The Speedrunning Mechanics of Animal Crossing

[@CelloGamerMatt]

Speedrunning Animal Crossing is the equivalent of speedrunning real life if you had the power of time

[@KubickQ]

not the equivalent, just is

[@htaukk]

then you could just change time to when you die?

[@user-vw4xp5nt9f]

rng manipulate the stock market by obtaining your real life seed

[@Kyrfuffle]

i mean, if you had the power to manipulate time, you'd probably want to play around with it and see what you could accomplish in "record time"

[@lucyakaluckstat]

Dio?

[@Toonrick12]

Resetting? Your whole town?! You're going to get some very strongly worded letters from a certain mole with this.

[@Mogswamp]

I actually feel like Animal Crossing and Minecraft are both surprisingly good speedrunning games *because* of all the RNG. On the surface level, lots of RNG seems bad for speedrunning. But I feel like it kind of makes runners have to become expert decision makers, knowing what to do in a million different scenarios. Knowing how to recognize rare generation and then capitalize on it. It's honestly a better test of someone's real skill at the game compared to games with extremely specific routes that never vary at all.

[@Hunter-R.]

True! It’s definitely a different type of skill for sure. A lot of pre-routed speedruns are about muscle memory and execution, whereas more RNG-based speedruns value adaptability and general game knowledge. Both have a place, but I’m sure there’s been more than a handful of times where runners wished RNG was more favorable. 😅

[@user-ju6gb5yb5q]

Wild mogswamp spotted! Love your superflat series!

[@mythik4840]

As an FF9 speedrunner (a very long game with hefty amounts of RNG almost literally everywhere), you are very true. Another aspect of it, too, is the viewer experience - nowadays, most speedruns are streamed to a live audience, and viewers absolutely love it when a particularly RNG-heavy segment goes either really right OR really wrong. Of course, games mainly focused on execution are hype too, but there's a certain magic that they don't necessarily capture when compared to high-RNG games where you can get a string of great OR terrible luck. Of course, getting your run instantly killed 8.5 hours deep due to a 100% scripted boss mechanic with random rolls sucks, but the viewers love it (sometimes). :)

[@MikaruLearo]

Animal Crossing: Bogo Sort Edition... where the sorting is actually map generation.

[@WilbosWorld]

I've always wondered why the tape deck duplication glitch worked. This is the first time I've heard it explained! Great video!

[@meowmeowmortbird]

I know it must take a while to add all the closed captions, but I hope you know that we really appreciate it!! :)

[@ChaosUnown]

I can’t imagine how brutal finding a town is for speedrunning is, but personally I find randomly resetting to see what kind of town layout I get to be pretty exciting and enjoyable in a casual sense.

[@eXtremeLink859]

BrianMp16 is the GOAT. dude's been around forever and is still consistently maintaining and pushing forward the Animal Crossing GC speedrunning scene. his challenge videos are a serious treat to watch and I highly recommend people check them out.

[@pishagerudo]

SPEEDRUNNING? ANIMAL CROSSING? HUNTER R VIDEO? THIS IS APPEALING TO EVERY ASPECT OF MY AUTISM

[@clementpruvost8670]

Same here, in every case!

[@ItsMeChair1]

Bro my adhd is popping off right now

[@pikacringe]

Autistic euphoria 🤤

[@ThenamesC]

FR

[@WhitbombBS]

My autism is happy happy joyful

[@MadamLava094]

[Summoning Salt music starts] "I will not be covering individual runners nor the speedrun progression itself" [Summoning Salt music stops]

[@Lunascaped]

I've always wondered why placing something ontop of a radio would respawn it. Thats a really interesting strategy to hold items for other uses!

[@nj8833]

What religion do I need to join to make a 60+ minute summoning salt world record history of animal crossing video happen

[@FlyingRaccoon-v9z]

Catholicism technically

[@RareSun]

It's probably easier to reverse engineer this entire game than to speedrun it

[@MisterPancake778]

Someone needs to make a IRL student/mortgage loan speedrun tips guide.

[@SforSamPlays]

If you find one let me know

[@redwidow1358]

Be born with rich parents, reset immediately upon gaining enough awareness of the world to realize you were not born to a multi-millionaire family. That's basically the strat.

[@gyroninjamodder]

​@@redwidow1358if you can reset you might as well find a way to transfer money from your previous life. That will be a more consistent strat since some rich parents may not want to support their kid like that.

[@cecillewolters1995]

Those guides are called books :p I recommend ‘Think and grow rich’ and ‘Rich dad poor dad’

[@25cats]

step 1: have rich parents, if you don’t you got an unlucky rng seed but restarting is not advisable

[@stonesword1844]

you've kept coincidentally releasing videos when i'm drunk (like 4 times at least and i don't even drink that often) that now with ur last video i pavolvian instinct drank whenever your video showed up on my feed. it's st patrick's day weekend so i was already drunk when this dropped (i go to a party school so st. patrick's is a whole weekend + friday) and it happened AGAIN with this video. cheers man

[@stonesword1844]

oh also i like ur videos very cool vibes

[@Hunter-R.]

Cheers mate! Stay safe! 🍻

[@gregoryhouldsworth2189]

I would love, love, LOVE to see a video from you detailing the game's town-generating system in depth. I want to know what all the possible acres are like, and I want to create random towns of my own!

[@xdanic3]

There are save editors that allow you to modify the map but there is some (very basic) rules you must follow, at least on the DS version like a wall acre on each side, a beach one on the bottom and the gate shouldn't be on the corner but in one of the middle north sides. There's also acres for the ponds and depenging on your luck, the river can have a bridge or not, for example you could only have one bridge in the whole town I believe. I remember when I first played the game on my DS on an original cartridge I had an island in the middle, but I restarted to get a different player and lost it, I tried to reset it lots of times unlucky thinking each copy was unique and would probably have few number of maps. Now I know that tool exist and got some relief knowing that is posible to get something I kinda like, but my original map is lost forever :(

[@Mage_Nichlas_]

Japan Eat is a real one.

[@annagarlicjaws]

I love watching your videos because they’re interesting and informative, but I also love watching them for the footage of the GameCube Animal Crossing in HD. It’s so CRISPY

[@spoopdeewoop8959]

I love the cozy vibe of ur content, the grayscale grass pattern in the back, the soft transitions and music choice! :D

[@hoffer_moment]

yesss my addiction to this channel's content continues

[@theroaringnoodle]

i never played animal crossing. but man. your videos are captivating about it, and dont take this in the wrong way, they are great to run in the background and crunch work or fall asleep to :D

[@Kajssbm]

You should have WAYYY more subscribers imo. 38k is not enough for the effort you put into these.

[@sav3133]

He had way less subscribers when I first subscribed to him; his channel is definitely growing.

[@iwantpogClassic]

If Animal then only Crossing🔥🔥🔥

[@Cliffordlonghead]

U are the true first person

[@amanda_bynes226]

​@@Cliffordlongheadincorrect

[@Cliffordlonghead]

​@@amanda_bynes226RIGHT CRIMINAL BOT U DISQUALIFIED

[@DespOIcito]

@@amanda_bynes226 its the first real comment which isnt just "lol xd first" shit

[@amanda_bynes226]

@@DespOIcito but that was me tho lol

[@MrMegaManFan]

Wait … @JapanEat is a patron?! That’s freaking awesome!!

[@sapphirenick4171]

Though I have never played a lot of animal crossing, let alone the game cube version, this game still reminds me of my childhood. I've watched every video of yours multiple times now and am still regularly returning to them. Already eagerly awaiting the next one!

[@rockrheadHD]

Imagine a movie about this - a team of people who created an alternate reality and all of them are constantly trying to do X in that reality the fastest haha. Might actually write a book about that... Lets see Great video! Really interesting. I already figured that animal crossing speedruns existed but i never really thought about it. Nice to find out a bit about that scene. Keep it up!

[@CheesyLizzy]

13:32 Oh woah I love Japan Eat! They have a lot of cool videos about Japan restaurants 😄

[@scrunkykat]

brianmp16 is the goat.. i love watchin his streams. i was in during his WR 100% run and was just chatting with him while he was busy resetting loads of times. it was rly interesting to learn abt the run from him :3

[@wolvertox311]

I’d love to hear you cover more of the speedrun/challenge community Great video btw

[@joeds_]

I never knew there’s a duck shaped lake in the game. 2:32

[@octosaurinvasion]

YES I'm so glad this video is about the mechanics. This is the interesting part & I'm glad I don't have to sift through fluff about history that's always the same to find it.

[@aprilnya]

13:31 Japan Eat from youtube shorts?!?!?!?

[@Hunter-R.]

I was also surprised! Very nice person as well. 🙂

[@kingbrettpro]

I'm honestly surprised that no one has made any hacks for this game, and I'm not talking about a translation hack for the Japanese exclusive e+ version either, I'm talking about hacking the game in general. Like replacing the built-in NES Emulator with much better NES emulators or text editing or even changing the AI of every insect in the game and how often they should appear.

[@Hunter-R.]

There are a ton of Action Replay (AR) codes, but I'm not sure if you would count those as true hacks. AR codes can still accomplish things like noclip, disabling Resetti, spawning fish/bugs, etc. True modifications to the game, such as actual additions and features are slowly becoming more of a reality though!

[@KARLOSPCgame]

Inserting all of new leaf into the GC version, oh boi

[@ssl3546]

The emulator is terrific other than wonky sound support on FDS games.

[@kingbrettpro]

@@ssl3546 It'd be even more terrific if it could run unlicensed NES games like Big Nose the Caveman and homebrew NES games.

[@joemkdd]

that kind of stuff will begin to pop up more often as the game's code gets decompiled further. currently there isn't a whole lot to make a huge mod for the game

[@chompythebeast]

JapanEat? Bro really _does_ love AC Loved this rundown, thanks Hunter

[@nimkiibineshi24049]

CUTE SIMPLE BACKGROUNDS? CUSTOM ANIME PFP? WEIRD VIKING HATS? THIS VIDEO IS TRIGGERING MY IBS

[@HarryDoesTech]

Hey I just wanted to say I find your videos interesting! Keep up the good work :D

[@mina9e]

AC speedruns are basically an extreme sport

[@beeshrooms]

Have you considered doing a video on how items for sale at Nook's store work? Like, how does it decide every day? Does it have a function (like a list of stuff sold recently maybe?) to prevent selling the same thing multiple days in a row, or are there merely enough furniture and items in the game that it's really unlikely to repeat the same furniture/items two days in a row?

[@verve1858]

I love Hunter. This is the highest form of praise. Congratulations.

[@TheButterMage703]

About the radio, does any sort of strange behaviour occur when you play music with objects that aren't songs on top of them? Like it playing glitched music or something?

[@ElliotTheInvertebrate]

WE NEED A HUNTER R FAN CLUB GROUP Fr tho Your videos are what get me through the week Been here since day uno Love the channel

[@littlemac5942]

i love how he talks about 4 minutes wile at 4:36, 4 minutes in the video

[@shovelclaws]

oh hell yes, been waiting on this video from you not gonna lie

[@izzy3550]

i almost always have to watch these videos twice because the 5pm music just distracts me and im just jamming

[@dannyboots]

Town generation! I was wondering how it all worked

[@WohaoG]

Imagine resetting towns for 5 hours only to mess something up so bad it'll cost you the run.

[@AlternateHoney]

Love the new profile!

[@UnexpectedGamer7]

Never thought I'd hear the words "Animal Crossing" and "speedrun" in the same sentence

[@e-mananimates2274]

I can't even begin to imagine planning a 100% Animal Crossing speedrun...

[@kirkolain]

Idk how to say it but ur talk is so fucking good compared to any other voiceover explanation video. Its apparently surprising and refreshing to find someone that doesnt talk like chills

[@LukeMerolaa]

I've just come across ur channel. I've been playing the series since the first new leaf drop, ur channel is highly addictive. New Sub keep it up dude. road to 100k 😎

[@raku9794]

I thought the previous video I watched was the last one before going to sleep, but here I am :D

[@LadyUsername]

Babe wake up new hunter r video dropped

[@alixd3312]

I was like "oh now i wanna watch an animal crossing speenrun" then at the end of the video i saw the world record being at 16 h and said "nevermind😀"

[@PutnamentalAnimation]

The stereo considering items on top of it as music is fascinating. I always wondered why the item never despawned, but now it makes sense. What happens if you interact with the stereo? Surely it doesn't consider the item an actual song? Is there any way to "turn off" an item like the autumn medal from the stereo's "playlist" without pocketing both the item and the stereo?

[@cecillewolters1995]

I might use the fish and bugs sheets for the golden tools. Not for speedrunning, I just have never seen some bugs in my multi year save such as the fast dragonfly

[@starfox.64]

summoning salt would be proud

[@aleos_underscore]

First I started viewing Hunter's videos by curiosity, now I own 2 copies of Animal Crossing Gamecube and play them every days on my Wii. (Real fact) Thanks Hunter R ! Also, as a non-english speaker, subtitles are very appreciated !

[@Hunter-R.]

That’s so cool to hear, thank you so much! Recording your gameplay is awesome, too! The game is really special and I wish I had some footage of my town and villagers from when I first played. Hope to see you around for future uploads! 😄

[@InsaneFirebat]

Where can I find more info on the memory card column of the leaderboard? Never heard of any differences in memory cards before.

[@-kenik9629]

3:45 I must have had some wild luck then. I thought my game froze when I made my second towm because the black screen lasted for a bit.

[@Get.Pwned619]

Broooo how did u get that high quality ACGC?? Also this run by Dolphin Emulator?

[@inanee_]

You should make a video on how you get your game to look as good as it does! Or even a community post!

[@Hunter-R.]

Links for this are in the description of every video. 🥳

[@inanee_]

@@Hunter-R.well shoot, thank you !

[@ursamajo.r]

Japan Eat is a Hunter R. fan 🗣️🗣️

[@ilexdiapason]

the idea that in gc ac you could only put THREE THINGS in a storage unit is wild to me, and ive been playing since wild world so i know about not having as much storage as new horizons

[@tunegirl203]

Animal Crossing without background music is spooky. One time i loaded in New Horizons and the game wasn't loading items in properly and was extremely laggy. Then suddenly the background music switched off and i couldn't play. I fixed my island by turning my switch off then on but i don't know what was causing this glitch.

[@WacherHinovatorOfficial]

Nice Video!

[@camonophy]

I'm not even a Animal Crossing Fan, but here I am, watching every video of you 😊

[@lemon_robot]

K.K. Slider in the first seconds Awesome

[@QuiGonJoe]

aminal crosig

[@mcrarburger]

yes

[@Kat21]

aminal crosig

[@bubby-fi9mc]

My ass thought this was Dumbsville

[@mythrix5565]

Kracc bacc on his way to revolutionize comedy on March 13th 2020:

[@dog8668]

spid runn

[@SynthCI]

Speedrunners always put their full Animal Crussy into their runs

[@HonestPickleball]

ayo

[@TheLimboOfTheLost]

What's going on with that town map you show on screen around 4:25? It looks like an invalid layout.

[@Hunter-R.]

It is indeed very invalid. The clip is actually from when I forced the map to look like that to get footage of the "invalid" town near 2:50. Sorry if it's a bit misleading, but yea you won't ever see a map like that legitimately.

[@TheLimboOfTheLost]

@@Hunter-R. Not really misleading, I was just curious. Thanks for explaining!

[@jane5886]

Man I will never play AC, but like autism content goes brrrrrrr

[@highfiveshighfives4980]

So like Mario sunshine and OOT they start the speedrun timer after the intros. Why doesn’t animal crossing do that? They should have a speedrun category that has a set seed. Make the game more enjoyable to speedrun in my opinion

[@Hunter-R.]

It's a bit different with Animal Crossing since, unlike Sunshine and OoT, the game doesn't start the same every time. Similar to unseeded Minecraft speedruns, the game itself is inherently RNG-based. I can't imagine Animal Crossing having an easy way to run a set seed on console without doing something like injecting a save onto your memory card every run...

[@thetechconspiracy2]

@@Hunter-R. I know a lot of the Pokemon speedruns manipulate RNG at the beginning of the game by setting the clock to a specific value, if Animal Crossing doesn't rely on any unique IDs for the initial RNG state (console serial, etc.), it would be possible to have runs that have a specific town layout, similar to fixed-seed Minecraft.

[@highfiveshighfives4980]

And by set seed I meant set town layout. The same optimal town that could be used each run. But you would have to have a modified version of animal crossing @Hunter-R.

[@renakunisaki]

You could use a premade save file right at the beginning. You'd just need to edit it to remove the "disable copy" flag.

[@ZipplyZane]

If there's an issue with the black screen at the actual start of the game, it would seem to me that it would make sense to not start timing until after that. That way the randomness doesn't matter.

[@harveywallbanger]

So a diaper/bucket is the essential Tom Nook reward for a true 100% speed run 🤔

[@2GlitchinAwesome]

Never played this game.. but having ONE MILLION PLUS in debt at the start of the game is insane!!!

[@ignatiousmary8413]

Speedrunning is very fun. I wish I could play the Original Animal Crossing, but I don't have a Gamecube. I do have Wild World on a DS emulator.

[@xavvvvxd]

Hello! I really enjoy your videos! I was wondering if you could start a Discord server so your viewers can discuss your videos/technical AC. I find your videos very interesting, so it would be great to discuss it with people.

[@gamexdifficulty-games9652]

Hey there I would love to see a 100% speedrun video or livesteam for a 100k special :D

[@ZipplyZane]

Is there a run that doesn't use Nook codes? That kinda feels similar to entering in cheat codes. I felt the same about using Amiibo. I'm not saying that make the run invalid or anything. Just thatI would hope there are runs that don't do this, that have to earn all Bells in-game.

[@gamesandsuchwithalex9168]

Idea for 100%: Do it on the toilet to save time

[@taurasg]

Are you planning to cover the technicalities of later Animal Crossing games any time soon?

[@Slash0mega]

wait, so, if user generated codes are allowed... can you use custom e-reader cards?

[@Hunter-R.]

No, custom e-Reader cards are banned from all categories. The reasoning is that e-Reader cards were never designed to be modifiable, whereas Nook Codes were left in the game purposefully for players to trade items with. I guess the logic is that custom Nook Codes exploits the game's mechanics, whereas modifying e-Reader cards constitutes external modification outside of the game.

[@Slash0mega]

@@Hunter-R. eh, seems like flakey reasoning to me. i mean, it doesn't seem like they are using a glitched save file to generate those codes, rather using a generator to get a ascii in that can not appear in gameplay. could be wrong on that though, there could be a control code in name glitch i am unaware of... probably better for the runs meta all the same admittedly... allowing cards might just turn the run into "who can scan cards the fastest," (though i would love to see how fast the game can be completed with cards XD)

[@Hunter-R.]

@@Slash0mega A further thing to note is that allowing custom e-Reader cards also requires players obtaining a GameBoy, a link cable, an official e-Reader, a modern printer with decent printing DPI, and high quality glossy photo paper to actually print physical cards. So, it’s also probably done to not make competitive runs be super expensive for players.

[@thetoastedsoup]

Video idea: reviewing animal crossing's beta maps

[@Sonictheoofhog4]

what if we speedran getting nes super mario bros and then speedrunned super mario bros in animal crossing

[@user-vw4xp5nt9f]

**very rough** estimate of 75 resets for that run!

[@Hunter-R.]

Yea, Brian actually mentions in his run that he reset 65 times before finding an actual town to run... 😭

[@METALMAN4Wii]

Getting all the Fossils is pure luck.

[@chadmasta5]

Wait does that mean you could interact with the radio and remove the autumn medal through the song menu?

[@catholiccontriversy]

3:50 bruh, speed running is measured in frames a lot of the time. 1 second is an eternity and the difference between world record and a ruined run.

[@Giftyfox]

Out of curiosity, are you able to attempt to "play" furniture that exists on layer 3 above a tape deck, as if it were a song?

[@Hunter-R.]

No. The radio detects that a furniture item is “loaded” into it, but turning on the radio doesn’t play anything.

[@KaidenAC]

I didn't know how the disable music Nook codes worked, what are the other things you can do with the control command character?

[@Hunter-R.]

You can change text colors, disable music, change the music, set your luck state, trigger player/villager reactions, spit back a random number, change text speed, and change voice tones… among other smaller things. Those are just the most interesting ones!

[@KaidenAC]

​@@Hunter-R. Ah OK, cool! Thanks.

[@aceae4210]

I don;t know if this is the proper place but I wonder what happens if you places a storage wardrobe in layer 2 instead of layer 1 and try and fill it up fully as the explanation given is that it uses the 3 "layers" above it to hold the items and we can place items in layer 2 it would need a layer 5 or something

[@Hunter-R.]

The items on layer 2 cannot be interacted with. So while you can put a storage unit on layer 2, you can't interact with it to fill it up and get an overflow or something. Same goes for the radio.

[@aceae4210]

@@Hunter-R.ah thanks the info

[@stonedboglin]

what software you use to make this? love the content and been following for a couple months now, i cant satisfy my urge to know the brains of games

[@romajimamulo]

Please tell me the community has suggested starting timing on first rover dialogue input to remove generator RNG

[@TownDarling]

I’m really surprised that runners don’t have a post-intro shared save or something similar. The map resetting sounds like hell.

[@vaultassassin]

Hey Hunter, I had a question. Back in my Wild World days I would use Action Replay to create seeds that I would use to decorate my town. They were anything from trees to entire buildings. Are these in Animal Crossing GameCube as well? And if so, are there universal codes for them? I’d love to drop a tree wherever I want despite it being in a dead spot.

[@Hunter-R.]

You can use AR codes and memory editing software to fill your inventory with placeable trees, buildings, etc. But you can't do this with Nook Codes, so you'll need some external modification to get the items in your inventory. You can do this semi-legitimately by creating custom e-Reader data corresponding to certain item/actor IDs, which I have a video discussing already. Otherwise you'll need to use a memory editor or write your own AR codes to do so.

[@vaultassassin]

@@Hunter-R. Thanks for the info! It seems making an e-reader card would be the best way, then, since Action Replay is worth so much nowadays.

[@beardalaxy]

Could there ever be a tool made, perhaps a mod or code of some kind, that allows runners to see the town that has been generated before visiting it? Seems like that would save a lot of headache if it were possible.

[@Hunter-R.]

Yes, it's been developed already recently by a guy named JustinDM. However, it isn't allowed in runs because it requires reading the game's memory on the train which would involve console hacking.

[@beardalaxy]

@@Hunter-R. dang, that's a bummer. i guess it's not quite the same as the stalk market calculator since you have to manually input values on there.

[@Essman614]

So the trick to running 100% is to set up in your bathroom got it

[@Wookis]

holy shit speedrunning???? i clicked on this so fast lmao

[@PRT95]

I had a suspicion you'd talk about BrianMp16, aka the main speedrunner of GCN Animal Crossing, in this video. Wouldn't make sense otherwise.