Friday, December 25, 2015

Super Mario Bros and the Elusive 4:57

Hello all, and Merry Christmas!

I have been trying to reorganize a bit and maintain a consistent schedule lately. I haven't had much time, but relaxing tonight, I felt like doing a small write-up. Just a few days ago, I managed to achieve my personal best time for completing Super Mario Bros. The end time for that run was 4 minutes and 57.993 seconds. It is actually personally significant for me, and I'm going to explain why below.


For a very long time, a time under 4:58 was my ultimate end goal. The kind of optimization needed to achieve a 4:57 time was a very worthy challenge, and I was determined to be the one to do it. It was the dream time, and many people would ask me whether I really thought I could achieve the perfect time, a nearly unbeatable time, and something that would possibly stand forever.

The Bowser Axe Jump



With my best efforts, I got my time down to 4:58.09 roughly 2 years ago. Shortly after, I took a break, and the 4:57 remained elusive. However, a few months later, a 4:57 time was achieved (by Blubbler) with the help of a technique I foolishly considered unreasonable. This trick (bullet bill glitch) saved 0.7 seconds, which is a huge amount of time for the run. It was still an amazing feat, but the game now has plenty of room for optimization.

The Bullet Bill Glitch




The human limit time for the game is around 4:57 flat. Achieving a time under 4:57 is now within the realm of possibility, something I previously deemed absolutely impossible. With that in mind, in addition to my recent efforts on the game, I am convinced I will reach a low 4:57 (if not the "impossible" time of 4:56). The 4:56 time still remains outside of the limit we have established, but only by mere frames. Because of this, I am determined to find a way to realistically achieve a 4:56 time. With the optimization of this game seemingly approaching its definite limits, it will certainly be tough to find any further savings to the game, but I am not deterred...

And I will one day have total mastery of Super Mario Bros.


Saturday, December 12, 2015

Twitch and Speedruns!

Alright, so I'm officially back to doing speedrun attempts. I'm now actively doing attempts for Super Mario Bros. any% (that is, fastest possible completion).

My current time stands at just under 5 minutes at 4:58.09. The current world record time is 4:57.62 by a runner named Darbian. So my time is a little under half a second (0.47) slower than the record. Since I am one of the top competitors, I feel the need to give a little background info regarding how the game itself works. Technical details in bold, ignore if you'd like!


From when you turn on the NES, there are these 21 frame cycles that continuously run. Due to this, one can only save time in 21 frame (0.35 second) intervals

From Scott Kessler: "Think of it like a window at the end of a level that is only open every 21 frames  Say you have two separate runs where you reach the window on the 50th time it opens. If you arrive just after it closes the 49th time then you have to wait 20 frames for it to open the 50th time. If you get there just as it opens the 50th time then you can enter without waiting even though you arrived up to 20 frames later. Generally speaking, you can only save time in multiples of 21 frames (0.35 seconds)."

The above is true with the exception of the final stage because we obviously stop the timer immediately upon hitting the axe and beating the game. 


Summary: The current world record can only be improved by 21 frames (0.35 seconds) in 4-2 + ~12 frames (0.2 seconds) in 8-4. Realistically, and as far as we know, there's only a little over half a second worth of improvement left in the game.



My goal is to achieve a "perfect" run. I would like to beat every stage with perfect in-game times in addition to getting every single frame rule. I guess I'd say my ultimate goal is a time of 4:56, but as of now, that is very unrealistic. However, that won't stop me from trying!

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Andrewg, Are You Still Speedrunning?

After a hiatus from speedrunning, I am finally back at it! So here's what's up!

1) I just purchased a new laptop and capture card
I don't usually make large purchases. What this basically means is that I'm going to try to stream speedruns regularly on Twitch again. I am going to be spending the next few weeks trying to improve my stream and make sure things work properly. I am sick of having many stream issues, and my hope is that these purchases will bring an end to my many streaming problems.

2) I got a full time job
I'm finally making a little bit of income, and have a consistent schedule. I am currently working a second part time job, but plan to leave it in January 2016. Once I leave that job, my schedule will be open for more gaming, etc.

3) I moved a few towns over
While this isn't a big change, it means that I'll have a bit more flexibility in my life. The area is much nicer, and I'm really happy to have moved out of my home town finally. 

So my announcement is that starting January 2016, I plan to be streaming speedruns regularly and on a consistent schedule!

First order of business? Well, reclaim the Super Mario Bros. any% world record of course!


2016 Speedrun Line-Up:
1) Super Mario Bros. (NES) - Any%
2) Super Castlevania 4 (SNES-J) - Any%
3) Kirby Super Star - (SNES-J) - Any%
4) Mega Man (NES) - All Stages
5) Super Metroid (SNES) - Any%
6) Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario

Watch out!


Sunday, August 2, 2015

Various Video Game Achievements

I just got back from a very enjoyable vacation to New Hampshire. I have not had a chance to post on here because I have had a pretty busy schedule lately. I realized the other day that I never did post many of the video game achievements I have done this year. I have primarily been working on some more non-serious gaming projects, which is unusual for me. However, I'm always trying for and setting world records because that's really where I get a lot of enjoyment out of gaming.

My Lake Winnipesaukee View



So this post is going to be a recap of my gaming for this year (video links at the end). I'm also doing this just to keep a record of my personal bests. From now on, I think I will always include my recent gaming personal bests at the end of my posts.


January: 
Donkey Kong (Arcade version)



I started the year out strong setting a personal best on the original arcade Donkey Kong with a score of 946,900. This was achieved via MAME (emulator) during a Donkey Kong tournament hosted by donkeykongforum.com. Among the best players in the world, I got 10th place (it's surprising I didn't place higher, considering I reached the kill screen). The DK arcade community keeps growing, and among the community, my scores are actually pretty average at this point. At the same time, I rarely practice, but continue to beat my personal high scores for this game. I still hope that one day I will top the world record on this title.


February:
Excitebike (NES)



Earlier this year, I decided to reclaim the world records for Excitebike. I have held the records for Track 1 for at least 5 years, and Track 5 for about a year. The records for Tracks 2, 3, and 4 were held by a player named 'FlyHec' up until late February. His times bested mine only by a few milliseconds on each, and I finally managed to reclaim all the individual track world records for Excitebike. These times are extremely challenging to achieve, and I suggest viewing the videos posted at the end of this post.


March:

Track & Field (NES)




Track & Field games are basically just a test of how fast one can mash buttons. There's slide, vibrate, claw, multi-handed, multi-finger, electric toothbrush, and even methods involving spoons and pens for fast button mashing. Everyone has their own technique, and obviously for competition, no external devices can be used to obtain a record.  Sorry spoon players! 

'FlyHec' is ridiculously good at button mashing. He holds nearly every button mashing record out there, including the prestigious Track & Field arcade world record. Using his technique for the NES version, I was able to come close to, and tie some of the world records. I also managed to tie the archery high score listed on Twin Galaxies.

Track & Field II (NES)


More Track & Field... well, kind of. After striving for the button mashing records in the original, I decided to avoid them in the sequel. Why? Well, my arm and fingers were hurting a bit, and I don't plan on tackling any more button mashing records...period. So I managed to tie the record for Fencing, and best the world record for Taekwondo. They both require some luck, and I still don't fully understand the Taekwondo one. 

Super Street Fighter II


I wish I could say something amazing about the time I set here, but I can't. For the time attack mode, I managed to get 8.567 seconds. It doesn't even beat the staff record! For the time attack, one can choose any character and any opponent to fight against. The staff record used Ken vs Dhalsim, and I copied. The staff record is 6.874 seconds, and I imagine it can be beaten, but I won't be the one to do it.


April:


Baseball (NES)


This one was funny, but really stupid to do. Biggest Blowout: 29 - 0. The whole time, you just score runs by stealing bases. If you get a hit, you practically get a free run home. Not too exciting, but I think it is a world record score.


May:


NWC 2015 Best Buy Line (New York)


That's me in front.

May was certainly an interesting month. Upon the announcement of the 2015 Nintendo World Championships, I decided to practice for the chance to compete in the main event. I was 15th in line and was in the first round of competitors to play. The game Nintendo chose to use was Ultimate NES Remix for the 3DS, the championship mode.

The championship mode consists of 3 games with a time limit of 6 minutes and 21 seconds to score the highest score possible. This is the exact setup of the original 1990 Nintendo World Championships in which players played Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer, and Tetris to rack up a score. In this competition, the games were Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3, and Dr. Mario.



Dr. Mario is a pretty unforgiving title, and quite a bit of luck is needed to score big. For this competition, the best way to score was obvious. Dr. Mario has a x100 (times 100) bonus. Meaning that whatever your score in Dr. Mario was, they would multiply it by 100 to get the final tally for the game. So the goal was to reach Dr. Mario as fast as possible, and create massive combo chains.

I felt I had a real shot of winning. In practice, I managed to score 4,904,500 which at the time put me in the top 10 for North America. Checking the leaderboard now, I'm ranked 22nd, which is still respectable. Luck wasn't on my side that day. I managed to score a little over 1 million, and left the moment I knew someone beat my score (only the top winner would be invited to the main competition). I was happy with my performance. I played very well, but just didn't get the right pieces when I needed them. It was a fun event, and I'm glad I participated.


June/July:

After getting my butt kicked in the Nintendo World Championship, I decided to explore the other modes for Ultimate NES Remix. One was Speed Mario Bros, which is the full game of Super Mario Bros, at I think 1.5x speed. I managed to beat the game in 3:47.8 in this sped-up version.



The other mode has me hooked. Even still, I'm working on the challenges in this game. Ultimate NES Remix consists of 15 different NES titles with online time attack leaderboards. This game was made for me! I love NES games, I love speedrunning, and I love leaderboards. Not only that, but the game also saves your replays automatically (and even shows a player's inputs on the controller).

In total, there are 258 challenges among the 15 games (and 3 bonus categories). At this point, I have roughly half of the world records: http://www.cyberscore.me.uk/game/1505
-------------

It is now August, and I am still working on these challenges. I would like to have the records for every single challenge in the game, but given the competition, I doubt that will ever happen. There are a lot of tied world records, but even those require quite a bit of dedication to achieve. I'm 133/258 right now, and counting. These are mostly Mario challenges, so I have quite a bit of work ahead of me if I continue toward mastering all 258 challenges. :)

As for Super Mario Bros and my quest to regain the record: progress is slow, but steady. I have a lot of things I need to focus on in my life right now, but I still think I can put in some time to get that elusive 4:57 time.  Once I do reach it, it may be the end of my Super Mario Bros adventure.





Donkey Kong (MAME):
High Score - 946,900

Excitebike (NES):
Track 2 - 46.04
Track 3 - 48.68
Track 4 - 44.51

Track & Field (NES):
100M Dash - 8.39
110M Hurdles - 11.23
Long Jump - 11.87M
Javelin - 118.09M
Archery - 5750

Track & Field II (NES):
Fencing - 0:29
Taekwondo - 0:20

Super Street Fighter II (SNES):
Time Challenge - 8.567

Baseball (NES):
Biggest Blowout: 29 - 0

Ultimate NES Remix (3DS):
Championship Mode - 4,904,500 (no replay)
Speed Mario Bros. - 3:47.8 (no replay)
Playlist of Challenges

Monday, July 13, 2015

Return to Competitive Gaming

Hello!

 I haven't really been consistent on updates, and have been taking a bit of a break from serious competitive gaming. However, I hope I can continue to improve my blog from this point on. While I have still been gaming to some degree, the past year, I haven't had any serious projects in the works. This is a bit unusual for me, but I needed to take a break from major, difficult, gaming goals I have set for myself. I was burnt out, but now I'm back in full action! Well, at least, I'm back on this blog.

My channel on Twitch (andrewg1990) is still having many issues streaming successfully. Unfortunately, I'm essentially starting from scratch to rebuild my stream. I am having lots of internet issues, as well as issues with hardware, and I need a new computer. It has been extremely frustrating, but I hope to get my channel up and running (smoothly) again within the next few months.


Alright, so... GAMING!

While I can't stream my attempts, I am now doing speedrun attempts again. As of July 10th, I've got a serious project again.

What am I speedrunning? You guessed it! Super Mario Bros!


First, I do want to say sorry to those who watch my speedrun attempts on Twitch. Once I do manage to break the current world record time of 4 minutes and 57.69 seconds, you won't witness it live, and I really am sorry for that.

Here is a run from my latest attempts:




I promise I will keep playing until I regain the world record. :) It is only a matter of time.


Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Excitebike: Track 4 - New World Record

After many resets I've managed to top the world record for Track 4 in Excitebike... This one is very frustrating and the run is bitter-sweet. Wow, just a very frustrating track, but still not the hardest!



Next up, the hardest track in the game! Track 5 is absolutely horrific to speedrun.


Monday, February 23, 2015

Excitebike - Track #3 World Record


Today I managed to top the best time for Track #3 in Excitebike! Getting these times is extremely frustrating and is the result of many resets. I finally managed to get the fast bike speed on both laps. I can't help feeling that with a little luck it might be possible to shave a few seconds off this, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyhow, I'm definitely satisfied with this result and hope to improve more tracks this week.



Excitebike: Track #3 - 48.84


Thursday, February 19, 2015

Exciting Excitebike!


Excitebike! It's one of my favorite titles on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Excitebike is a fairly well known title, but I have always felt like this game is under appreciated. Excitebike is a game many do enjoy, but if I had to guess, I would imagine players rarely spend more than an hour playing it.


Excitebike appears to have only 5 courses, but in fact it has 10 tracks total. There are 5 preliminary tracks, which one can select from the main menu, and then there are 5 harder versions of those tracks. The game also has two modes: Mode A consists of just conquering the tracks in the game, but Mode B adds a challenge of finishing the tracks with opposing racers getting in your way. Another feature of the game is unique. It was one of the first games that allowed you to design your own courses.


Feel free to make a track that is entirely small jumps if you'd like! The game has a lot to offer to the casual gamer, but it actually makes for a very tricky and challenging game at high level play.


Off and on for a number of years now, I have been competing for the fastest preliminary track times. I basically only have one serious competitor, and luckily he has been serious about putting up great times for this game. Without his competition, I would not have tried for better times, and probably would have lost interest in playing it. Flyhec is a great gamer and most notably known for his insane button mashing speeds. It's easy to see why he's the Track and Field arcade champion (which requires extremely fast fingers). Here's a video showing just how fast that is:




Advanced Excitebike play involves a few different techniques:

The 1st trick for fast Excitebike times involves bouncing on the front wheel after jumping off the small triangular ramps seen in the above picture. These ramps build unusual bike speeds, and bouncing off the front tire maintains what I refer to as "the fast speed." 

The 2nd trick involves keeping the bike from overheating by conserving your TEMP (temperature gauge). Holding "A" moves the bike at a slow speed, but keeps your temperature low. Holding "B" moves the bike at a fast speed, but you will overheat if you only use "B". However, we've developed a few techniques to avoid using "A" at all. The first is before the race even begins. If you wait to select a track on the track selection screen until the music stops and hold "B" when the race begins, you lower the initial starting temp by a small amount. This is useful for gaining those few extra milliseconds.

The 3rd trick is also related to TEMP conservation. Any time that the bike is in the air, we release the gas entirely. The temp builds up when you are holding "B," and the air gives the opportunity to release "B." You only need to press the gas when you're on the ground, so we take advantage of this. Arrows on the ground also reduce the temp, and it is crucial not to accidentally pass by them.

The 4th, and final trick involves altering your jump lengths. You can shorten or lengthen your jump distance off a ramp by holding "up" or "down" respectively. This is useful for maintaining the fast speeds, while also positioning the bike in between or directly on top of ramps to avoid crashing the bike.

Advanced play is much more complex than casual play and allows for huge and unexpected time gains. Below is my progress on Track 5:

Track 5, standard play:



Track 5, advanced play:



After learning the advances techniques, the game became much more interesting to me, and having a serious competitor allowed me to improve drastically. To this day, I'm still improving my times. In fact, today I managed to best my Track 2 time for a new world record! Track 2 is probably the most boring track in the game, but it's definitely not easy.




Now to improve the other tracks. Wish me luck!




Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Pogosticks and Video Game Competition

I've always had a fascination with the world's best anything. It has always been something that came to mind ever since I was a kid. When I was around 8 years old I got a pogo-stick for Christmas. I spent that night practicing and actually managed to get a few 100 consecutive jumps that same day. Fast forward a few weeks and I managed over 1000 jumps, at which point I became curious as to what the world record was for most jumps on a pogo-stick. I browsed an old 1992 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records at my grandparents' house and found an entry of I think it was a 12 year old who managed over 100,000 consecutive jumps on a pogo-stick.  Looking further into this, it appeared he was sponsored by a company who actually custom made a pogo-stick for the attempt lasting nearly 24 hours. By recollection, this is former champion Gary Stewart pictured below:



That didn't deter me. When I was 9 years old I set out to break the world record for most pogo-stick jumps. There was actually a counter on one pogo-stick my family bought for me, and it's funny, I actually remember being angry that it looped back to 0 after going past 999 jumps. My several attempts resulted in my record of (what I remember as) ~32,000 consecutive jumps (the attempt resulting in a broken pogo-stick).  I actually broke my 2 pogosticks within the span of a week. If not for those incidents, I would likely have likely kept on trying. I love competition, and video games have always been something with enjoyable competition.


I have been rediscovering my love for high score competition in video games. When looking at many classic games like Pac-Man, Tetris, or Frogger, it is a bit interesting to see just how well people can play these games. I feel one can only truly appreciate a high score if they themselves have attempted it first. The world record for Frogger (arcade) is nearly 1 million points, and to most people that sounds impressive, but not many really understand just how difficult that score is, how long it takes, and whether it actually is good or not. I consider myself good at Frogger, but my score still isn't even 1/5th of the world record. To say the least, I'm very impressed with that record.

Even George Costanza's high score doesn't cut it!



Frogger is a game that is just plain great for high scores. There really aren't any rules attached to it, just play, survive, and score as high as you can. Many classic games are this way, and they are easily the best ones to compete on for high scores. However, there are many more games that aren't the best for high score. 

Super Mario Bros is my favorite game, but I realize it's not very good for high scores. The reason is because you can infinitely gain lives and stay in the same level forever if you wanted. Sure, you could track that score, but it is merely a matter of who can stand to play the game the longest. 


For Super Mario Bros, tracking the high score without any rules is meaningless. Twin Galaxies, the authority on video game high scores, has created rulesets for many games that fall into this category. For this game, they gave a restriction of 5 lives and rule that states one cannot abuse the turtles for tons of points. While this works in some regard for competition, at the end of the day, it is an arbitrary ruleset. While I love Super Mario Bros, it is just not good for high score competition. I may hold the Twin Galaxies' record for highest score in this game, but it is diminished by the fact that the game can easily be abused to score much higher.

There are games that are good for high scores and games that aren't. Many classic arcade games were specifically designed for high score competition. Video games have quickly moved away from the notion of high scores, and arcade games remain the only games that are really suited for it.



The question now for video games outside the arcade era isn't "How high can you get?", but instead the question has become "How fast can you get?" 

Super Mario Bros. may not be good for score, but it makes a great speedrun. In fact, you can speedrun almost any game. Speedruns are great because there aren't any rules attached. Like Frogger, I'm free to do as I please and do the best I possibly can without a ruleset dictating or limiting my ideas or abilities.



Just like there are games with tactics that "ruin" high score competition, there are games where speedruns "ruin" the game as a result of having no in-game rules. One may skip huge sections of a game with a game-breaking glitch (pictured above) resulting in faster speedruns. The solution to this problem is creating secondary categories such as "100% completion," as to not skip anything in a game. Categories that are uninteresting won't be competed, and as a result, the competition remains on the categories that are best suited for the specific games. The concept of "no rules for in-game play" might not always work out perfectly for speedruns, but doing anything else results in arbitrary (and uncompeted) rulesets. 

Speedrunning of today is like arcade high scores of the 80s. How fast can you get?




Saturday, February 7, 2015

Exploring The Lost Levels!

The video game 'The Lost Levels' is basically a harder version of Super Mario Bros on NES. It is a somewhat unknown Mario title because of the story surrounding it. It's an interesting story, but basically to summarize it:

The Lost Levels is in fact actually the real Super Mario Bros 2, but released only in Japan.



After Super Mario Bros release, the U.S. got Super Mario Bros. 2. You know, the one where in addition to being Mario, you could be Luigi, Toad, or Princess Peach. Peach was clearly the best character with the ability to float for a short period of time. The game could have easily been called 'Princess Peach's Crazy Adventure,' but instead they decided to call it Super Mario Bros. 2.


Japan thought the game was too challenging and would fail in the United States, so they decided to entirely transform a completely unrelated video game into what we now know as Super Mario Bros. 2. It was always the oddball game, and many people still don't realize that this is the reason why it's so different from every other Mario game.


Eventually, the real Super Mario Bros. 2 made it to the U.S in a Super Nintendo game called Super Mario All-Stars. This game actually contains four remade Mario games: Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3, and of course the real Super Mario Bros 2 (known to the U.S. as The Lost Levels). 



Now, I'm exploring The Lost Levels again. Well, I'm doing more than exploring it, I'm speedrunning it. I'm trying to beat all 52 stages of the real Super Mario Bros. 2 in record time. The time to beat? 36 minutes and 31 seconds by Japanese player 'Hotarubi'. Hotarubi is a very well known and respected speedrunner who has demolished  tons of video game world records. His times are good. Here is the current leaderboard for the The Lost Levels:



I've got the 3rd best time to date. A few months back, I started doing some speedruns for this game, but never got a chance to finish. So now I'm back on the attack and I'm hoping to finish what I started and best Hotarubi's time. This is going to take great skill, knowledge, and practice to get this.

Wish me luck!



Thursday, January 15, 2015

There's a Donkey Kong Post Coming Up... If Anyone is Interested

Donkey Kong!



This classic arcade game is easily one of most famous arcade games, with Pac-Man probably being the only one that's even more well known. Donkey Kong was really Nintendo's first good game, and I'm glad it was a success. It lead to the creation of some of my favorite games, and some of the best video games of all time.

In 2007, this classic was reintroduced to many in the film 'The King of Kong,' featuring the 1980s high score champion Billy Mitchell, and recent competitor Steve Wiebe. After the film's release, many players started actively trying to see if they too could reach the infamous 'Kill Screen,' the final and impossible screen to beat. Many gamers, myself included, asked this question: "Is Donkey Kong really as difficult as they say?"

A short 'King of Kong' clip regarding the game's difficulty:



Donkey Kong has attracted enough attention that it branched out from Twin Galaxies (The authority on video game world records) and now even has its own website (Donkey Kong Forum) dedicated to Donkey Kong competition. The DKF has hosted a number of online tournaments with cash prizes. The last official online Donkey Kong tournament hosted by DKF took place this week, and the final results are just coming in. The competition was fierce with many top contenders, including current DK champions Robbie Lakeman and Dean Saglio in competition. Both competitors are aiming to beat the world record arcade score during the event and claim the $3000 bounty! Lots of cash prizes are up for grabs, and anyone can compete. I too decided to compete with the intent of reaching 1 million points. However, given that I'm not actively playing Donkey Kong, I figured I'd at least have some fun and put up whatever score I could manage for the last tournament.




The results are now in as I'm typing this, and there were definitely some unexpected and surprising results! This was the longest event with a total of 174 hours to play, which meant plenty of time for players to put up massive scores. Thank you John Salter and Eric Tessler for hosting this competition and congratulations to all the competitors for dominating the leaderboard. You guys rock!

Donkey Kong Open #6 Online Tournament Results:

1. Robbie Lakeman: 1,105,000: $300
2. Dean Saglio: 1,100,200: $250
3. Jeff Wolfe: 1,062,700: $200
4. Phil Tudose: 1,047,600: $150
5. Ethan Daniels: 1,041,100: $100
6. Wes Copeland: 1,029,000: $50
7. Vincent Lemay: 1,008,200: $40
8. Jason Wade: 972,100: $30
9. Mick Winzeler: 948,400: $20
10. Andrew Gardikis: 946,900 : $10
Now we have the Bounty winners:
* First 1 million point game: Ethan Daniels: $50 ( Daniel Desjardins)
* Most consecutive 2200 games (92): George Riley: $50 (Robbie Lakeman)
* NOTE: George also claimed 285, but no need to verify as 92 was the highest that was claimed by the players
* A special thanks goes out to Robbie Lakeman for this one smile emoticon
* Mystery bounty #1 (12th place): Martin Laing: $50
* Mystery bounty #2 (24th place): Scott Cunningham: $50
* Mystery bounty #3 (50th place): Brendan O'Dowd: $50
* Mystery bounty #4 (52nd place): Ky Staal: $50
* Mystery bounty #5 (56th place): Cynthia Tessler: $50 (congrats sis!!!)
* Mystery bounty #6: TBA 

Very surprising results! I am extremely impressed by just how many 1 million point scores there were, and just how close the competition was. These really are some of the most talented gamers in the world, and it was an honor to compete with the best. I was very satisfied with my performance. I somehow managed not only to best my personal high score, but also reach the kill screen, and even place on the top 10 scoreboard! I had a lot of fun, and I'm glad the community encouraged me to participate.

Special congrats to Ethan Daniels for reaching his first 1 million point game during the event and congratulations to the overall winner, Robbie Lakeman, for edging out Dean Saglio's score on the last quarter drop of the competition! Astounding results! Congrats everyone!

The last mystery bounty has yet to be announced, and I'm curious as to what exactly that is!

Monday, January 12, 2015

Revamping My Blog + Gaming Pursuits!

Hey guys! I've decided to try and revamp this old blog I started a few years back. I've decided I'm going to use this to regularly inform you guys about my gaming accomplishments, tactics, aspirations, and thoughts on the competitive gaming world!


This might be a little long-winded, but to start this off, I'd like to talk about my gaming involvement and how I came to be a competitive gamer. I think I'll talk about Twin Galaxies (TG), the authority on video game world records, and my involvement there first, as it was what introduced me to the competitive gaming scene. I've been competing on classic games at Twin Galaxies for close to 10 years now, originally starting with a speedrun of the classic Super Mario Bros. for NES.

In 2004, I discovered Twin Galaxies. I was just 14 years old and had just seen a speedrun for the game Super Mario Bros. played on G4TV's "Cinematech." The time? 5 minutes and 20 seconds! "Wow!" was my initial reaction, absolutely memorized by the TV gameplay, watching Mario gracefully avoid every obstacle and enemy. After watching the entire speedrun, I started to wonder if there was anyone that tracked world record times or scores. A quick online search later and I found Twin Galaxies. Really, it was one of the coolest feelings to find Twin Galaxies. As a kid, I always felt that I had a skill for video games. I especially enjoyed the Mario series, from NES all the way up to the newest consoles. However, these games were not multiplayer, nor were they especially good for competitive high scores. For the first time ever, I had a chance to prove my skills on the old games I mastered as a kid, speedruns!

Of course, the first thing I did on Twin Galaxies was look up the fastest completion for Super Mario Bros. I expected to see the 5:20 time I saw on G4, but I was surprised to see the time recently eclipsed by a 5:17 time by a player name Scott Kessler (Sdkess).

I soon found this exact article detailing the new world record completion:
http://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/111080-Super-Mario-Brothers-(NES)-NEW-WORLD-RECORD-!!

I was determined to beat that time. I spent several months doing attempts, starting out with a time of 6:21.  Once I finally got my times down to the 5:20 range, Scott actually started improving his own times. By the time I reached that 5:17 time, the record was all the way down to 5:09! Despite this, I was persistent, knowing I could perfect this game, and just maybe edge out that time. Then one day, it happened. I got what I felt was the perfect run. I must have timed it 20 times with my stopwatch, but there was no doubt that the time was a tied 5:09 with player Trevor Seguin. This was my first Twin Galaxies submission. The best part about this was that I had to have my parents sign the Twin Galaxies submission form because I wasn't old enough to submit it on my own behalf.

At the time, the Super Mario Bros record was a big deal. Actually, I still feel it hasn't lost its appeal. Anyway, because it was a particularly notable achievement, 3 referees had to verify to make sure it was legitimate. A few months later, it was announced that I tied the world record. I was happy to finally have my name on the official scoreboard. From here, I started trying speedruns for all my favorite games.

Around 2006, I found a website called Speed Demos Archive (SDA). This is a website solely dedicated to tracking the fastest completions of every video game. As time went on, I felt the SDA community to be more and more welcoming where the TG community started to fall apart. SDA had a more relaxed set of rules and I noticed many top TG players submitted to SDA also. The former record holder for Super Mario Bros, Scott Kessler, eventually managed to break the coveted "perfect" time of 5:09 with a new [thought to be perfect] run of 5:08 (5:05 SDA timing), displayed on SDA's website for everyone's viewing.

The article for Scott's 5:08 time:
http://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/117017-WR-NEWS-NES-Scott-Kessler-Gets-Holy-Grail-of-5-08-in-SMB1!

I really wanted to have my speedrun up on SDA's website. SDA posts the fastest video, and does not accept other runs like TG. In order for my run to replace his, I'd have to beat it by at least one second. Now again, as I mentioned, this time was thought to be unbeatable. However, Twin Galaxies does not allow glitches and Speed Demos Archive allowed few. There was one tactic that was known to save time (a glitch - a frame perfect walljump) in the last stage of the game, which meant that technically the run could be beaten. Regardless, no one thought the run was going anywhere for a long time.

Fast-forward to March of 2007. I had been working to beat the time back ever since Scott got the 5:08 in October 2006. I decided that I didn't want TG or SDA dictating how fast I could play Super Mario Bros. Twin Galaxies did not allow any glitches and SDA did not allow "mysterious teleportation." Investigating the game thoroughly, I stumbled upon one of the most groundbreaking tricks ever. I figured out a way to save around 5 seconds by confusing the game. Basically, I'm pretty sure I found the first 'wrong warp' ever useful in a speedrun. I tricked a pipe into taking me to the 4-2 warp zone rather than taking the vine that is normally required.

After finding this, I realized I could use the trick and easily beat the record by a couple seconds if I wanted. However, I didn't want to just improve the time, I felt that if I were to submit my first SDA run, I wanted my play to be as optimized, if not more optimized, than the current run. I didn't want to submit a one second improvement and have my time be the fastest solely due to a new trick, so I didn't. Sometime in April, I not only beat the run, but I was able to pull off a walljump in 8-4 to boot! The new time? 5 minutes flat! A whole 5 second improvement.

I submitted the run to SDA despite the "mysterious teleportation" ban they had. I felt that it was definitely mysterious warping, but I also felt the run would not be rejected. I had actually never told anyone about the trick I discovered. The first instance of the trick ever seen was from the submission video itself. No surprise, everyone was surprised! That month, the mysterious teleportation rule was eliminated, maybe partially due to my run?
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To this day, I'm still involved with both websites to a degree. I am still working on high scores and I'm still doing speedruns. I've done a number of both which I will post in the appropriate sections.


I have more I want to say about the competitive scene and my thoughts on a variety of subjects within the community, but those can wait for another day.