Submission Text Full Submission Page
An attempt to collect every Coinless-Cannonless-Capless star in Super Mario 64. At first, this run aimed for minimum possible completion time, but soon after the run began, many star times became obsoleted. It was possible to match every frame count in the latest 120 star TAS, but the run would look very similar to said TAS, so, like the first 120 star TAS, I decided to sacrifice a few frames here and there to make the run entertaining and different from previous runs. It can probably be improved by at least a minute, but hopefully that won't happen for a while.
Emulator: Mupen 64 ReRecording Edition 0.5.0
  • Video Plugin: Jabo's Direct3D8 1.6
  • Input Plugin: N-Rage's Direct-Input8 1.60 and TAS Input Plugin
  • Sound Plugin: Jabo's DirectSound 1.6
  • RSP Plugin: RSP emulation Plugin
Abuses programming errors
Aims to complete all stars possible to get without:
  • Touching any coins
  • Using any caps
  • Entering any cannons
Thanks to:
  • Swordless_Link: for support from the beginning, and for actively participating in the run
  • Rikku: for actively participating in the run
  • nesrocks: for helping me come up with the idea of the CCC run and for support and planning
  • Mitjitsu: for showing me how to hex edit, which saved a lot of time
  • Brightguy: for the list of CCC stars, and for his invaluable site at www.sm64.com
  • Hb2: for discovering the latest CCC star
  • And thanks to everyone else who supported the run and watched the few WIPs I released, and gave feedback on them

adelikat: According to the JudgeGuidelines:
  • Keep the number of different branches per a game minimal.
  • Avoid doing decisions that undermine this guideline (or other guidelines) now or in the future. For example, don't publish an arbitrarily rule-restricted movie just because there are few of movies for that game
Both of these point to rejection of this movie. The main problem is that it doesn't stand out beyond the 2 currently published movies to warrant a 3rd branch of this game.
While "CCC" may be a common unassisted playing goal, it fails to be an impressive TAS goal. If anything, because the goal itself is doable unassisted. "Extra" (runs other than any%, low%, 100%, or perhaps pacifist?) of games tend to have goals that would be thought impossible or at least impossible by human standards to achieve. Such as SMW's small only run, Metroid's no mini-boss run, or Nightmare on Elm Street's 4 player run.
Sorry, but I am rejecting this submission.


Hb2
Joined: 2/27/2006
Posts: 19
Location: Santiago, Chile
I liked this run a lot, nice job mr_roberts_z! Even if some stars looks similar to their "120 stars TAS" counterpart, the new routes and methods used to get some of the semi-impossible CCC stars make up for it. The problem is that if you haven't tried this challenge in SM64 before, you won't find this run as entertaining as someone who did. Some of the stars are VERY hard to get on a console, like "Pyramid Puzzle" or "Somewhere over the Rainbow". I almost smashed my head against the wall when I saw "Pyramid Puzzle" being collected that fast (it took me around 4 hours to get it coinless XD). Anyway, I'm giving this a YES vote.
Player (36)
Joined: 10/8/2006
Posts: 284
I liked the whole thing, but TTM and TTC were awesome. I also liked the close-up view of the coins and the furnace in Rainbow Ride.
Joined: 7/28/2005
Posts: 83
Location: Montreal, Canada
Here's a mirror for those with Megaupload issues (on my webspace). Enjoy! http://www.nihongowned.com/univbee/TASVideos/CCCless-pass3.avi
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Mildly interesting, good for a screensaver, and not optimal. Voting meh. EDIT: Thanks univbee for the AVI mirror!
Skilled player (1099)
Joined: 8/26/2006
Posts: 1139
Location: United Kingdom
As much as I love SM64 this gets a weak yes vote. I think that you could have used far more speed/entertainment trade-offs than you did, especially as so many stars were pretty much unchanged. On the other hand the chuckya glitch is just madness and I never thought it would be in a TAS. Bonus points there and the concept is good. Yes for a concept demo, although this could have been a tiny bit better.
Former player
Joined: 12/22/2006
Posts: 193
Location: Flowood, MS
Going with meh on this one. It's nice, but I'd rather see just a straight-up 70 star run.
<adelikat> tony hawk is porn for me <Comicalflop>my mom is hot
Former player
Joined: 7/21/2006
Posts: 747
Location: Northern Hemisphere
mushroom wrote:
Going with meh on this one. It's nice, but I'd rather see just a straight-up 70 star run.
I was gonna do that, but I was advised not too, since the restrictions were too unclear.
Former player
Joined: 12/22/2006
Posts: 193
Location: Flowood, MS
Get 70 stars then beat Bowser?
<adelikat> tony hawk is porn for me <Comicalflop>my mom is hot
nesrocks
He/Him
Player (246)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
why 70 stars? because it's how the game was intended? then you shouldn't use glitches either.
Former player
Joined: 12/22/2006
Posts: 193
Location: Flowood, MS
Okay cool great. We'll talk more over lunch, I have some clients to tend to. ttylby
<adelikat> tony hawk is porn for me <Comicalflop>my mom is hot
Former player
Joined: 7/21/2006
Posts: 747
Location: Northern Hemisphere
Would you guys prefer routes like this?
Former player
Joined: 12/22/2006
Posts: 193
Location: Flowood, MS
Perhaps just eliminate BLJing. That would work.
<adelikat> tony hawk is porn for me <Comicalflop>my mom is hot
Joined: 10/16/2006
Posts: 174
Dwedit wrote:
I've watched the 120 Stars WIP video too much, and I guess that spoiled this one for me. This one was just boring, and too similar to the other movie. I turned it off halfway through the ghost level.
This pretty much sums up my opinion verbatim. I felt like I was just watching the other videos, only skipping over a few choice stars. I also stopped at the Ghost level because it all just felt the same. No vote. But if it is accepted, I see no choice but it going to Concept/Demos section.
Active player (315)
Joined: 8/25/2006
Posts: 287
Awsome run Mr_Robertz_Z I finally got a chance to watch it. Congrats on first TAS ;). This should definitly be accepted. The goals are quite simple. Don't touch a coin don't acquire a cap and go inside a cannon at all. Great run good job.
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 883
More video = More viewer = More TASer I don't know if it should be publish in the N64 section (obviously, it's just another version that doesn't fit in the rules) but why not make another section, or maybe allow most of the run to be in a different part of the website. Or in the concept and demo. I do believe that youtube is great because of diversity, why not do the same with tas, like an official part, and another part. We have TASvideos.org why not NotMakingTheOfficial.TASVideos.org :P
Joined: 12/29/2006
Posts: 119
Location: Japan, Anjo
Because there is limitation in case of being CCC, it clears using the bug.
DiffCalc .NET Frameworks 3.5 required.
adelikat
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Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
I voted No on this submission. 1) For a TAS, the concept is rather arbituary even if it is a classic challenge for speedrunners. 2) It is too similar to the 120 stars run I fast fowarded through the parts that were the same/very similar, which meant I spent more time fast fowarding than not. I don't think the few stars that showed new glitches were enough to warrant another hour long movie. If the creative solutions to a couple of stars is the main justification to publication, then why not make a movie that just does those stars? Perhaps a playaround that just shows off crazy shortcuts and ideas that didn't get an opportunity to be shown off in the 120 stars run? 3) Avoiding coins is not impressive from a TAS perspective. Maybe that can be tricky on a console, but the use of savestates makes that a mundane task. Again, so the only point seems the stars that deviate from the 120 star run, which is a fraction of the movie. 4) Goals are not designed to enhance entertainment. In fact, this movie is less entertaining than the 2 currently published run, why should it be the 3rd run of the site? It seems to "clerical" to me. Rather than being a goal that gives you artistic freedom, and aid in maximizing entertainment, it simply gives you a statistical goal to achieve. If the save file saying 0 coins + max stars is the objective, then just show a screenshot of that; no need for an hour long movie file. 5) Not optimal Even if the concept was good, this isn't an optimal performance anyway. The author even admits to a minutes worth of improvement. Which on a TAS level is large even for an hour long movie. I suspect the improvement potential is even larger. There are many places where it is clearly not as precise as it could be, and that hurt the entertainment value as well. As a result, I think this movie does not warrant pubication. None of the current justifications have pursuaded me otherwise.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Senior Moderator
Joined: 8/4/2005
Posts: 5777
Location: Away
adelikat wrote:
If the creative solutions to a couple of stars is the main justification to publication, then why not make a movie that just does those stars? Perhaps a playaround that just shows off crazy shortcuts and ideas that didn't get an opportunity to be shown off in the 120 stars run?
Would that, per any chance, make it less arbitrary? If such a movie was submitted instead of this, would it have been accepted? Somehow I think not (to both questions). Regarding my own opinion on this particular run, I don't like it (nor the game, in general). It has a few interesting moments, but if watching a 120-star run is already a pain for me for the most part, watching CCC is even worse in that respect, so I haven't watched it till the end. I appreciate the effort, though; it's not an often chance to see a player who makes complex TASes just because he wants to, disregarding the audience reception.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
nesrocks
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Player (246)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
How is it more arbitrary than "always small mario"?
Joined: 12/3/2006
Posts: 131
Location: Seattle
FODA wrote:
How is it more arbitrary than "always small mario"?
It isn't more arbitrary. The important difference between this run and SMW small-only is that SMW small-only varies more from other SMW runs compared to how much this one varies from other SM64 runs. Personally, I found this run to be the most entertaining run of SM64 I've seen so far, but I don't think the CCCless restriction was what made it more entertaining for me (besides maybe the fact that it made mario finish a level and move on to a new one more frequently because 2 or more stars were always skipped). There were other more subtle differences between this run and both 120 star runs that I enjoyed, although I can't remember now what they were.
Former player
Joined: 12/22/2006
Posts: 193
Location: Flowood, MS
It's less about it being arbitrary and more about the restriction just not showing off anything horribly interesting, at least nothing more interesting than what's in the current 120-star run. The small-mario SMW run did, because nearly every level's strategy had to be rethought. Avoiding coins, cannons and caps, while eliminating nearly half of the total number of stars that are possible to get, still leaves very much the same exact strategy for the ones that are possible to get.
<adelikat> tony hawk is porn for me <Comicalflop>my mom is hot
adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3573)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
mushroom wrote:
It's less about it being arbitrary and more about the restriction just not showing off anything horribly interesting, at least nothing more interesting than what's in the current 120-star run. The small-mario SMW run did, because nearly every level's strategy had to be rethought. Avoiding coins, cannons and caps, while eliminating nearly half of the total number of stars that are possible to get, still leaves very much the same exact strategy for the ones that are possible to get.
These are my thoughts exactly. Just stated more elegantly than I would have been able to do.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
TASVideosGrue
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Posts: 2785
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om, nom, nom... blech, stale!
BigBoct
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Joined: 8/9/2007
Posts: 1692
Location: Tiffin/Republic, OH
I'd like to propose that this is a good candidate for a Moon.
Previous Name: boct1584
YoungJ1997lol
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Player (9)
Joined: 7/4/2011
Posts: 550
Location: U.S.A.
boct1584 wrote:
I'd like to propose that this is a good candidate for a Moon.
*facepalm* It's rejected. ---- Edit by FractalFusion: Removed insult.
So yea, how's it going? Currently TASing: Nothing