SM64 - Hazy Maze Cave 100 Coins - 0x A Presses

I collect the 100 coin star in Hazy Maze Cave using 0 A presses.
This video is an improvement from my previous video in which I collected this star using 1 A press. You can find that video here: • SM64 - Hazy Maze Cave ... . Since then, I worked out a new route to collect 100 coins with 0 A presses. The first change to the route was getting to the Mr. I in the red coin room so that we could collect his blue coin. This was thanks to Plush who figured out how to get there. The second and more prominent change was what happens in the maze. I figured out that (1) Mario could ground pound on the blue coin block using vertical speed conservation and two swoopers, and (2) Mario could get to the Navigating the Toxic Maze exit using two swoopers and a snuffit. Before I figured this out, both of these actions required 3 swoopers, and so there was no way to do both of them in a single route, even though it’s necessary to do both to get to 100 coins (assuming the top blue coin is unreachable).
The maze alone took 8 hours of TASing to properly manipulate the swoopers. Fortunately, Tyler informed me that the swoopers’ paths are deterministic once they are started. In other words, a couple seconds into a swooper’s flight, its path is set and cannot be altered by any RNG or Mario movement. Thus, to get two swoopers properly placed (as I had to do for both the blue coin block and the Navigating exit), I first manipulated one swooper to get there at a certain time, and then manipulated the second swooper to get their at the same time. By manipulating them independently rather than at the same time, it makes it much easier to get sufficient RNG.
If you don't know about the vertical speed conservation trick, it works like this. When Mario does a dive recover and lands, the variable that maintains his vertical speed does NOT reset to zero. So, if Mario lands while he is falling, then this vertical speed will be negative. But if Mario lands while he is still ascending (as is the case when he lands on the blue coin block), then this vertical speed will be positive. This vertical speed WILL reset to 0 if Mario moves at all, but punching and breakdancing will not affect it. Anyway, once Mario becomes airborne, then his vertical speed takes instant effect. So by storing a positive vertical speed and not resetting it, I am able to have Mario "pop up" when he punches his way off of a ledge. The reason I needed this vertical speed is to land on the swoopers while also being able to ground pound.
.m64 stats:
Length: 12 minutes and 37 seconds
Re-records: 17604
Frames: 45391 (22650 input)
Time to Make: 8 hours for the maze, ??? for the rest
ABC Playlist: • Super Mario 64 - A But...
ABC Routes: docs.google.co...

[@EpicLPer]

That moment when you wait 8 minutes just for 2 bats to get the right position so you can "jump" up there... You are insane ;P

[@pannenkoek2012]

EpicLPer Oh, _that_ bat was easy. I just had to wait until he got into a good position / direction. The second bat was hard, because he had to be in the right position at the EXACT right time!

[@amadortrujillosantoni6120]

That's nothing, he had to wait 25 hours to travel between parallel universes.

[@axylorionfredrick]

Don't forget he burned Mario and made frame perfect jumps for 3/4 of a year on his channel pannenkeok2012.

[@bdbailey]

Yeah imagine waiting 8 minutes to save an a press lmao, that would be way too far for me

[@RandomPerson964]

I never realized Mario would cough in the poison gas.

[@cat2.096]

because when you were playing this course and you never stopped running while in the poison gASS

[@Fajowski50]

Unreal. Those bat strats are so insane. Incredible work.

[@fffianist]

Lovw the bats in slow motion. "Ah-a-a-a-ah"

[@alisiaale565]

Me too!

[@tiacat11]

Me: Oh, cool, a 100 coin star in Hazy Maze! I haven't been able to get that one, but maybe pannen can show me a few neat tricks to help me! Me, 5 minutes later: I am never getting this star. I am a failure and will probably die alone and a virgin.

[@BAVBAVBAV]

lmao

[@HKid156]

You are a failure, son.

[@thej4546]

Your damn right

[@alisiaale565]

4:09 Holy sh⬛t, I never knew about that cloud animation! 😨

[@dragonmanover9000]

I know, it’s so cool! It looks like there are two texture boxes spinning around to look like moving gas clouds

[@alisiaale565]

@@dragonmanover9000, I know, right?

[@WhatAreYouBuyen]

The swimming part was so painful to watch!

[@Odyssey_Central]

You never seem to disappoint nice work never could have done myself :)

[@thebukagd]

Odyssey man

[@atuliyengar9638]

ayo the oddesy guy's here

[@Odyssey_Central]

@@atuliyengar9638 7 year old comment my god, still a big fan of his stuff on his second channel to this day 🔥🔥🔥

[@atuliyengar9638]

@@Odyssey_Central XD same bro

[@GGamerLiam]

Dry bones for smash, as you say

[@want-diversecontent3887]

1:14 I think he's gonna do it… 1:24 Oh.

[@lukediggle1723]

I'm waiting for a coinless version of this.

[@theopoldthegamer4284]

The trick is to clone the coins. You still get the coins, the only difference is that you clone them.

[@hey_hey4394]

The toxic maze always terrified me as a kid, and it still scares me. I don't know what it is but I always wanted to avoid going in there at all costs. Seeing Pannen just going in there no problem amazes me (no pun intended). I would study the map of the maze for minutes and take pictures of the map and try to travel thru it as fast as possible. Getting those 3 stars (100 coins, a-maze-ing emergency exit and navigating the toxic maze) took me days cause I was just to scared. Now I play the level as easy but something in me still refuses. ok, im sorry lol

[@JacobAdamson165]

Pannenkoek you should seriously think about streaming on twitch. I'd love to watch it and I bet a lot of your subs would too.

[@kingboo6128]

Incredibly impressive!

[@Carsonist]

Man, that last jump was ridonk.

[@pannenkoek2012]

carsonist frere You're telling me. It took ~2 hours just to get the second swooper into the right position at the right time!

[@Draxis32]

3:45 Me: Lol, what's going on.... 3:52 NOT A FUCKING CHANCE. NOT A FUCKING CHANCE.

[@tobi5490]

The sound at the slowmotion XD

[@brianpso]

The masterpiece

[@pannenkoek2012]

Oh yeah, you follow the keok channel, so now you can see how the techniques come together!

[@brianpso]

Exactly dude! I watch step by step because sometimes, when I see just the final product, I can't acknowledge how much effort and thought was necessary to come up with these crazy strats. So watching every little improvement makes me recognize the sheer awesomeness present in these videos.

[@pannenkoek2012]

brianpso I'm glad you enjoy watching my progress! By having 2 channels, I can effectively appeal to a wider audience, since both people who only want to see the final product and people who want to see every step of progress can both be satisfied!

[@Ultimaximus]

brianpso That's why I'm thinking about making a "documentary video" when the final TASes are made, about the development of all these tricks, with links to the original videos. That way, viewers who haven't been following ABC history and pannenkoek's research can understand just how much reverse-engineering and time went into certain optimisations, which are sometimes only even a single second

[@brianpso]

Woah! That's would be just amazing dude! I'd certainly love to see this kind of video =D

[@Brainhorn]

It's impressive, to be sure, but why tho

[@pannenkoek2012]

"Finally, I’d like to answer a question that I’ve been getting since the beginning, which is: Why? Why play the game with limited functionality? What’s the point of executing these complicated techniques when a simple A press would accomplish the same thing? Well, the answer is because it’s fun and interesting! Super Mario 64 has been a game that I’ve loved since my childhood, but over time the challenge of collecting the stars became too easy. So what’s left to do in the game after that? Well, invent your own challenges! If collecting the stars is too easy, then why not impose restrictions to make it harder? People have devised several of these challenges, such as: not pressing A, not pressing B, not pressing Z, not pressing any buttons, not pressing the joystick, not opening any cannons, not activating any caps, not collecting any coins, not touching the ground, even not having Mario make a sound. By imposing a restriction, it forces you to think in new and creative ways in order to find workarounds. That star that’s usually so trivial to collect? Now it requires an unintuitive and complex route that would have never been used otherwise. Out of all of the challenges, I find the A button challenge to be the most interesting, in that it has the most potential for creative workarounds. After all, the A button’s primary purpose is to jump. Since the programmers intended for Mario to jump during every mission, this means nearly every star will require some workaround. Furthermore, jumping is such a simple maneuver that many things can function as a substitute depending on the situation, which allows for a great diversity in creative workarounds. Lastly, the desire to save A presses has been beneficial for SM64 as a whole. That’s because in order to save A presses, new glitches have been discovered and certain game mechanics has been understood better, and these findings carry over to other areas of SM64 as well."

[@reeosva]

+Brainhorn honestly the answer to your question is pretty much the same of this 'why does one play the game'. I mean you have to press lots of buttons in order to watch the ending scene. It just happens to be fun, so he does

[@patrickbateman5298]

+Brainhorn Come back to AiE, it's gone to shit but it's fun to laugh at.

[@Brainhorn]

Patrick Bateman Eh I'm done with all that. Even if I do start writing again I won't go to AiE for it.

[@patrickbateman5298]

***** Don't, just watch it all go to shit. Look it was this or call you "Henry."

[@kikkibergen]

5:19 the sound at the end sounds just like "wiggler squirm"

[@ledraps22]

+Sean RobinsonJR in an early video game like this, you probably want to save memory by using the same sound but just pitch shifting it, or speeding it up, to reuse it

[@rutabaga9863]

Pretty sure Bowser's laugh is just Boo's laugh slowed down.

[@axylorionfredrick]

It is.

[@Redeem_Honor]

You never cease to amaze me.

[@lSuperMario88l]

Considering how much work he put I couldn't not press like

[@notchmath9642]

Wow, first time someone used a double negative correctly :D

[@PlushSM64]

Fun fact: doesn't save any A press for both any% and 120 stars

[@MrPyt1001]

Why?

[@RainShinotsu]

pannenkoek2012 said once that once you collect this star, you have to die your way out.

[@chlorobyte]

it does. you can just exit course and get another star, then save. then it counts.

[@MegaDardery]

R Ryan J Strobach Actually, that's because it can be already done with Elevate for 8 Red coins star using only 1 press (they require 2 if done on their own, but combined, they only require 1).

[@pannenkoek2012]

It's not that the star doesn't save, it's that Mario can't do anything else in the course at the end of the video - he can't escape the maze without any swoopers left. So he'd have to just let himself die, then re-enter the course to do more stuff. Probably shouldn't exit out, or it would be a hassle to get back into the course using a second MIPS star dance clip.

[@warhammernerd52Daxx-Lorenzo898]

*Flatulence Gas Maze*

[@mla96]

Amazing work! That's one more button down!

[@ashketchup7354]

No parallel universes needed!

[@OMGreeni]

you're insane. i'm in aw

[@thelovelypenguin]

Gosh, how do you figure some of this stuff out? It's amazing!

[@ShadG]

Really cool!

[@EricFrock]

Regardless of how much pressure you apply to the button, it's still being pressed. Every time you apply force on the A button, it's considered being pressed.

[@pannenkoek2012]

Eric Frock That's true, except I don't press A in this video.

[@rojorum2433]

+pannenkoek2012 so 0 x a presses literally means no a presses also you are really awesome and so cool one day I hope I am as good as you doing stuff like this🙏

[@cheatyhotbeef2636]

They don't call him Mario Jumpman Mario for nothing!

[@MetaKnight68]

Yeaaah!

[@Irapotato]

hey pannenkoek, another ridiculously video. i have a question about TASing: i have a decent gaming rig, and I've been thinking about getting into SM:sunshine TASing. is doing a TAS in a gamecube emulator exponentially more power and resource hungry than doing an N64 one? it's interesting, but if it requires a $5000 rig to do i'll probably be SOL.

[@crescentwolf7072]

Just starting to realize how creepy sounds from SM64 can be if you slow them down to certain points.

[@alisiaale565]

Lol!

[@somethingtheoneandonly]

@@alisiaale565 Lol!

[@alisiaale565]

@@somethingtheoneandonly, it's funny how you replied to my comment so late that you literally just replied when I don't even play SM64 anymore (temporarely). Lol!

[@old__h]

1:31 is amazing

[@Ultimaximus]

Niiiiice!! Also great ending

[@mla96]

Just have a question. Now that you know that Goomba trick in tiny huge island, can you use that to eliminate the 5 jumps you need to get into the level from the big painting?

[@vitorlucas6196]

Realmente, as partes em câmera lenta foram as mais impressionantes.

[@RektarFamilyFriendly]

I have an idea, why not speedrun? You may say that you can't but think about this, you go through the thing super fast already, and you even do pixel-perfect camera spasm glitches just to pass the time.

[@pannenkoek2012]

RektarFamilyFriendly Because I'm interested in the A Button Challenge, not speed running;.

[@RektarFamilyFriendly]

pannenkoek2012 I respect your decision but, could you at least slap a timer on the challenge?

[@slowfreq]

RektarFamilyFriendly there's a timer at the bottom of the video, bucko

[@RektarFamilyFriendly]

He speeds it up at one point, bucko.

[@CMCABALLERO1985]

Ohhh wonderfull TAS. ....

[@FranciscoFJM]

5:19 oh look, its another recycled sound.

[@patrickbateman5298]

An A press is an A press, you can't say it's only...wait a second, I got QPU misaligned.

[@ADubiiousTask]

optimal as fuck

[@jackkoshel4915]

I wanna watch Bowser fights.

[@NXeta]

LOL the music at the end sounds like horror

[@manesto92]

The question that I ask myself is if Mario is not preprogrammed

[@SmashSSL]

Hazy mazy bizarre cave

[@lukesanford9026]

Yea yea, this is cool and all. But now we wanna see you beat the whole game with 0x A presses. Or whatever is the minimum, I really don't know

[@slowfreq]

iirc the minimum is 1, because in bitfs you need 1 a button press to get off of the pole in the middle, and there's no way around it that we know of yet

[@MegaDardery]

1xA is the minimum, It's just so freaking close! The A press is in Bowser in the Fire sea, to jump off the pole.

[@lukesanford9026]

slowfreq​ Megadardery​ has anyone done it yet? And is that all stars?

[@OmnipotentEntity]

Luke Sanford That's 70 stars. And no one's put it together yet, because ABC routes are still being examined.

[@pannenkoek2012]

Luke Sanford Go to the ABC Routes link at the bottom of the description.

[@notchmath9642]

How do you kill those first eyeballs?

[@pannenkoek2012]

I run around them.

[@notchmath9642]

I know, I mean that how do you stay on the platform. Also, I think that to kill the mystery goomba you could hold a bobomb in say occupied slot 9, have the goomba spawner 9n OS10, then have the bobomb die while keep holding OS9 and the spawner moves into it?

[@SireneKalypso]

But you have to press A when you come out of the tummy slide.....

[@littleawesomeapple]

You can press B.

[@owlflame]

Is the entire 120 star minimal A button press video up anywhere?

[@pannenkoek2012]

owlflame It's currently only a theoretical route. Since A presses have been saved repeatedly over the past several months, it would be unwise to make a video while there are still potential improvements to make, which would outdate the video.

[@owlflame]

pannenkoek2012 Oh. I wanna see it someday. I think it's completely insane what you do with this game. But I'm so interested.

[@LiamBrownisAmazingDragon]

+owlflame It'd probably also take days to complete.

[@owlflame]

Liam Brown I can live with that.

[@lemon3389]

+pannenkoek2012 do you think it's possible to do the entire 120stars without having to press A once?

[@aTastyT0ast]

What the fuck. Well played

[@supershenanigans9211]

Are you planning on making a 70 star no A button TAS?

[@pannenkoek2012]

Super shenanigans Eventually, yes.

[@supershenanigans9211]

pannenkoek2012 Wow dude, that's awesome. I remember a while back when I watched someone do 20 stars with no A button. It's hard to think that over 70 stars can be done without the A button.

[@pannenkoek2012]

Oh wait, I misread "no A button" as "minimal A button". The 70 star route currently takes 1 A press, but of course we're looking for ways to reduce that.

[@supershenanigans9211]

pannenkoek2012 Which star requires the 1 A button?

[@pannenkoek2012]

Read about it in the ABC Routes link at the bottom of the description.

[@anzo.7806]

Well gg

[@Glockenspheal]

I'm...

[@lowercasejoblo]

what is the total 120 star A presses now ?

[@pannenkoek2012]

You can always find out by clicking the ABC Routes link at the bottom the description. Currently it's 57, but it's expected to decrease significantly in the next couple weeks ;)

[@pannenkoek2012]

Funny you say that. Here's a graph I made a couple weeks ago: i.imgur.com/haDfcRY.png

[@lowercasejoblo]

pannenkoek2012 I tough you were at 56 now since on your google doc it say that your at 57 A presses !( docs.google.com/document/d/1ypRVVRyf4x-v8GqCSmKYnicrfKSIjao3Y1ZVl52RIyM/edit#heading=h.fp7vicdxet1b)

[@pannenkoek2012]

Why would saying 57 mean 56?

[@lowercasejoblo]

missclick :P

[@shadowtoons7416]

TJ "HENRY" YOSHI

[@monsieurturtlebits7283]

wow and I think this mission sucks even with pressing A.

[@PlushSM64]

...

[@LuKFenix]

Viciado é foda

[@Israel220500]

Como você sabe que ele é viciado?

[@LuKFenix]

Israel Silvino Melo Batista pelas manhas e manobras ultra hardcore que ele fez.

[@Israel220500]

Isso não quer dizer que ele é viciado, só quer dizer que tem muita habilidade e passa um bom tempo jogando SM64.

[@ihaveanamenowbutitsnotvery1937]

I broke the A button on my N64 controller

[@kirjian]

well now you dont have to use your a button to clear this challenge!

[@CananaMan]

;-; I haven't played SM64 OR paper mario yet, even though my two favorite channels (not counting odd1sout) both play them

[@Epicspacecow]

the fuck did i just watch

[@extremelypessimistic1977]

undrr 20 views

[@picklehead9541]

Absolutely NOT first

[@NihilistSolitude]

Dat timing

[@creeperfriendlyhugs]

u r 2 pro

[@superpancakebros.8962]

creeperfriendlyhugs It's a TAS

[@Patralgan]

Super Pancake Bros. He's still very much a pro