Came across this over on Hacker News this morning and left a brief thought on it over there (that I’m sure has been ripped to shreds by now). (EDIT: Not so much. But we did reach similar endpoints. Thanks, guys!)
Long story short, even shorter: player manipulates and aligns glitches to basically rewrite the code’s stack to force the game ending sequence to execute. Goes from title screen to prince rescued in ~3 minutes.
From a hacker perspective, this kind of thing is — 😘👌 — excellent. Even if the player didn’t consciously decide to manipulate the stack but happened to stumble onto a combination to make it work, it’s still super cool to break it down, which is what this video does.
Originally this post was a reflection on the ethics of this kind of thing being considered a ‘world record’, and how I’d rather see them split this out into it’s own category.
Instead of investigating first, I just vomited out all my thoughts and feelings without actually seeing how the world decided to handle this. I ran on an assumption. And it was wrong.
Because they DO break it out by category:
Here’s how they break it down — and they are NOT fucking around:
100%
Beat the game, entering and completing every stage and Hammer Bros. fight.
- Time starts on pressing Start on the title screen.
- Time ends on entering the door after defeating Bowser.
This category includes:
- All action stages (numbered stages, fortresses, airships, plants, hands…)
- All overworld Hammer Bros. (including their Boomerang, Fire and Sledge Bros. variations)
Important notes:
- Do not forget the Fire Bros. behind the rock in world 2, the two plants in world 7 and the three hands in world 8!
- If you accidentally transform some Hammer Bros. into a coin ship, you must either beat the coin ship or die on purpose during the coin ship to transform it back into Hammer Bros. and then defeat them.
- Mushroom houses, card games, roulette games and overworld pipes are allowed but not required.
Banned emulators: ZSNES (any version), SNES9x 1.4x
Any% Warpelss
Beat the game as quickly as possible without using any wrong warps or warp whistles. Warp whistles may be collected but not used.
Time starts on pressing Start on the title screen.
Time ends on entering the door after defeating Bowser.Banned emulators: ZSNES (any version), SNES9x 1.4x
Any% (No Wrong Warp)
Beat the game as quickly as possible without using any wrong warps.
Time starts on pressing Start on the title screen.
Time ends on entering the door after defeating Bowser.Banned emulators: ZSNES (any version), SNES9x 1.4x
Any%
Time starts on pressing Start on the title screen.
Time ends when Mario is visible in the princess’ chamber. If the game crashes, the run is invalid.
Banned platforms: Virtual Console, NESClassic, BizHawk (QuickNES core)Note that BizHawk with the NESHawk core is allowed.
And these are just the Super Mario Bros. 3 specific rule sets. Other games have different rules.
For instance, Portal has “Out of Bounds” (any and all tricks allowed), “Inbounds” (camera and portals cannot leave the map), “Glitchless” (use none of the officially recognized glitches), and “Inbounds No SLA” (Save/Load Abuse).
Even something like bloody Cookie Clicker has a whole bunch of rule sets: “1 Million Cookies“, “Neverclick” (bake 1 million cookies without clicking the cookie <= 15 times), “True Neverclick” (bake 1 million cookies without clicking the cookie at all), “Hardcore” (bake 1 billion cookies without upgrades), “40 Achievements” (guess), “1 Heavenly Chip” (🙏).
Finding this out was pretty amazing. Not only were my concerns alleviated, but I’ve actually found a brand new level of respect for the speedrunning. 🙂
And I was able to salvage a lengthy post, and turn it into something positive. Everyone wins!
