Submission #1549: jimsfriend's SNES Super Demo World "120-exit" in 2:08:50.32

Emulator used: Snes9X v1.43+ v9 for Windows

This is the first time I played this game. More often than not, I had to watch the Fabian and JXQ run to know how to beat a particular level. It's a really cool Super Mario World hack with new special reserve items, graphics and stuff. This is an improvement of 16055 frames, or 267.583 seconds. Also, I wrote this as I worked on the run, so some stuff might not be relevant any more. There are some people I would like to thank.

Tricks and Glitches used:

Lag: Fadeout lag is completely ignored, because in a run of this length, optimizing it could take decades. Lag within levels is reduced as much as possible by eliminating enemy sprites and spinning mario's cape only when absolutely necessary.

Level Descriptions and things. The number appearing in parenthesis after the level name is how many frames were gained in that level (this does not include map movements or fadeout). If it is negative there will be a minus (-) too. Note that not all mushroom houses visited will be listed (but some will). Note also that this obviously contains spoilers.

Misty Isle 1 (21): Doing a buttslide is actually faster than mid speed running, so it is used in the beginning. I used very long jumps because short jumps made it sound too much like the OoT run for me.

Misty Isle 2 (36): Fabian came up with the best solution for the beginning of this level. I think this is the first time the shell bounce is used in a run, and it looks cool.

Misty Isle 3 (21): The fireflower grab is optimized. Also notice that the fog-like clouds in the background have the same pattern recycled and that pattern is approximately (if not exactly) the width of the screen. This same fog pattern in used in every foggy level in the game. Also note that you can kill two enemies with a single fireball.

Misty Isle 4b (6): This is about as boring as a water level.

Misty Isle 4a (7): Hooray for having a cape.

Castle 1b (17): This (and several other) level is improvable with better understanding of the I can fly meter, which was discovered when I was well beyond this point.

Castle 1a (290): Taking this route saved a little less than five seconds.

Salty Isle (-2): Apparently I lost two frames to lag when I bounced on the flying koopas over the large pool of water. I didn't know this at the time because I didn't start watching the lag indicator until water world. Oops.

Desert World 1 (-4): Jump, bounce, hop, win.

Desert World 2b (1323): This trick is really cool. When mario compresses a spring the game does not check to see if anything is in the way. In this case there is, so he goes through it. The springboard will turn out to be quite useful in a couple other levels in this run as well. Also, I get to hold two items at once, as well as take advantage of the fact that running into the springboard makes mario stop.

Desert Pyramid b (29): While playing this level it was really easy to find reasons to go do something else, such as stare at the wall and pick my nose. When getting the key I hug the right wall because pressing y/x while diving causes a 2 frame loss. If I had turned around twice it would be 1 frame slower than it is now. While diving (and facing left), pressing left+right prevents horizontal acceleration. Keeping flight and grabbing both items at the chains let me reach speed 51 sooner in the upper passage.

Yellow Switch Palace (6): A submarine!

Deserty Pyramid (51): While going down towards the key I changed directions this time because I only had to switch once, so one frame was gained over the strategy of not changing my direction. I also found that jumping immediately after exiting the pipe was three frames faster than ducking off the edge.

Castle 2b (648): Better understanding of what allows mario to keep flight after exiting a pipe helped. It kind of looks like mario doesn't know where he is going. At this point in the run, the concept of an I can fly meter was known, but the memory adress had not been found yet. Left+Right flight is used to save a bunch of time.

Desert Secret (18)

Desert World 2 (84): Flying out of the pipe saved a lot of time. Duckjumping off the white elevator-like platform rather than flying through is faster. I dropped the yellow shell from my reserve box just for kicks and got a backwards facing p switch sprite, but obviously this loses time so I couldn't keep it.

Desert World 3 (6): Flight speed (51) is reached sooner by delaying horizontal acceleration enough to make the initial take off jump lower. As in, those shiny blocks weren't in my way, so the original ascent wasn't as high.

Desert World 4 (-1): A few frames gained in the beginning by reaching flight speed sooner were sacrificed for entertainment (read: level was more fun for me to make). This is the first time the spin-kick-bounce-thingy is demonstrated in a run.

Castle 2 (101): I thought this was pretty cool. Mario has no fear of enemy spikes.

Water World 1a (10): While doing this level I learned some really annoying things about water levels. Getting over and under obstacles when it involves dropping the shell is very dependent on Mario's exact horizontal position and his speed at that position. At frame ~59330 slowing down was six frames faster, and also let me kill that stupid fish.

Water World 2 (91): Saved some time by jumping off the first dolphin as soon as possible. In hindsight I should have just held Y throughout the entire level, but I was lazy and holding one button while jumping was easier.

Donut Secret (19): I never checked, but it is probably the exact same input as before. How boring.

Water World 1b (17)

Water World 4b (14): In this level I tried pushing mario through various sloped walls using the key. Turns out that is impossible because the key can't be thrown high enough in water to push him all the way through. I also figured out how to optimize moving vertically with an item so it almost looks fast.

Water Secret (84): Diving into the Yoshi block is a couple frames faster than not diving into it because when mario hits it the ground starts shaking, so the p meter starts charging back sooner because he gets to the ground sooner. This was cool at the time, but it was later discovered that mushroom houses could be completed quicker (see crystal secret), saving 20 frames. The message block was used so I didn't have to go back down to land on top of the shroom house. Yoshi's tongue is extended as far as possible so there is more ascent with no yoshi wings, because those are slower than a p speed jump. I'm pretty sure the way I spat out the shell and got it back is the fastest strategy. Also, one or two frames were saved by hitting the side of the message block which teleported mario upwards. So much to say about one of the most trivial levels in the game.

Water World 4 (5): It was three in the morning, I used about 50 rerecords. A blue line graphical glitch at the bottom was a nice plus.

Water World 3 (89): This level is both water _and_ a sidescroller, so it is double boring. Swimming above the top of the screen is very frustrating because it is difficult to find a path for mario, so I only did it once for any extended period of time (which wasn't really all that extended). Also, the path I took had electric enemy guys in the way, but fortunately the screen was scrolling down so they disappeared. At the end I had less frames of lag because I was able to kill the Chargin Chuck underneath the screen. I found him by accident.

Sunken Ghost Ship (38): Using the hop glitch for the second half of the bobbing boats reduced lag. Swimming under the blocks let me hold the p switch longer so mario was swimming at top speed longer, thus reaching his goal sooner.

Castle 3b (78): Flying through the pipe at the beginning saved some time. Jumping in and out of the water half way through saved about 20 frames. In the second room falling off the edge rather than gliding over saved time because entering the water while already standing puts mario farther into the water.

Castle 3 (120): So the first room was pretty much the same as before. The second room has reduced lag in that ball'n'chain part because I don't spin jump at all, and spin jumping causes mega lag. The boss fight was fun to make; it might not be as much fun to watch.

Crystal Cavern 1a (5): I got a wobble! Beating this level with Yoshi takes a very long time, and actually might not even be possible, so I had to play it before taking the secret exit.

Vacant Ghost House a (25): This level is weird.

Crystal Cavern 2 (51): Flight speed is reached as early as possible. I had hoped I could get the p switch without slowing down at all, but that turned out to be impossible, this was the best I could do. I got a feather!

Crystal Cavern 3 (33): I get flight speed early by just falling into the munchers. I managed to not slow down ever (which without flight invincibility would be impossible) and I saved time by running on the Mega Mole in the beginning. That feather is in my reserve box because I wanted to make sure using it was slower, and it was.

Crystal Cavern 1b (10): There's not a whole lot to say about this level. It's purple. There's a key.

Crystal Secret (-525): Yoshi is evil; it took 666 frames to get him (map moves included), and he says "vittu" every time you mount him. That thing in my reserve box will save mega time later, and so will Yoshi.

Vacant Ghost House b (0): The author of the previous submission text made this false claim: "First, you have to get the key. And THEN you have to fly up to the keyhole, while SIMULTANEOUSLY holding the key." I show clearly that you don't need to hold they key while flying up to the hole.

Crystal Cavern 4 (-18): I like playing levels with yoshi because it looks a lot different. Various things were done to reduce lag, most notably stomping the ground early and eating the spike top near the end.

Crystal Cavern 5 (1356): This is the laggiest level in the game. It is also one of the levels that is most important to watch in this run, as it shows some cool tricks. When eating fish and spring left+right is used to make yoshi turn around without losing speed. Also, when eating fish and holding the spring mario has to be swimming down or yoshi will go ahead and eat the spring too (he's evil). I had to slow down a bunch in order to eat both fish immediately after yoshi flight+item grab and still make it over the ? block to eat the last fish to reduce lag. This level is where I get to use the spring glitch in order to cut off a huge laggy chunk of the level. P speed was reached by the blue switch so rapidly because the p meter is held constant while mario is in water. The second use of the spring glitch had to be past the corner because I actually had to jump out of the water to get to silver, so trying to go through the wall to silver would have meant death. I hope this all made sense.

Castle 4b (174): The first room is a big pain, and the lava pool is pretty laggy. I tried falling through the floor just before the midway gate, but the I can fly meter only works for spin jumping if you jumped with a full p meter, and simply popping mario's collar won't push him through the floor. Reduced the time required to grab the key by hitting the wall first so I wouldn't have to slow down to turn around, but it turns out that didn't matter. It might be noticeable that I get really lazy when I can't actually see mario.

Castle 4a (127): JXQ hex'd in the first part of room one so I wouldn't have to do it again. The lava pool was a little laggier because I had to spin twice instead of once. In the second room, I got under the spike as soon as possible, and used the p switch to enter big red sooner than normally possible. In other news, the people in the dorm next to me are singing old school Disney songs. Free entertainment!

Sky World 1 (5): I tried jumping in the cloud near the end of the level to get speed 52, but it turned out to be one frame slower. There's not really a whole lot to this level.

Sky World 2b (181): I hate this cloud. A lot.

Sky World 2a (146): Clouds are more evil than yoshi. Other than that, this level went pretty well. Notice that the chargin chuck whose brick I smashed at the end decided he would go ahead and jump in mid air. In both runs of this level I couldn't jump out of the cloud earlier for flight because there were too many obstacles in the way to keep flight.

Sky World 3b (3): This run's .smv file is named after my high school physics teacher. He's tall, bald, and a Canadian. Also, apparently JXQ added some stuff to the end and copied it when he hex'd the castle. (Later edit: a lot more has been added since then).

Castle 5b (13): I did this out of order because I wanted to split up the castle, and much of this run is out of order anyway. In the first room, it is impossible to take the upper passage without slowing down. In the brick room, mario suddenly swooped up rapidly near the end when I release y, I don't know what caused this.

Sky World 3a (30): Unfortunately, everything about this level that could look cool causes mega lag, so I didn't really get to play with the enemy guys, I mostly had to throw them away as soon as possible to prevent laggy situations. Lakitu's cloud disappears if you kill him off screen, which is unfortunate, so I couldn't do a cool non-laggy stunt which caused the screen to scroll down some. I don't know if I mentioned this before, and am too lazy to look, but doing the buttslide near the tape vs jumping and flying take the same amount of frames.

Sky World 4 (16): This is the airboat level. It is slow, boring, and tedious. I tried using the p switch to force myself through a corner by stomping it to make the world shake then land at the corner so it would put mario inside the wall, but no luck. Other than that, it's almost as if you are watching the previous run again.

Sky World 5 (67): This level started off looking really good, but it didn't take long and I had to throw away my fun because it would have started causing lag. DOOM lag. I probably could have made this level lag worse than cc5. So I didn't get another round of juggle-across-the-screen in, which is what I was ready to do with those three shells. Then there's a whole bunch of one ups whoop dee doo and then near the end I had to lose flight to avoid some more doom lag. After such a great beginning to the level, the rest just seems kind of disappointing.

Sky World 6b (123): This level is a monster. The lag in this level is surprisingly static, especially in areas where there are only 4-5 enemies on screen, so I had pretty much free play. There is a graphical glitch with the Lakitu Clouds smile showing up on the left hand side of the screen. There is another cool glitch where I throw the pswitch through the cloud, this type of frictionless surfaces in walls is quite common in Fusoya made textures, and can also be found in Vanilla Dome 1 of Super Mario World to the left of the keyhole. The p switch was stomped as soon as it was convenient, and then when jumping up to the pipe you can see (if you watch memory value 7E007B) that my velocity jumps from 46 to -2. This is just another application of the wallsnag used for walljumping, except no wall required, just a single block. Then oodles of time is saved by abusing the I can fly meter to fly out of a pipe, and a little more by using the key to make mario lose his velocity before picking it up. The key-pipe entry, as seen in the previous run, works because the key counts as a platform for mario to stand on so he can walk in the pipe. After that it is just a mad dash to the finish.

Green Switch Palace (19): A thumb!

Sky World 6 (14): This level was a lot of fun with plenty of non lag inducing action going on pretty much the whole time.

Castle 5a (-200): There's nothing really new about this level, except that I fly during the boss, which turned out to be two frames faster than not flying at the boss. Also, I still have that shell, and I still don't have a fireflower. What was I thinking? Oh right, I wanted to save two frames by flying during the boss.

Ice World 1a (32): Mario pops his collar. Marry Poppins pops her umbrella.

Ice World 2b (45): So, on the way to the key I fly backwards a whole bunch. At this point I am getting used to the way a backwards diving mario looks so it doesn't bother me so much any more, but I still try to not do it too much. Backwards diving also prevents the one frame loss that sometimes comes with forward diving. On the way back to the key, notice the screen scrolls up. This is because I didn't jump as early as possible, but my speed was still maxed out because the snow has reduced friction.

Blue Switch Palace (17): A foot!

Ice World 2a (60): This level was having lot of lag troubles at the end until I realized they were being caused by Lakitu, so I killed him.

Ice World 3 (18): The cool thing about regaining the p meter at the end of this level is that mario didn't slow down very much because he was running on ice. Weeee!!!

Ice World 4 (11): Bleh. Lag that I couldn't reduce.

Castle 6a (115): Nothing new here! Just flying, diving, jumping and kicking. And a silent Yoshi coin. Also, I'm leaving the other half of Ice world behind because honestly, who needs it anyway?

Pipe World 1a (13): Flying under the map isn't any more exciting than flying over the map, but at least it's different. Some craziness going on at the end: it looks slow, but it is actually fast.

Pipe World 2 (1172): This level went pretty nicely. Lots of cool pipe noises, and a shell bop to bypass some invisoblocks. I didn't get the p switch because it is like the second half of ice world. Who needs it? Just force mario through yet another wall instead. And oh yeah, this is why I got that shell way back in sky world. Because the one in ice world isn't good enough.

Pipe World 1b (33): Fly under the level again, except this time grab a key while you're at it.

Ice World 1b (32): As it turns out, I actually do need the other half of ice world, and now seemed like as good a time as any to go back and pick it up. This level has potential to be amazingly cooler than it is, but then it lags.

Ice World 5 (9): LAG!!! I don't know why it lets me fly through some walls and not others, especially since sometimes I could fly through a wall, and another time I couldn't fly through that wall. Oh well, it doesn't really matter.

Ice Igloo b (32): During this level I ended up taking a three week break. If you use your imagination the hopping during that long passage might sound like Jingle Bells. Due to the tightly enclosed nature of that hidden hallway I couldn't make the note lengths more accurate, which is unfortunate. It's raining outside, finals are coming up, and my hands are cold. Time for the next level.

Ice Secret (-159): The dialog box is a pain, but this is still the best place and time to pick up Yoshi. Once again, Yoshi has proven how evil he can be.

Ice Igloo a (-5): Yoshi almost succeeded in not making me lose time in this level. This level doesn't look nearly as cool with Yoshi as it does without. It's still raining outside, and now I'm wet. Now might be a good time to say my Thanksgiving vacation was giid'. After completing this level Fabian pointed out an improvement which was three frames, but thanks to random bs lag those three frames were lost anyway, so I didn't actually have to go redo any other levels.

Castle 6b (91): I had fun with the shells, and I didn't have fun with those block pillars (they suck). Press L and R to get in an already defeated castle.

Pipe World 3 (78): I couldn't have as much fun as I wanted in this level because of the need to fly out of pipes and keep p meter and blah blah, but it still looks fairly action packed with no lag. Also, it was voted (2 vs 1) that flying stuck to the ceiling was better than hopping, so mario popped his magnet cape.

Pipe World 4 (2051): This is by far my favorite level in the game. First off, I didn't follow the previous run for how to beat this level, unlike almost every other level in the game. It appears fast paced and has lots of little tricks and quirks in it. Wall snag on a regular platform to stop, duck jump into upwards pulling pipes to go faster, bouncing off the shell while flying, using my extra item, and carrying a springboard while riding Yoshi. During the creation of this level I used the term "forcing cooperation" and hopefully it will be quite evident why this is. Also, a super cool glitch that I can't even give an educated guess as to why it works (although if you want I could probably make something up). This level is why I got the shell from sky world secret, so it had a major impact on my route and how I played many other levels.

Pipe Fortress (2): Waiting before the third kill on reznor is faster because mario jumps gay. Thanks for the tip on that JXQ.

Pipe World 5b (502): Yoshi is still evil, but he actually didn't slow me down too much on this level. And because I'm such a loving person, I ditched him when he wasn't needed any more. He's such a tool. Most of the improvement in this level comes from being faster underground. Hooray for invincible mario! Fabian showed me a way to improve this level, but gay overworld lag meant going faster turned out to be slower, so I left it out.

Pipe Secret (15): Vinesnake. The snake on Dagobah that looks like a vine.

Pipe World 5a (47): The middle of this level looks pretty sloppy (you will see what I mean), but I had 80 frames to kill and a p meter to keep full, and the results are less overworld moves, and no need for an extra feather. To clarify, I needed to be able to fly after going through the tube with all the munchers after it. There was not enough time (80 frames) to do this all at once, so I had to drain the I can fly meter so I could jump again right before the tube to refill it. That doesn't sound much more clear to me, but whatever. At the end the I can fly meter was abused yet again :D

Castle 7b (10): There isn't a whole lot to say about this level. It was frustrating.

Pipe Secret (12): Vinesnake. The snake on Dagobah that looks like a vine.

Castle 7a (20): There still isn't much to say about this level. I hit the boss four times instead of three.

Bowser World 1 (3): This level is incredaboring.

Bowser World 2b (176): This level has three easily avoidable frames of lag when I opened the flower, but I decided to not care and open the flower anyway. Getting under those pipes while losing the least amount of speed that I could was incredibly frustrating, and up to this point the pyramid is the only level to compare how challenging it was to make. I also found that you can swoop while mario is in the spinning animation which gives me more freedom of movement while killing the piranha plants and not killing the koopa shell. I had to stop and regain p speed in the middle of the level so the screen would scroll up, otherwise mario can't get high enough to go into the passageway to the key (because it doesn't exist).

Red Switch Palace (4): A balloon.

Bowser World 2a (110): Because of lag, this level didn't look nearly as cool as it could have.

Bowser World 3 (92): This level has some sidescroller to it and the lag was easy to avoid for the most part, which was nice (outside). In the middle section (outside) I was learning cool new ways to fly. Then there's some really cool looking stuff going on inside. And then it's over.

Reznor Fortress b (96): I mixed a wall jump in with all the keyjumping for fun.

Reznor Fortress a (190): JXQ hex'd in the first room so I wouldn't have to do it again. Hooray JXQ <3. Several different strategies were tried in the moving wall room and this was the best that I could make work. If (estimate) 15 frames could be cut out before I got blocked in then the level could be completed much sooner, possibly without waiting for the walls at all.

Castle 8b (116): Too much fire!

Castle 8a (1147): This level made me happy. While running through the floor mario is actually going faster than his normal speed (and what is shown in the memory address) because the speed at which the wall pushes him is added to his speed, kind of like running on top of the mega mole in cc3.

Bowser Star World a (117): This level could also be completed with a shell and yoshi. The shell doesn't have to be blue.

Back Door Star World a (45): You can fly under some of the spikes that I didn’t' fly under, but it is slower because of lag.

Secret Star World a (14): :/

Misty Star World a (-57): This is the most super special awesome level in the game.

Desert Star World a (-57): Yoshi flight was set up as soon as possible which meant the screen didn't scroll very high, but I think it was faster than alternative ways of setting it up. Some speed was lost at the end to avoid an otherwise unavoidable shy guy; yoshi's tongue doesn't exist that far above the screen or something.

Water Star World a (-30): The "cram in ceiling" thing I did with the p switch can actually be used to go through the ceiling, but there is no way back down. Thirty frames were lost when entering/exiting the final pipe because Mario on Yoshi is taller than just Mario, so it takes him longer to get in/out of the pipe. Stupid plumber.

Crystal Star World a (490): This shows off another trick I found (and saves lots of time too). Chances are though, by the time this run gets out JXQ will already have made 3 more versions of sdw15 :P

Sky Star World a (16): Getting 52 speed saved only 15 frames \o/ and also looked cooler.

Ice Star World a (43): Boo lag.

Pipe Star World a (148): This level has lots of places to use keep flight. I switched to the flower and back because fire mario doesn't jump as high with super speed as caped mario, so if I hadn't switched I was 4(?) frames short of being able to keep flight out the bottom of the pipe. This was about one second faster than the key-jump-through-coin-block method.

...? a (-3): …?

...? b (82): Time saved because Fabian & JXQ didn't have memory watch.

Big Boo Star World a (2): I was running out of time to finish this run (school ends, work, hiking, etc) so from here to the end took 6ish days. Yay.

Big Boo World 1a (4): This level is a lot like the fortress thing in pipe world. So much so, that I forgot to save a frame by hopping to the final door from the pipe again.

Big Boo World 2a (-1): This is an attempt to copy the previous run, except one frame slower so I fail :(

Big Boo World 3a (-2): Not much to this level, just fly and win.

Big Boo World 4a (133): P meter and speed address helped get running speed while always moving to the right (jumping over ghost things etc)

Big Boo World 5a (69): When I'm above the screen in this level I don't really know what's going on. Also, if I remember correctly, I flew through some "live" ghosts (they were bright white) without taking damage.

Big Boo World 6a (-2): I lost two frames here and couldn't figure out where so moved on. JXQ pointed out that it was probably from hopping to the ramp thing so I didn't have running meter built up so quickly. I didn't go back.

Big Boo Tower: You can bring a Yoshi in this level, which was news to me. Unfortunately, even using spring glitches, the amount of bs you have to go through to get yoshi to this level negates any gain you could get.

Big Boo Secret! a (36): Select spam is fun.

Big Boo Star World b (1): A short easy level :D

Pipe Star World b (233): The only new thing here is the key jumping strategy. Instead of throwing it up in the air then waiting for it to come back down, I just dropped it. Most of the time gained was from memory watch (51 speed).

Ice Star World b (-2): Laggy McLagerson.

Sky Star World b (0): :DK

Crystal Star World b (1010): This level shows flying under the screen and flying while holding two items at the same time. While under the screen, every time you hear the cape swooping sound there was a lag frame, so you can hear that this game really is encoded with lag frames.

Water Star World b (33): Amazingly, this water sidescrolling level is actually worth watching. You should watch it. Really.

Desert Star World b (8): Holding B (and probably A) after bouncing off an enemy in flight makes you go higher than not holding it. I didn't know that until this level.

Misty Star World b (60): Misty Star World again. I try to do some new and different things this time.

Secret Star World b (24):

Big Boo Secret! b (11): More select spam. Yay! Also, I got that fireball thing because it sounded cool.

Big Boo World 6b (5): Lots of shells to throw around and stuff. That was nice.

Big Boo World 5b (5): Cah-raaazy pallete change. There were some other choices, but I picked this one because it was BLAM in your face.

Big Boo World 4b (118): I had to intentionally slow down a bit because I couldn't figure out any other way to get through all those ghost block things.

Big Boo World 3b (7):

Big Boo World 2b (4):

Big Boo World 1b (9): This level was done small because it was not worth the extra map moved needed to do it caped (84 frames of map moves).

Big Boo Secret! (-2): I lost two frames and could not find them.

Bowser Star World b (45): Time saved from getting p speed sooner on the raft.

Back Door Star World b (-25): The time lost here is all lag, but all my attempts to reduce the lag increased it instead, so I gave up.

Bowser Back Door (0): I wanted to kill one of those statues (their death sprite is flipped and rotated piece of chuck digging up a ball of dirt I think), but it was slower so I didn't do it.

Bowser (16): Big Bad Bouncy Bowser Ball! Also, cool new method to end input (11 frames?) earlier without increasing avi length.

How this run can be improved (note that most frame counts are guesses):

If there's anything I forgot to mention, I'll probably not get around to adding it. Have fun watching.

DeHackEd: Yoink