@ryuuji159]

The endles dunes are probably made with something like perlin noise, so it just need the cordinates to generate the terrain. Its just a mathematic function with the 2 cordinates and the seed for it

[@Hezkore]

Yes, thank you.

[@angolin9352]

That's what I was thinking. The game probably doesn't actually load everything into memory, it likely just used a seed and a PRNG to generate the terrain. Unload the terrain chunks and regenerate as the player gets too far or too close.

[@SoberDwarf]

See, I thought that as well (I was the editor that brought it up). I didn't think that the N64 could generate something like that in the background without any stutter. I recently made a video on randomizers and how they worked so I was pretty familiar with the different types, so I attempted to do some testing on my own just to make sure. But, from my testing, it didn't seem like it was the that it was random at all. We couldn't get into it for the video, but with the testing, I ended up running four instances of emulation and having them all go at the same time, with the same input (acceleration), but doing my best to randomize frame data among other things. I did this twice and each time it was the exact same map, the only difference is between the cacti/trees, but each racer took the exact same path and ended at almost the exact same points (give or take some frames). Admittedly there could be something wrong with the method. I didn't have time to search through all the RAM to see what was going on behind the scenes, but after two test of 4 racers, I had expected there to be more differences, but it was the exact same map. I only had a couple of hours myself for testing, but I am genuinely curious to see what actually was going on with the game, if anything.

[@spunit262]

@@SoberDwarf The seed may be fixed, so it's not random, but it is likely still procedurally generated as the map looks too big to be stored reasonable on a N64 cart.

[@SoberDwarf]

@spunit262 Right, it's just that pretty much every claim it had back during it's release was touting 'randomly-generated', ; one of the reasons it was initially part of the video. The Nintendo Power article specifically states "fractally generates", which is a different beast all together, but the way it stated it there made it sound like it was doing that per instance as well. The claim that 'No two rides across the desert will be the same.' was probably a marketing spiel, Most other news sites moved to "randomly generated" as the catch-all term, but I sort of feel that's falsifiable at this point. (It's not like it wouldn't be the first thing IGN got wrong in this video, amirite?) It really does need more testing than the 2-3 hours I had to really mess around with it.

[@JomasterTheSecond]

Can we get a randomly generated Stop Skeletons from Fighting episode? Every minute it just switches to a new topic.

[@tepafray]

April 1st is only about 2 1/2 weeks away, wonder if they'd do it.

[@spoofersdomain9185]

Every minute, Derek and Grace switch.

[@edhc44]

I liked when we were promised a new GBA FPS episode "next time" after the first one and only got it two months later. So random!

[@nemesisurvivorleon]

LMAO

[@AntonyTheQ]

Sure, just pick any episode and then drop some acid. 👌

[@cicabeot1]

I had to return to this video when it was announced F Zero 99 is a thing that actually exists now. Congrats, Derek. You willed it into existence. It’s not quite a new F Zero game, but it’s a start.

[@testarossa7993]

Resident Evil 2 for the N64 is one impressive technical feat.

[@joeyparkhill8751]

It certainly is!

[@price2camper]

Companies were making impressive ports before the switch lel

[@testarossa7993]

@@price2camper And Console to PC ports. 😂

[@montengro234]

@@price2camper the switch ports aren't impressive generally. Mario Odyssey still looks better then all ports.

[@AntoRetroGamer]

It gets even better when you spank in an Expansion Pak.

[@skippertheeyechild6621]

F Zero X would sometimes randomly generate tracks that would just kill all the AI racers. I loved it when that happened.

[@expendableindigo9639]

Computer self-harm.

[@hemangchauhan2864]

8:24 This probably means nothing for average Joe, but seeing the name "Jaipur" (a city in India) in a retro game just fills my heart with joy. Jaipur has many actualy motorsport events. Love finding Indian references in games.

[@medes5597]

The fabled pink city.

[@antidote5125]

Hemang Chauhan Hey, I just saw your comments on ThorHighHeels' Left Alive video, weird. (You made some good points there, by the way)

[@hemangchauhan2864]

@@antidote5125 Hehe, I comment on videos I find interesting. Really like Thor's work.

[@TheAmazingSpiderPunk]

I know it was a one off joke, but I need an F-Zero 99 in my life more than anything else.

[@rippinkorpse]

I immediately searched with excitement and was sadly disappointed...I love F-ZERO X to death! GX was a let down for me, great game but let down for me. Need another F Zero x for switch, with speed metal soundtrack!

[@ruthmcnally310]

You got your wish

[@leandronc]

I don't think Excite Bike stores the generated desert. It probably just stores the bike position and recalculates the landscape in real-time with a fractal formula! If the formula doesn't change, the same terrain will be recreated, no need to store it.

[@alexgaudette988]

They likely also use the same seed every time with whatever algorithm they use. It's like using a seed in MInecraft. No matter what computer you use it on it will generate the same world. This is also how the Elite games generate an entire galaxy of stars without needing to store them.

[@kaddru]

Quite sure it uses a few layers of perlin noise to generate the landscape. Originally designed for use in generating more natural looking computer graphics, and now used in many games that procedurally generates landscape features.

[@Disthron]

*Excitebike 64 Memory* I have a strong suspicion this 'memory' is actually the result of procedural generation. As opposed to random generation. These two often get treated as if they are the same thing, but they are not. The reason a procedural generated game could 'remember' the map that's been generated, is because it's not generated randomly, but by... a procedure. Same as how the procedure of 1 + 1 will always give you 2, when you turn around it generates the same segments of the map, using the same procedure. The reason the map isn't *exactly the same* every time is likely because they are using a random seed number with each new try. If your interested, there is a GCD talk about the original Pitfall game, which also used procedural generation! Though it is always the same, because it always uses the same seed number, so it always spits out the same levels. You can check out the talk here. Presented by one of the original developers. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpekn6uXjM6Gm6c

[@KyleDavis328]

So a really cool (and easy to make) rom hack would be to just change the seed

[@johncenaplayingstarcraft9580]

@@KyleDavis328 yeah, pretty much it's exactly like how minecraft does it

[@pleasedontwatchthese9593]

5:55 Excite bike probably makes the terrain based off your location. So it doesn't store your map but looks up your location and runs it though a algorithm to make the hills.

[@Mr-DNA]

One of my fondest F-Zero X memories was being the sole survivor of an X-Cup course with a particularly tight bend mixed with an incredibly steep slope. All 29 CPU racers died on the first lap.

[@RebelTaxi]

I believe ExciteBike 64 just duplicates that same dunes in a repeated tile set. It seemed like that when I would play that mode

[@peytonlong2000]

Ayyyyy it's Pan the man!

[@birdman9632]

Yo pan I love your videos

[@Tgalvan624]

Pandejo

[@elblogdelfeno]

Top 10 Anime Crossovers.

[@ariss3304]

Another plausible idea: they use a random seed that will always generate the same landscape and they are able to load and unload chunks of the landscape at their will

[@youtuberobbedmeofmyname]

*In Nintendo's new exclusive, F-Zero 99, face off against 99 other players in the ultimate 100 man Grand Prix! Be first and don't lose your place, or you may blow up!* _Players in last place will die every 15 seconds._

[@f-zeroposter1447]

F-ZERO 99 Death Racers reboot. Gud.

[@AntoRetroGamer]

I always felt F-Zero GX should have had an Eliminator mode, where you can retire a set number of cars each lap are lagging at the back until there is only one racer standing. Think a more refined version of Death Race.

[@TheHeroOfTomorrow]

Things I learned today: Derek is dyslexic.

[@matt4193]

The lore deepens.

[@warbossgegguz679]

Soon we will reis up!

[@StopSkeletonsFromFighting]

This is true. I read good but I read slow. -da

[@davistoa]

He's brought that up before in plenty of older videos, actually

[@TheHeroOfTomorrow]

davistoa Well, I didn’t remember it before. :P

[@Atypical-Abbie]

I am sure you could hack Excitebike 64 to remove the time limit and test it then.

[@everythingpony]

People have , cant believe he didnt

[@mistamontiel00]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZXLnpaOYpqAb9E you can splitscreen the desert

[@ggggge515]

@@mistamontiel00 i believe its seed based procedural generation, so no saving of such huge map anyways, kinda unresearched i guess

[@frenchgeek1306]

@@ggggge515 Just like Pitfall on the 2600, the random generation is most likely reversible, which mean for a specific seed the same position will always generate the same content. Nothing need to be saved and it can generate in real time.

[@jkrunch2166]

Man, 20 years ago and IGN still didnt play the games they reviewed.

[@frogface861]

To be fair there wasn't as many smaller reviewers to ripoff back then either making it harder for them to not screw up.

[@Jonafieg]

The clairvoyance on this f-zero 99 is kinda crazy

[@ruthmcnally310]

3:21 How does it feel to be a prophet?

[@DarkMProductions]

Here's an idea for a future episode, ambitious ports for woefully underpowered machines. Like Midnight Club 3 for the PSP, or Shadow of Mordor for the PS3.

[@GiordanDiodato]

or how about Dante's Inferno on PSP? I'm impressed they were able to keep the pre-rendered CGI cutscenes.

[@enriquemartellhernandez1900]

Borderlands 2 for Vita

[@silverfang387]

@@GiordanDiodato that existed?

[@HsienKoMeiLingFormerYANG]

Hyrule/Fire Emblem’s Warrior, Captain Toad, Tales of the Abyss, Dragon Quest VIII, Metal Gear Solid 3 and Castlevania: Mirror of Fate for underpowered technology, 3DS.

[@JallenMeodia]

Isn't that kinda the whole point of their Punching Weight series of videos?

[@brianlefko4404]

3:21 It took four years, but it actually happened! Funny to think this was just a joke.

[@venomgtsr5702]

This makes me miss the days when developers used to put in modes like these to increase play time rather than boring forced grinding like they do today.

[@GiordanDiodato]

There was a rogulike RPG called Shiren the Wanderer on N64, but it was only released in Japan.

[@ObeIiskos]

I was hoping this would be featured on this video. They mentioned Cave Noire which predated the comparatively popular Mystery Dungeon series, so if they dug that deep, I figured Siren the Wanderer 2 would get a shoutout. Maybe they just couldn't get their hands on a copy.

[@pleasedontwatchthese9593]

Why not outside of Japan

[@GiordanDiodato]

@@pleasedontwatchthese9593 because A. it was of a genre that wasn't as popular as it is now. B. It's of a franchise that never saw release outside Japan until 2007 on DS. and C. it was released in September 2000 in Japan, and by that the time the PS2 was out and Nintendo had announced the Gamecube (codenamed Dolphin).

[@GiordanDiodato]

@@ObeIiskos or maybe they're not aware of Shiren the Wanderer? they seem to know about the Mystery Dungeon series already.

[@kananchan7995]

I think it's also on the sfc and nds. The nds version is the first roguelike(or lite) game I ever play! Also, nice profile pic.

[@Coletheriolu]

3:22 So who else is here after the F-Zero 99 announcement?

[@teriinekoyama1369]

Gotta say, I love the use of the 'Mount Mayhem' track from Beetle Adventure Racing in the background of the Top Gear Rally 2 segment.

[@Tyspy197]

Worms Armageddon has randomly generated level layouts. I’m surprised you didn’t mention this one.

[@OwlRTA]

OH WOW! I forgot that you made that F-Zero 99 joke here LOL

[@tatertot64]

OH GOD F-ZERO 99 ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

[@SkyArcherDev]

The endless desert might be generated via a random seed number: in short, at every position in the space corresponds a precise desert height. This way you can travel very far without having to store in the memory the actual desert model, only needing to generate the model on the go. This is roughly how No Man’s Sky works!

[@IDHLEB]

This is another reason why No Man's Sky kinda sucks

[@SoberDwarf]

That was my initial response as well, but when I was doing testing for it, I had ran through it multiple times upwards of 20 minutes, trying to hit landmarks and I was seeing the same exact landscape at a pretty decent distance. Eventually, I ran four different emulators, doing my best to make sure that they all had plenty of chances to generate a different seed, ran them all at once and was seeing the exact same results from each one, which made me feel confident that it wasn't random other than the cactus/tree models. There could have been something I was missing in testing but it seemed pretty static!

[@sabin1981]

Oh hell, not only a great video by SSFF (as always!) but IMMENSE love and props for the Final Fantasy MQ soundtrack playing in the background at 7:55 -- gotta love Mount Gale!

[@SoberDwarf]

Thanks! I edited this vid and suggested that music clip, I'm a huge fan MQ's OST and absolutely love Mount Gale as well.

[@CoffeePotato]

On the SNES, there was Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen. It never advertised this, but every single item in the game is random, and they may completely change your army strengths every time.

[@leandrocrivelatti4278]

It has been quite an experience seeing you grow as a youtuber, you're really making a stride researching this stuff, and I have been enjoying it immensely, thanks for the effort you put in, and I'm happy you and Grace are becoming such a good team! Congratulations to the both of you, love the channel's current direction and wish it grows even further.

[@rompevuevitos222]

I remember when Vinesauce did a corruptor for F Zero and the tracks would change shapes randomly, this made it clear that the tracks aren't pre made, but rather are generated from a code that tells it how to do so based on some pre made values It's honestly amazing that a game from that time had such a feature

[@junehanabi1756]

Excitebike just stores a small random number in memory and tracks your location. It displays terrain based on your coordinates and map seed. Nothings fully generated or pre-generated.

[@ItsTheFizz]

HOLY SHIT... A Battle Royale F-Zero would be legit amazing!

[@trickytristan1]

didn't know i needed it until now

[@CANiHAVEaCHIP1]

F-Zero X has Death Race, where you eliminate every other racer as fast as possible. So it's sorta there.

[@Eichro]

THERE, YOUR NEW IDEA FOR F-ZERO MIYAMOTO. NOW DO IT.

[@Mac_Omegaly]

@@CANiHAVEaCHIP1 I loved death race, it was the best place to master the persice art of removing your rivals from the race track. 1 min 23 seconds is all it takes to knock out the other 29 racers. It was my number one trick in grinding to unlock the X cup, before the cheat code was published. You need to know the courses and where the best place to knockout rivals to earn 1st place over all. Certain legitimate races were best tackles backwards, to best kill off the AI instead of aiming for 1st place. (I believe, if I recall correctly, the queen cup had 2 tracks that this was the best method.)

[@hoagieimpact9189]

Here are 4 more: Animal Crossing 64 is the obvious missing one. As most of you will know from its sequels it creates a different world for every new game. Tetrisphere's main levels were made of random tetris blocks. Even repeating the same stage is a slightly new challenge every time. Worms Armageddon's fantastic multiplayer thrived on randomly generated levels. Games like this were worthy of labeled "endless fun". Last but not least, and still unique back then, Shiren the Wanderer 2 has random caves, just like the first one on SNES and the spin offs that came later (Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon).

[@ocarinag33k]

I appreciate the Adventure Beetle Racing music in the background. That's a fucking nostalgic throwback man

[@hteekay]

I'm more impressed that the excite bike 64 desert mode doesn't have any fog on them.

[@Rubbercookie]

Honorable mention to WaveRace 64 for randomly generating the titular waves, which in a small part make out the tracks in that game~

[@ItsTheFizz]

F-ZERO 99 IS NOW REAL

[@BainesMkII]

From the sound of it, the Excitebike 64 desert map is probably procedurally generated, but not randomly generated. I'd guess that rather than the entire map being created and stored in advance, it just uses a relatively simple formula to generate the local area around the player as necessary. EDIT: Saw an interview that says: "The terrain generation was easy enough - it’s just some simple fractals."

[@stheil]

That's what I think as well. It's a good way to free up a ton of memory at the cost of constantly regenerating the map around the player. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably done similar to Minecraft, loading chunks around the player and using some kind of perlin noise. In any case, that's pretty cool for a game of that time.

[@defaltpearce3187]

8:40 cue the eurobeat

[@MrMoneyclips]

the wii remote speaker would make a good episode of punching weight.

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

I have a horrible time trying to find X-Cups at Victoria's Secret.

[@TheFirstTriplefife]

Didn't know these games had random generated content. I like having the option to have random generation in games. Its either going to be something you get up front (like a main feature) or something you earn after completing the story.

[@8-BitEric]

great video as always my dude! you have always been a great hidden gem on youtube! you deserve to be much bigger!

[@JeffreyMichaud]

Procedurely generated terrain is easy to generate as it can be created using some math functions based on coordinate grids you'll have a few seed values that don't change as you play. So it's not storing the generated terrain it's recalculating and redrawing as needed.

[@mattgd58]

SSFF including music from "Densha de D"? Whoever edited the video has some good taste

[@SoberDwarf]

Thanks!

[@KiraAfter_Dark]

To talk about Excitebike and it's desert generation, it's not storing anything. How these work is simply using an equation to generate the terrain, and the basically just gives you a wavy plane to build into a mesh. So then you don't need to store the mesh in memory behind you, you just generate it again when you get to that position. It will always be the same until you change the seed, which you would only do between runs. So nothing is stored and loaded, it's just generated as you go and without changing the seed, all positions will have the same output.

[@Leeki85]

Desert in ExciteBike 64 isn't actually impressive. It just uses Perlin Noise or similar function. In that case Perlin Noise is just a function f(x,y) -> z that has x,y coordinates and outputs height. You can make endless terrain with it, the only limit is the variable size, in case of N64 it could be 64-bit integer which is 2^64 x 2^64 square meters or other distance unit. This is many orders of magnitude more than surface of Earth. Such world could be either randomized, by changing seed values every time game is launched, or have fixed seed to be same every time. Perlin Noise is well suited for task when there's very little RAM to spare. Ken Perlin developed it that way, because he was working with machines that had quite powerful CPUs, but were RAM limited.

[@SoberDwarf]

I feel bad for having to rain on the parade of Excitebike 64 not being random. BUT I'D DO IT AGAIN!

[@gothtransgorl3447]

I know that the "f-zero 99" bit was a joke, but now you got me wanting something we'll probably never get 😢

[@TheTonyMcD]

I love the term, "almost infinite". By definition, if it is anything other than infinite, it is infinitely less than infinite.

[@AARONwilliamsBASSIST]

That Beetle Adventure Racing Soundtrack in the background. Yeah I hear it. Such a funky Soundtrack

[@NickyShadow99]

Computer science major here. I suspect that the desert mode has a terrain generator that runs off a seed, which is just basically one large number to base the RNG off of. They just need to make the terrain generator and generate it in real time based off of coordinates. So only whats being seen within the draw distance is being saved in memory. Everything else seems to generated or regenerated in real time. Cool vid btw. I'D VIEW IT AGAIN!!!

[@ProTayToeGamer]

The mario 64 randomizer is a chaotic mess that is fun to play too

[@corsairegg]

I think you make mistake between procedural generation and random generation. The ExciteBite64 use procedural generation, just a formula returning a height in function of x,z

[@TrollDecker]

Pretty much this. It's like a super-simplified version of how, say, Elite can generate the same galaxies every time, without fail.

[@Ghennesph]

The way a game like Starbound can generate so much seemingly random content and yet have it "remembered" in a small save file, sync it up across multiple online users, ect is by using a pseudorandom number generator that builds unpatterned numbers off of a seed value. In otherwords, it can generate content, then unload it, and then generate the exact same content exactly how it was. It's quite possible excitebike uses this, since all that needs to be stored in memory is the visible terrain, enough of a buffer, and the original seed value.

[@Seymour-Butts_666]

I actually knew that excite bike had that procedurally generated desert extra feature because as a kid I spent literally hours exploring the dunes. It was my favorite part of that game.

[@SamChaneyProductions]

I remember when I was playing X cup as a kid, it generated a track where I somehow won before going even 20 feet down the track. I drove forward a little more and saw that the track went straight down and all of the NPC's had just flown off to their deaths.

[@WallaWaller]

I remembered getting an X cup track that had a sudden 90 degree drop in it just inches behind a 90 degree turn. After falling off the first time (because who wouldn't?) I opted to just sit at the starting line without even pressing a button. Within about 30 seconds I was the only person left on the track and could complete the track as slowly as I wished.

[@brianboley870]

3:58 Unfortunately, I have never been this enthusiastic about anything in my life. And, that kind of makes me sad. Great video as always!

[@djphildeez6357]

Man, that Top Gear bit is so unfortunate!! Also this is the 1st time i ever heard about the Resident Evil 2 randomizer. Damn nice video!!

[@exactspace]

That part in Excite Bike 64 is procedurally generated, so it doesn’t need to he stored anywhere.

[@jonathanbrake3070]

Yooo that Mount Mayhem background music during the top rally part made this video for me. Beetle Adventure Racing was, is, and forever shall be the greatest racing game on the N64

[@sparrowthesissy2186]

Games like Excite Bike 64 probably have it set up where given the same initial seed it will give you the same terrain every time you give it the same coordinates. That means it doesn't necessarily "remember" anything already generated, but if it tries to generate anything there again it will come out exactly the same. That's one of the benefits of "procedural" generation and algorithms like Perlin noise instead of other common pseudo-random number systems -- you can essentially rewind to or recall any previous point in the series in an instant. Still makes for some awesome gameplay even if it is somewhat of an illusion.

[@Spazbo4]

but resident evil 2 on n64 doesnt have ALL CGI cutscenes, one was repeated between claire and leon's campaign to save space since it was so long, if you listen during the cutscene where annette is talking about when william stuck himself with the G virus ada's voice is replaced with claires

[@SoberDwarf]

The developers recently said in a live stream that it was an accident, they actually could have fit the cut scene in, but they didn't realize there was a difference between the two at the time. You're still technically correct though which is the best kind of correct.

[@Spazbo4]

@@SoberDwarf they could have easily fit it in if they cut up the cutscenes in pieces and played them in whatever order was needed for that scenario, maybe that could have also saved space to make the audio better too

[@Theophiloz]

During that Top Gear sequence, was that bg music from Volkswagen Racing? 😂😂

[@projectikaruga]

MOUNT MAYHEM!

[@Theophiloz]

@@projectikaruga Yes!! Sooo random to hear that on this video, haha.

[@Joooovis]

Have you managed to play Goldfinger 64 yet? 12 or so people spent something like 15 years creating a new game using the Goldeneye engine but with like 99% original assets and it works on original N64 hardware, if only barely. I’ve hardly seen anyone talk about it and the site it was on has shut down only in the past few months, after the game came out the end of 2017, but hell a new Goldeneye game came out on the N64 in 2017 and no one talked about it, a shame for the literal years of work that went into it. web.archive.org/web/20180924155207/goldeneyevault.com/viewfile.php?id=349

[@MichaelCutts7]

Joooovis I can’t believe I’ve never seen anyone talk about this. That’s insane!

[@AntoRetroGamer]

It's VERY faithful to the movie of the same name. More so then GoldenEye.

[@TheTctoocold]

probably because goldeneye on 64 plays like garbage now who in their right mind would want to go back to such a shitty old engine?

[@MichaelCutts7]

Cutler We’re watching a series priding itself on weird shit. We are the ideal audience who would go back to an outdated engine to see some stuff.

[@MillVillage]

Goldeneye Vault is now N64 Vault. You can find it there.

[@AKImeru]

I've been playing F-Zero X for over 15 years and I've never knew about the X cup. Time to play F-Zero X until my eyes bleed.

[@DeisFortuna]

You forgot the other possibility with Excitebike 64's desert mode: It tracks your coordinates and uses a seed to generate the terrain. That way, the game just runs the same coordinates through the same math and seed to get the random generation to work properly when backtracking.

[@The_Fat_Turtle]

Dirt 4 basically did the Top Gear Rally 2 thing, but a little more variable and modern in design, but you could still see some common turns and setups that you could predict a little about upcoming turns despite it being a completely new track everytime. They just changed the sharpness of each turn but only by a small margin.

[@scarredsoul1]

Sober dwarf makes some good vids too, nice to see him pop up

[@SoberDwarf]

Aww, thanks!

[@larryhastings4958]

"Adventure" for the Atari 2600--from 1979!--had a "randomizer" mode like RE2. If you play game variant 3, it's the same map as game variant 2, but the locations of all items have been randomly swapped.

[@memoryleaked]

Excitebike 64 "So it stores everything in the game's memory?" No, it doesn't. It uses a 2D Perlin Noise generator (or a decedent of that algorithm) to calculate from a given seed the height map of the dunes. This is similar to how a Minecraft world will generate the same terrain across multiple computers with the same seed. I am very surprised that the devs didn't roll a new seed each game, or at least shove you into a random x,y area of the same seed. The map isn't stored on the game cart. It is generated as land chunks are needed. Perlin Noise is an awesome tool. The amount of area loaded around the player is maybe a minute or two of terrain. If it allowed multiplayer, the game would need to have multiple areas generated at the same time, which is a difficult limitation to overcome.

[@NoName-fj3pi]

The endless dunes are similar to No Man Sky's random generation where it uses a mathematical equation to randomly generate but it does not have to store the map only the coordinates.

[@rustkitty]

"Why is Barry replaced by a tyrant?!?!" Oh, he is finally ready for his Jill Sandwich!!

[@yoshimansxl]

That's one oddly specific ''genre'', very fitting for SSFF. How about RTS games for 8-bit computers?

[@stuffedsomething1699]

The N64 excite bike thing uses procedural generation based off of world seeds like Minecraft does. Meaning it goes off of the seed rather than storing the generated content and playing it back.

[@codelockd0wn]

for excite bikes generation, with a seed it wouldn't need to keep it all in ram, but just regenerate as needed. A seed allows the program to generate the same bits over and over without the need to regenerate new ones. It's pretty cool tech, especially in such an early game. A good example of this are Minecraft seeds.

[@gunbladelad7772]

Desert mode might be procedurally generated, which can allow for massive maps with minimal information being required - after all, the original Elite had 8 galaxies, each of which had 256 systems. Frontier : Elite 2 and First Encounters both had over 65 billion solar systems and fit on a single 1.44mb floppy disc.

[@GameplayandTalk]

Great video! I had no idea Excitebike 64 had so much extra stuff. I'll definitely be revisiting that one, thanks!

[@nicocchi]

One reason I'd think for not advertising random generation is because it's unlockable. If there was an "Infnitely generated content!" label on the box, but booting up the game and have it nowhere to be found could lead to confusion, like in that rally game (despite having it unlocked from the start… but worse!) Then again, there's probably a sensible way to approach this as well. Maybe a line that implies completing the game like "experts only" or stuff, and then go into detail in the manual or something.

[@Gojiro7]

3:20 huh, its nice when reality throws you a bone ^^

[@marscaleb]

Is it me, or are you playing the music from Beetle Adventure Racing for the Top Gear Rally 2 segment?

[@althenawhm]

Yeah, I'd agree with that

[@oblivioncth]

Its because the game doesn't randomly generate the terrain itself, but rather it randomly generates function parameters for creating the terrain and remembers that; therefore, the terrain will still be different each time, but all it needs to be able to regenerate any of the map is to remember those parameters. When you drive back within the view distance of a certain part of the desert that you know for sure is supposed to look a certain way because you've been there before, all the game does is input the coordinates of that segment into its generation function, along with the stored parameters, and since it is the same function it will regenerate the same terrain. It just comes up with these parameters via a random seed. This identical how you can get a Minecraft world to always be the same using the same seed (within the same version) even though Minecraft worlds have an area of 30,000,000 blocks^2 and takes about 161 days to walk across. Now how they fit RE2 on the N64... that was just madness.

[@HerotheChao]

I know it's Japan-only, but Animal Forest/Animal Crossing was randomly generated, as far as what went where in each acre.

[@calebb7012]

You realize that Gamecube's animal crossing is the EXACT same game as animal forest with a few new additions right? The translated version was ported to gamecube because it was finished so late into the n64's lifespan. The english versions have rando-gen as well.

[@MotherKojiro]

I'd thought that I was the only one who ran into random tracks that even the CPU opponents couldn't finish in F-Zero X. It was pretty surreal to see myself grab first place, and then totally eat it on the victory lap.

[@javierbg1995]

I have never played Excitebike 64, but I can tell you that it's perfectly possible to have an infinite random map without storing it in ROM or RAM. Computers (I mean, consoles are really just computers) can't really generate random data, so what they do is one of these: 1. Get random data from the world: maybe background noise from a microphone, or the small movements of your mouse, or whatever. This is really slow, so it's only done when you need REALLY random data (e.g.: cryptography). 2. Instead of that, use a "seed" value (maybe the time of day in seconds, or the exact position of your joystick, or something like that) and then apply a certain mathematical function to it (something like add/subtract/multiply/divide and take the remainder, etc). If you take the result of this and apply the function again you get another value. You can repeat this over and over again and what you get is an apparently random sequence of values. Note, they are not really random, they are completely set by the seed and the operations you did, but to humans they appear random (over a long time they will eventually start repeating, but you may never notice it). This is called "pseudo random number generation" or "pseudo RNG". What the console is probably doing is using this "pseudo RNG" to determine things like: where are the checkpoints, what is the height of the map at each position, etc. If you just store the "seed" and apply the same operations, you will get the same values. Thus, the map is not stored anywhere, it is generated when needed, always in the same manner, so objects are always in the same place. I hope it was a good explanation! PS: If you want to know a little bit more of how this works, here's an excellent video with a demonstration of how to code it, with none other than Dan Shiffman, the Bob Ross of programming kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3ylYpuNjMqXg80

[@SoberDwarf]

I knew it was possible, but from my (admittedly limited) experience with N64 development, it would have been an extremely impressive feat to have a map randomly built and generate seamlessly; not so much that it couldn't, but the fact it would manage to do that without any slowdown or load times as the map would pop in and load. The N64 was most times pushing its hardware to the limit (and Excitebike 64 runs pretty slow to begin with) so having it load in a map chunk in the background without even a stutter would be impressive. But, from my testing, it didn't seem like it was the case. We couldn't get into it for the video, but with the testing, I ended up running four instances of emulation and having them all go at the same time, with the same input (acceleration), but doing my best to randomize frame data among other things. I did this twice and each time it was the exact same map. Admittedly there could be something wrong with the method, but it really didn't seem like it was random at all! I only had a couple of hours myself for testing, but I am genuinely curious to see if the N64 was pulling this off!

[@SoberDwarf]

Also, that is a great explanation!

[@javierbg1995]

@@SoberDwarf Really nice testing! That's what I call taking your job seriously ;)

[@Yntec]

Whoa! I had to watch twice the part where you spend 10 hours unlocking an already unlocked feature, to double check, because I couldn't believe it. And I still don't know if I believe it. But it was stills classic youtube video gold :D *thumbs up*

[@zorochii]

Technically speaking, you can have an endless scenery as long as you have some way to store an infinitely big number for your position. Just like Minecraft or No Man's Sky, you can generate a lot of things by using a single random seed. Like Perlin noise, etc. Btw I'm not sure but aren't Fushigi no Dungeon levels generated randomly? It uses the classic dungeon crawl system akin to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. Nice video C:!

[@anniewarbucks1794]

DiRT 4 is procedurally generated, though tracks are made from a bunch of premade tiles which led to the scenery being repetitive.

[@jerrisongrimminck4484]

These guys really appreciate their patrons, and I respect that.

[@manfriedn64]

Mini racers - an unreleased game for n64 which prototype was dumped - also had a randomly generated track mode.

[@burtbackattack]

A new vid from ssff always brightens my day! Great content as always 👍

[@Katosepe]

"I know I was a little grumpy through this episode." Me looking back through the episode and he's smiling and laughing through most of it: 🤔🤔🤔

[@matt4193]

F-ZERO 99 ONLINE HARDCORE BATTLE TO THE MAXX dang now you guys really sold me on the Switch and paying for online content. btw excellent video! It's always a great day when SSFF uploads Punching Weight. Much love from the south!

[@sandakureva]

Honestly, a 100 player F-Zero knockout match would be excellent.

[@MilesEques]

A lot of random terrain generators are what's called seeded pseudo-random. If you give the engine the same input, then it'll give the same (or nearly the same) output every time. Age of Empires worked like this, and I'm pretty sure Minecraft does. I suspect that most likely in Excitebike 64 the player's location is being used as a seed, so whenever you go to the same location it regenerates the same way. Then it only needs to store the actual terrain of what it needs for the graphics and physics.

[@driftercarbon]

Wow. A lot of things that become a lot more common or even dreaded were damn impressive back in the day!

[@briancsoglordington6022]

Yo, I just found your Punching Weight series and looove the concept! I really dig quirky underdog games - I recently dove into 8-16 bit music rhythm games and they might be worth checking out. There are a bunch of japanese exclusives for the GBC but the shiniest gem I found was Pocket Music which I believe is a UK exclusive. It's basically a GBC chiptune studio! Keep up the great work and I'm looking forward to future ep - time to watch through this playlist!

[@joeyparkhill8751]

FUN FACT: I was 6 years old when I 1st played ExciteBike 64 & I played it, if you can believe it, at my freakin' dentist's office here in Seattle!