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Tool-assisted game movies
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Swordless Link

Super Mario 64

I started TASing in summer/autumn 2006, with mr_roberts_z. We both started messing around with Super Mario 64 in Mupen, and quickly got pretty good at it, having times that were comparable to those of AKA and Rikku (who were, at the time, engaging in frame wars over 16 star runs).

Eventually, I started a 16 star run of my own, using a controller (which was really bloody awkward, because I still played in frame advance; I just didn't like the TAS input plugin at the time), which was a few seconds ahead of the most recently-published SM64 run. One day, I contacted AKA for help with another game, and we got onto the subject of SM64. He told me that he was, in secret, making an improvement to Rikku's run, so I told him that I was doing the same thing. We exchanged WIPs, and there were some parts that I was faster at, and others that he was faster at. Impressed by my WIP, he asked if I would coauthor a run with him, which I was more than happy to.

So after a few weeks of TASing together, we finished our 15:08 run, which was my first complete TAS. It can be found here: http://tasvideos.org/849M.html It had many new tricks that weren't seen in the previous run, including a new star route in the basement (which included the star seen in the screenshot in that link, where we blasted Mario up the lavafall to quickly get the star at the top of it).

A few months later, I went to America for a holiday. During the time I was away (without Internet), AKA and some others were experimenting with a new way of BLJing, which only involved one step (normally, we would need a staircase). When I returned, AKA told me about this, and we quickly got to work. After a few weeks of testing, we discovered that we could use this trick to bypass the 30 star door in the basement, which led to the first 1 star run, found here: http://tasvideos.org/938M.html

A few months after this, we began trying to find ways to get past Dire, Dire Docks without getting the submarine star from it. I found a more effective way to build Mario's speed up on the stairs, which allowed him to also stay on the stairs for longer. This gave him just enough speed to shoot through the DDD entrance, and allowed the first 0 star run to be made, found here: http://tasvideos.org/1017M.html

Quite a while after this, I discovered that our 0 star run was improvable by quite a bit due to a new method I found for getting into Bowser in the Dark World. I asked AKA if he would like to coauthor an improvement with me, but he said he'd "let me claim this one", so I did it myself. I found working on the run myself a lot less fun than working on it with another TASer. This run can be found here: http://tasvideos.org/1089M.html

After this, I was beginning to miss the 16 star runs. The first run I did of the game was also the last published 16 star run, so I was quite annoyed that I didn't get to participate more in that. Because of this, I decided to make a 16 star run myself, defining it as a run that didn't use single-step BLJing. I improved the last published 16 star run by quite a lot. This run can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3laTGxwZVk

Throughout all of this, I was frequently watching other TASers' WIPs and assisting mr_roberts_z with his 120 star TAS while he was working on it. He has since dropped this run, and some other authors have taken over it. I currently have no plans to return to TASing the game because I don't particularly like the direction the game has gone in regards to TASing.


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SwordlessLink last edited by Swordless Link on 2010-02-25 01:42:11
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