(Link to video)
Mario got tired of jumping, so he thought: how do I save the princess with the fewest jumps? Along the way, Mario used all kinds of enemies, and took many underground shortcuts.

Game Objective

  • Minimum A presses
    • Fastest completion
      • Maximum entertainment
This goal can be also called "A button challenge" or "ABC". It basically turns SMB into a puzzle game.
This seemingly restrictive goal leads to the most INSANE and most complicated SMB TAS ever, with lots of nearly impossible moves and crazy glitches that you won't see in other TASes.
We ended up using only 62 A presses. It's also a completion with the fewest jumps.

Background

On October 4, 2016, Kosmic first told HappyLee that he was going to make a TAS of this game with minimal A presses. On March 21, 2018, HappyLee promised to join this project (HappyLee: I just thought it would be fun and challenging. Back then I had no idea how the movie would turn out in the end).
Kosmic provided many interesting initial ideas. Some were proven feasible, such as wall jumping at the beginning of 1-2, turning a Spiny into a Koopa in 4-1, and using a Beetle near the end of 8-1.
From May 25, 2018 to July 28, 2018, HappyLee completed the first version up to 8-1.
Then, for a year and a half, this project was halted, because HappyLee found an A press save at the beginning of 4-1, after finishing 4-2. This reduced HappyLee's motivation, because 4-1 was extremely complex, so having to redo it was going to be really painful.
On February 21, 2020, Kriller37 joined us, and with him new energy came back to this project. He also shared some new ideas, like 8-2 stair clip, getting the fireflower in 1-2, and double stomping a Koopa Paratroopa in 8-4 to save an A press.
On April 2, 2020, periwinkle joined the project. Periwinkle provided help with code analysis that proved vital in manipulating enemy patterns. His efforts allowed us to get the patterns we needed for Bullet Bills, Lakitu, and Cheep Cheeps- most notably making a spreadsheet that allowed us to calculate Cheep Cheep patterns in 8-4.
Along the way we found some demo videos made by RAT926 (poleovermania on YouTube). From these we learned there was an A press save in 1-2 by using a vertical screen wrap to stomp a Koopa near the lifts. We invited RAT926 to join our project, but got no response.
On October 19, 2020, DaSmileKat joined the project. DaSmileKat helped test various hard and precise movements, saved 21 frames in 4-2, proved that the third room of 8-4 could be done in 0 A presses, and was the first to successfully save an A press in the second room 8-4.
We had tons of crazy ideas in the group chat- way more than what's shown in the final movie. Some were proven impossible, and some got obsoleted by better ideas.

Glitches and Concepts

Gravity

Gravity adjustment is crucial to this project. Many setups and moves require certain gravity to work.
Mario's gravity is affected by his most recent jump. He keeps that gravity state until he jumps again. Bouncing on enemies and Springboards won't change gravity.
There are 4 types of gravity in SMB. From the lowest to the highest, we name them using their activation conditions.

Floating / swimming gravity

This is the initial gravity when Mario's starting a new stage, or when coming out of a pipe. It is much lower than the other gravities, causing Mario to appear as if he is floating. It's also the gravity when Mario's swimming.
Mainly used in 8-2 after exiting the pipe, 1-1 after exiting the pipe, and 8-4 after exiting the final pipe.

Walking gravity

You get walking gravity by jumping while walking (speed 16 to 24).
Mainly used in the first half of 8-2, the second room of 8-4, in 8-1, etc.

Standing gravity

You get standing gravity by jumping while standing still, or with very low speed (speed 0 to 15).
Mainly used in 8-4 Cheep Cheep room, and 4-1.

Running gravity

You get running gravity by jumping while running (speed 25 to 40).
Mainly used in the parts of 8-1 with the Buzzy Beetle.

Koopa / Buzzy Beetle walking underground

An old SMB glitch, used many times in this TAS to save A presses, but rarely shown in other SMB TASes.
Koopa's waking time and walking direction are determined by the 21 frame rule.

Stomping an underground enemy above the screen

Also an old SMB glitch, used in 1-2.
In SMB, vertical positions are stored with 3 levels of precision: screen, pixel, and subpixel. However, some interactions are only calculated using the pixel position, meaning that there's effectively a copy of every hitbox in every vertical screen. It is quite similar to the Parallel Universe glitch in SM64. It has other applications other than stomping an underground enemy from above the screen, such as getting a Power-up that falls down a hole by jumping above the screen.

Turning a Spiny into a Koopa

Used in 4-1.
This happens when Mario hits a Spiny from below, while near the left side of the screen. This happens because the function which downgrades a Koopa Paratroopa to a regular Koopa is accidentally triggered when hitting an enemy from below in one of five possible X-coordinates. Depending on the exact coordinate, the Spiny can turn into a red or a green Koopa.

Other glitches used in this TAS

Wall jump, corner clip, full flagpole glitch, wrong warp, bouncing high off enemies ("superjump").

Level Comments

1-1 - 8 A presses

Solution and inputs by HappyLee. Underground room corner clip added by DaSmileKat. Some additional tests by Kriller37 and DaSmileKat.
Getting the Mushroom doesn't cost an extra A press, which makes it the perfect spot. The underground room corner clip is only for entertainment, because 1-1 has many frames to spare. Crossing the large gap after coming out of the pipe is possible by abusing floating/swimming gravity.

1-2 - 4 A presses

Solution and inputs of the first part (wall jumps and running) by HappyLee, solution and inputs of the second part (Koopa, lifts, and getting Fire Flower) by Kriller37. The idea of wall jumps at the start first brought up by Kosmic. Additional Koopa tests by DaSmileKat.
The idea of using underground Koopa and stomping it through the top of the screen was found by RAT926. Kriller37 then developed the idea of getting Fire Flower with 0 A presses, saving an A press compared to the original idea of getting Fire Flower in 4-1. Stomping the Koopa from above the screen without needing to re-stomp it is very precise, since the Koopa needs to be placed in the perfect position down to half a pixel.

4-1 - 6 A presses

Solution and inputs mainly by HappyLee, with Kriller37's help of Lakitu manipulation. The idea of turning Spiny into Koopa first brought up by Kosmic. Special thanks to periwinkle and DaSmileKat for Lakitu code analysis.
Turning the Spiny into a Koopa takes 2 additional A presses, but it saves various jumps because Mario can use the mid-air Koopa to cross small gaps and do ground clips. A glitchless 4-1 would take 13 A presses.

4-2 - 7 A presses

Solution by HappyLee and DaSmileKat, inputs by HappyLee.
4-2 uses the same wrong warp glitch as the any% TAS, but with a ground clip to achieve the needed X position to save A presses.

8-1 - 11 A presses

Solution by HappyLee and Kosmic, inputs by HappyLee. Thanks to Kriller37 for help with testing.
8-1 requires lots of jumps, because it's long and has lots of large gaps. A glitchless 8-1 would normally take 24 A presses.
The first ground clip takes 0 A presses, but it saves 8 jumps. This ground clip can only be done in 0 A presses by having Mario slide out of the wall on the left and then clipping on the right with the highest X acceleration. The initial idea was to use a Goomba because the Koopa is too close to the pit at the time Mario arrives, which leaves no time for getting the highest X acceleration, but later HappyLee found that kicking the Koopa shell and using the shell for the ground clip was much faster.
The second ground clip has a similar principle to the first one. It saves 1 jump.
The underground Beetle is kept for the third ground clip, and for bouncing to the flagpole.

8-2 - 4 A presses

Solution mainly by HappyLee, inputs by HappyLee and Kriller37. Thanks to Kriller37 for great help with testing, and providing the idea of saving a jump by corner clipping through the stairs with a Bullet Bill.
As unbelievable as it is, 8-2 is actually the level with the fewest amount of A presses. Clipping through the ground in 0 A presses has to be one of the most incredible and complicated setups in this TAS. It requires walking gravity, running speed, falling state, and a perfect Bullet Bill. The whole setup not only requires heavy Bullet Bill RNG and enemy manipulation, but also very precise subpixel values. To gather running speed and falling state before touching the Bullet Bill, Mario has to use the tiny space and maximum acceleration to quickly gain running speed, and has to bounce on at least two enemies to reach the tiny hole for the clip.
The current plan of using a Koopa flying backward is the fastest and the most elegant solution, which has evolved many times throughout this project. The original plan was to keep 2 Koopas walking underground, but then HappyLee found a way to stomp the Koopa shell immediately after kicking it, making it possible to do the whole setup with only one Koopa underground.
Heavy Bullet Bill RNG manipulation is used for 8-2, to make the required Bullets shoot in the perfect time. Each cannon has a timer which is influenced by the first 3 enemy slots, and often we need to manipulate multiple cannon timers to shoot at specific frames.
3 additional Bullets are required after the first ground clip. One for the second ground clip, one for getting out from the floor, and one for the giant leap to enter the pipe.
A few frames are wasted waiting in the underground stage, because we aimed for getting the best Bullet Bill RNG after coming out from the pipe. The RNG that caused the cannon to fire twice in a short time right after coming out from the pipe is extremely rare.
For the 2 Goombas + Bullet Bill bounce stair clip to work, an "invisible Bullet" was used to push the Beetle to load at the 4th enemy slot, so the required Bullet Bill can be shot.
The ending double Bullet Bills are not necessary, but faster than one Bullet because of full flagpole glitch.
Having done 8-2 without using any pauses, while getting all the perfect & fastest Bullets may look smooth and natural, but in fact it's unbelievably hard.

8-3 - 7 A presses

Solution mainly by HappyLee and DaSmileKat, inputs by DaSmileKat and HappyLee.
We choose to use 2 underground Koopas instead of Bullet Bills for the ending part, because it saves an extra A press.
The first ground clip is much more complicated than it looks, and we've developed many versions. The first versions require a Bullet Bill, to keep the Koopa at a specific height. Later we found that it's faster to do the ground clip without a Bullet Bill, and it's faster to let the second Koopa walk ahead of the first Koopa, and use both of them to get across the final giant gap.
For the final ground clip, we need walking gravity. Mario can't reach the pipe from inside the ground with a walking speed jump, so HappyLee came up with the very clever solution of bouncing on the Koopa and then doing a walljump. This lets us load the next Koopa as soon as possible as well.
We experimented with many different ideas in this level, searching for ways to save more A presses or do the level faster, and this is the best solution we found to be possible.

8-4 15 A presses in total

Room 1 - 6 A presses

Inputs by HappyLee.
A simple room with no clever solution.

Room 2 - 2 A presses

Solution by HappyLee, Kriller37 and DaSmileKat, inputs by HappyLee.
Crossing the gap between the two pipes with 2 Koopa Paratroopas with 0 jumps is the final A press save found in this TAS. It's only possible when Mario stomps the first Koopa Paratroopa twice. The idea was first raised by Kriller37 and first proved possible by DaSmileKat, and the fastest setup was found by HappyLee, which requires very precise enemy manipulation to get the two Koopa Paratroopas to leap to that exact location.
Holding A while entering the pipe saves an A press for the next room.

Room 3 - 0 A presses

Solution by HappyLee and DaSmileKat, inputs by HappyLee. Special thanks to periwinkle for Cheep Cheep code analysis, and to DaSmileKat for actually creating a program for calculating Cheep Cheeps.
The A button was held for the entire room, so a jump is buffered at the beginning of the room, as well as a swim at the beginning of the next room. The room was cleared with no additional jumps.
This crazy idea was first proven possible by DaSmileKat. Before that, HappyLee made a version with only 1 A press, which was the jump to the tall pipe, because HappyLee thought to line up a huge wave of Cheep Cheeps at Mario's feet would be impossible.
DaSmileKat's first demo requires 13 Cheep Cheeps in total for this room. After that, HappyLee developed a much faster strategy, and reduced the total Cheep Cheeps required to 9.
DaSmileKat also developed the rising Cheep clip, which is usually faster than waiting for Cheep Cheeps to fall down. The rising Cheep clip is used to get through the tall pipe for the first time.
Mario needs to pass through the tall pipe twice. The first time only aims to get through the pipe to scroll the screen further- not only to load the pipe exit info, but also to allow 3 Cheep Cheeps to appear on the screen at the same time. The second time aims for getting on the pipe. One of the Cheep Cheeps is used only to adjust Mario's Y subpixel inside the pipe, since some Y subpixel values don't allow Mario to get 1 block higher with a Cheep bounce.
Pausing is used many times for Cheep Cheep RNG manipulation. It's theoretically possible to do this whole room without pausing, but the waiting time would be painfully long, so pausing is actually faster.
The Cheep Cheep setup used in the final version is found by HappyLee, and double checked by DaSmileKat to make sure it's completely optimized.

Room 4 - 5 A presses

Inputs by HappyLee.
Holding A at the beginning of this room doesn't save an A press (because there's an alternative strategy by doing a corner clip), but it does save time.
Sadly, we couldn't kill any Bloopers because it would affect Firebars and cost time.

Room 5 - 2 A presses

Inputs by Kriller37, Kosmic and HappyLee.
Mario has to wait a very long time at the start of this room for the Hammer Bro to charge towards him. We have floating/swimming gravity here, since we haven't jumped in this room yet, so bouncing on the hammer brother reaches the next pipe and saves 1 A press.

Authors' Comments

HappyLee

When Kosmic and I started this project, we never could have guessed how crazy it would turn out. I'm so happy that after 3 years, we've finally finished this extremely complicated project.
This couldn't be done without our wonderful and talented teammates. Kriller37 and DaSmileKat contributed a lot to this TAS, and found many astonishing improvements. I'm so proud to be on this great team.
This is truly a complicated and nerve-wracking project. We've made 3 versions of 1-2, 4-1, and 8-2. For many times I almost wanted to quit, because having to redo 4-1 entertainment and 8-2 luck manipulation is extremely painful. But we've still made it to the end.
Special thanks to RAT926 and Mars608, who've helped with some ideas of this TAS.
By the way, just as we finished this TAS and when I was writing this submission text, I've found another improvement that's going to change a lot of later RNG. It's so frustrating to me, because we've tried so hard to create a perfect TAS, but still I could miss something, even though I was really careful and precise and have thought a lot during testing. By this stage, I've decided to save this for future improvements. Perhaps creating a perfect TAS is a myth, but at least we've tried our best, and I'm satisfied with our work.

Kriller37

In early 2020 Kosmic showed me some of HappyLee's tests and first versions of many of the levels of this minimum A press TAS from 2018, and they absolutely blew my mind. There were so many crazy strats I never would have thought of and included lots of tricks and glitches you rarely see in any other TASes. I was blown away by how insane the TAS was.
This sparked my interest in minimum A press TASing, and I ended up making a minimum A press TAS of 5-1 in SMB1, featuring a wall clip through the staircase at the end of the level. A couple days later, Happylee messaged me in discord talking about that TAS of 5-1 I had just made, and then asked me if I wanted to help him work on his minimum A press TAS. I remember being so excited that Happylee had asked me this.
Throughout the making of this whole TAS, there were so many crazy ideas we all had, and almost every idea we had ended up working. There were very few things we tried and tested that we couldn't pull off which was very satisfying.
I remember when me and happylee got back to 8-2 for the first time since I started helping, we were trying to figure out the best way to do that first floor clip which at the time required 2 A presses I think. Then happylee said he had an idea to do it in 0 A presses, but wouldn't explain what his idea was because he thought it would be way too complicated to try to explain, and he was hoping his idea would not work just so we didn't have to figure out a way to pull off his insane idea. After a little while though he did prove his idea possible, and this strategy again just blew my mind. There is so much precision and manipulation going on in 8-2 that you can't see from just watching the TAS, it is crazy. I still cant believe that 8-2 is possible in 4 A presses.
All the crazy RNG manipulation in 8-2 took a really really long time to complete, and there was many times throughout the making of this TAS where we would complete 8-2 and get very close to finishing the whole TAS, and then find an improvement early on in the TAS and then have to redo all of 8-2 and other levels as well. It was really discouraging at times, but I am so glad we kept working and finished this TAS because it made the final project that much more amazing.
This is one of my first big TAS projects I have ever worked on and now completed, and I can't express how happy I am to have worked on this. I am so incredibly thankful for HappyLee and Kosmic to have invited me to work on this project with them, and Periwinkle and DaSmileKat joining in only made the whole experience of working on this TAS even better. This TAS means so much to me, and I am so happy to finally be able to show it to everyone. Thank you to everyone in the SMB1 community as well, I love you all and you are all amazing people :)

DaSmileKat

Before being invited, I had seen a video from HappyLee demonstrating the 8-2 solution. It was very clever, but I did not realize just how hard pulling such a thing off really is.
When I was invited, I saw the rest of this TAS, and it was incredible. I had some ideas of what the rest of the TAS was going to be like, but the actual TAS blew my mind. It really expanded what I knew was possible in SMB.
After starting work on it, I quickly discovered that my usual method of TASing (steadily working my way through a level and optimizing any complex movements that I face) isn't going to work here. The problems faced in this TAS are just too complicated. So I created a model of SMB's vertical physics, combined it with a brute force program, and used it to help test 1-1, 1-2, and 8-3. Of them, 8-3 was the most complicated. I had many ideas for that level, and it took a while to manually search through the program's results to see which would work.
And then 8-4 presented me with a whole new problem that I never encountered before: manipulating the random Cheeps. Periwinkle provided the Cheep-spawning mechanics, and I was able to make another brute-force tool that optimizes Cheeps given the required positions and speeds. Despite that, finding the correct Cheep positions and speeds to make the strategy work was a pain as well. But I was eventually able to finish the room, and then we found the second room A press save which messed up the RNG. The second time around, HappyLee did most of the work, while I double-checked to make sure it is perfect.
Finally, I would like to thank my teammates: HappyLee, Kriller37, Periwinkle, and Kosmic. They did a lot of hard work and had many brilliant ideas, most notably in 8-2, which looked so hard that I didn't attempt it. In addition, I was invited pretty late into the project, meaning that they had already finished many parts. I would never have been able to finish the project without them.

Kosmic

I first started having thoughts about a TAS like this a very long time ago, in February of 2016, when I did this. Minimal A Press TASes were pretty popular in Super Mario 64, and I started wondering what one would look like for this game.
I had some very exciting initial ideas, such as walljumping up at the start of 1-2, and especially turning a Spiny into a Koopa at the start of 4-1, so you could clip into the ground with it. I knew that I didn't have the skills to make this TAS happen, so I asked HappyLee for help.
We started working on it, and I was very impressed with HappyLee's solution for the ending of 1-1. My idea for the beginning of 1-2 turned out to be possible. Unfortunately, the warp zone at the end couldn't be loaded by doing a moonwalk to scroll the screen while on top of the world 4 warp pipe, but later we got a better solution anyway.
I asked HappyLee if a ground clip in 8-1 would be possible in a 1 block wide gap. He said he had never tried such a thing before, so he wasn't sure. Soon afterwards, he told me he had done it! I was proud to be involved in a project that was doing brand new things in Super Mario Bros. That first solution for the ground clip required a jump. I can't believe how things evolved from there- doing the 8-1 ground clip without a jump, and especially the 8-2 and 8-3 ground clips without jumps.
I knew 8-2 with its bullet bills and 8-4 with its Cheep Cheeps would be extremely complicated levels, and I'm very grateful for all the help we got from Periwinkle, Kriller37, and DaSmileKat. Doing 8-2 and 8-4 in the number of jumps we did feels like a dream come true.
I had many ideas for this TAS but wasn't skilled enough to contribute very much for the actual inputs, so I'm extremely grateful to all the other authors for making this TAS a reality.

periwinkle

I'm honored to have the opportunity to work with HappyLee, Kosmic, Kriller37, and DaSmileKat on this project—they are all amazing members of the SMB1 community that I look up to, and I never thought I'd get to do a collaboration like this with them. Thanks to them for all of the hard work! (Sorry I couldn't do much more myself.)
While I don't consider myself a master TASer, I do like to take deep dives into the internal workings of a game and figure out how it works under the hood. Occasionally, someone will come to me asking "How does (X) work?" or "How can (Y) be manipulated?", and while I don't always have an answer right away, my approach is usually "Let me look into it and find out for you". In this instance, my involvement in this project is really the collision of two separate worlds:
Just over a year ago (in April 2020), Kriller37 posed a (rather veiled) question to some members of the SMB community: How close together could two bullet bills be shot from the same launcher? This seemed like an interesting (if seemingly academic) question to me, so I did some tests and responded with my results. Little did I know, Kriller was actually testing strategies for this TAS! While that particular idea didn't quite pan out in the end, the knowledge of exactly how the bullet timers work and how to control them precisely proved to be crucial for the final 8-2 strategy.
Meanwhile, Kriller37 and DaSmileKat had both approached me independently (and for unrelated purposes) asking about Cheep Cheep manipulations. After figuring out exactly how Cheep Cheep decide their spawn timing, speed, and position, I produced a spreadsheet model implementing this, which would later come in handy for this project as DaSmileKat wrote a brute-force program using these mechanics to help with testing and optimizing 8-4 Cheep Cheep room strategies.
Beyond all of that, there's still so much more technical prowess that went into this TAS! Big shoutouts again to the rest of the crew for all of their research and efforts making even half of what you see here a reality. This TAS is truly the craziest demonstration yet of what is possible in SMB1. Hope you all enjoy :)

Suggested screenshot


adelikat: Claimed for judging

adelikat: This movie is an impressive technical achievement and while it wasn't unanimous, it entertained a large majority of the audience (75% approval, 8% disapproval). While it is an atypical goal choice, it is one that has clearly defined rules. Furthermore, the publication demonstrates many techniques that other publications do not offer, and distinguishes itself in gameplay from those other categories even for the general audience. This meets all the criteria for the Alternative tier. I am accepting for publication to this tier as a new branch for this game.
EZGames69: Processing

xxezrabxxx
He/Him
Joined: 7/15/2017
Posts: 199
Location: Kentucky
Zakatos wrote:
While the chosen goal has the downside of not being greatly exploited at the beginning and ending of the TAS, and thus giving a bad initial impression, it indeed provides some new and fancy tricks and glitches. I'm voting yes. By the way, I always wondered why there isn't any SMB TAS which completes the game also in the second quest, since it can be essentially considered the game's Hard Mode. For this specific objective it would perhaps be proven interesting, because all Goombas are replaced with Buzzy Beetles, which could be shell-exploited as much as the Troopas.
It’s not different enough, plus not every TAS has to be published to tasvideos.
I like to comment on submissions and look around the site. You have probably seen me before (if you have been around for a while) either on the site, Discord, or any other social media. I recently took up making temporary encodes for new submissions. Also, I never forget to greet Tompa wherever I find him! "when resyncing stuff sucks it's called Resuccing" - EZGames69 “If an emulator stops being accepted to the site it should be called an emuLAMEr” - EZGames69 "oh no discord, everything I say will now be logged forever, sdfsdf, time to hide" - Masterjun "just had to give therapy to a taxi with daddy issues" - psx Current Projects: Mother 3 (75% complete)
Zakatos
He/Him
Joined: 7/26/2004
Posts: 90
Location: Brazil, Sao Paulo, Campinas
Also, I don't think "minimal button presses" should be considered arbitrary, because it essentially replaces the "minimal time spent" main objective. Minimizing the button presses needed to beat the game has in practice the same effort of breaking the boundaries of in-game/real time needed to do so. And if anyone can come across a better strategy and make it to the end with fewer presses, even if it costs more time, it should obsolete the current TAS.
The eyes of a machine are wonderful, but there's nothing like the the eyes of the heart – Old Cid, Cybercop
Joined: 1/27/2014
Posts: 181
Voted yes. I think it's an amazing movie and a great achievement. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make it happen. :)
GamesFan2000
He/Him
Joined: 1/4/2019
Posts: 75
Location: Canada
I'm a little bit confused about the judging situation regarding this TAS. This was claimed almost immediately by one of the judges, but then it reverted to being unclaimed a couple days ago, and now adelikat has claimed it. No pressure, but what happened?
EZGames69
He/They
Expert player, Publisher, Reviewer (3942)
Joined: 5/29/2017
Posts: 2702
Location: Michigan
Samsara isn’t a senior judge
[14:15] <feos> WinDOES what DOSn't 12:33:44 PM <Mothrayas> "I got an oof with my game!" Mothrayas Today at 12:22: <Colin> thank you for supporting noble causes such as my feet MemoryTAS Today at 11:55 AM: you wouldn't know beauty if it slapped you in the face with a giant fish [Today at 4:51 PM] Mothrayas: although if you like your own tweets that's the online equivalent of sniffing your own farts and probably tells a lot about you as a person MemoryTAS Today at 7:01 PM: But I exert big staff energy honestly lol Samsara Today at 1:20 PM: wouldn't ACE in a real life TAS just stand for Actually Cease Existing
Post subject: Re: Judging Dispute?
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
GamesFan2000 wrote:
I'm a little bit confused about the judging situation regarding this TAS. This was claimed almost immediately by one of the senior judges, but then it reverted to being unclaimed a couple days ago, and now adelikat has claimed it. No pressure, but what happened?
Judges sometimes unclaim submissions. There's infinity of possible reasons, even tho it doesn't happen often. But nothing to worry about.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Post subject: Re: Judging Dispute?
Samsara
She/They
Expert player, Senior Judge, Site Admin (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2792
Location: Northern California
GamesFan2000 wrote:
I'm a little bit confused about the judging situation regarding this TAS. This was claimed almost immediately by one of the senior judges, but then it reverted to being unclaimed a couple days ago, and now adelikat has claimed it. No pressure, but what happened?
It's nothing malicious or hostile, we just ended up having a lot of other submissions come in since then, so I decided I'd rather focus on keeping the workbench moving than dedicate all of my time to a difficult judgement. I'm flattered at being called a senior though c: maybe we should make that a reality
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
feos wrote:
It'd be nice if someone posted A counts for other SMB branches.
MovieFrame count"A" countAwesomeness ratio
"maximum coins"94370234540.24307
"all items"71438166143.00903
"warpless"67117137248.91909
"warpless, walkathon"91304150360.74783
"warps"1786828662.47552
"-3 stage ending"989313274.94697
"minimum A presses"3752562605.24193
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Expert player, Site Developer, Site Owner (3581)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4736
Location: Tennessee
feos, thanks for the table! That's really interesting info!
Bisqwit wrote:
FWIW as the founder of TASVideos (even if I have been reduced to nothing but a cheerleader nowadays), I think the reason why we don’t automatically approve every new branch of a game is because there is potentially an infinite number of them. However, this run has a clear-defined goal, and the constraints are far from trivial, and the movie is already very optimized. Additionally, this run is very much at the core of what I set out this site to be. Impressive and entertaining speedruns that are far beyond human limits. If it were me, I would accept this run.
I think this point should carry huge weight. Both with the original (and current) vision of tasvideos, and with the fact that this is a huge technical achievement with a clear goal.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Player (26)
Joined: 8/29/2011
Posts: 1206
Location: Amsterdam
I suppose that since we have a "minimum B presses" run (a.k.a. the walkathon) it makes sense to also have a "minimum A presses" run. I must say I don't find the movie entertaining per se. But I agree that this is a technical achievement and worthy of publication.
Editor, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1022
This is a bit of an unusual movie, because it's basically a solution to a puzzle, and in order to be entertained while watching it, you have to be thinking about the puzzle yourself. Take the first jump, for example. It's required to jump over the goomba in order to progress, but the run manages to hit a ? block and release a mushroom in the process. So the required jump is being used for two different purposes. It hardly looks any different to the any% (the number of jumps is the same), but it is in a slightly different place and there's a reason for that. As a consequence, I found that part of the run entertaining to watch because it was interesting to realise what the reason was. I think the site probably should be moving away from "visual entertainment" or "entertainment level of the encode, in the abstract" for determining which runs are publishable. Even when the encode isn't entertaining in of itself, understanding the goal that a run is aiming for, and the route that it's using to do that, can be worth it. One thing that gives me pause: how much advantage does this run get from being a TAS? (In particular, are there any tricks that are unlikely to be replicated by a skilled person at the controls?) This is an impressive technical achievement, but it would be more impressive if it were done without slowdown and savestates, and time is after all only a secondary goal. We expect runs to stand out from unassisted play, and because few (no?) unassisted players have attempted runs with this route, it isn't immediately clear to me what the advantages of TASing in this context are. (It's quite possible that this whole thing is entirely TAS-only, especially in regards to RNG manipulation; but I don't have enough information to tell, and that impacts my enjoyment a bit.)
Active player (497)
Joined: 11/19/2007
Posts: 128
To parrot most people in this thread, this movie is an excellent technical achievement. I think optimizing button presses is a fairly well-known goal and in this particular game it leads to interesting gameplay that doesn't appear in other categories. The movie is more entertaining and interesting if you think about the goal while watching it, but even at face value it shows off some pretty crazy movement, some of which at least is obviously conducive to the goal (e.g. walking through the floor to avoid jumping over pipes). I think overall it was moderately entertaining; certainly good enough for the site. Most importantly, as a casual viewer, I think the movie is far better than the walkathon published on the site, which, at least from memory, felt like a couple of cool tricks amidst 20 minutes of otherwise uninteresting gameplay. If that movie was deemed suitable for publication then I don't see why this shouldn't be. Thanks to the team for the movie! Yes vote.
Expert player (2448)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 822
ais523 wrote:
This is a bit of an unusual movie, because it's basically a solution to a puzzle, and in order to be entertained while watching it, you have to be thinking about the puzzle yourself.
Yeah that's very true.
ais523 wrote:
One thing that gives me pause: how much advantage does this run get from being a TAS? (In particular, are there any tricks that are unlikely to be replicated by a skilled person at the controls?)
Check out this video: What is the Minimum Amount of Jumps Needed to Beat Super Mario Bros? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAAGvyn7FOM It uses 124 A presses, exactly the double as this TAS. Many movements may seem easy and smooth in this TAS, but it's actually very very hard. I don't need to mention setups like in 8-1 & 8-2 & 8-4 Cheep Cheep room that already look really hard. Take 1-1 final stage as an example, you can rarely get it without savestates, and it's actually one of the easiest moves in this TAS. Take 8-4 2nd room's A press save between the pipes as another example, you almost can't get it even if you know how to do it (double stomp the first Koopa and stomp the second Koopa) and use savestates.
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Acumenium
He/Him
Banned User
Joined: 6/11/2020
Posts: 73
This is technically impressive but incredibly unentertaining. Too many spots are a waiting game to resume playing the game... like normal. The end of 1-1 is the first time I noticed this: waiting... then you go on the pipe thanks to the Goombas, and the game resumes as normal. And yet, it's probably the shortest one. 4-1 had So. Much. Waiting. Some of the new tricks---like the wall-jumps at the beginning of 1-2, were really neat, and part of being technically impressive. The ending of 1-2 and all of 4-1 had the koopa-in-the-ground trick too, which was neat. Then it was joined by Mario-in-the-ground. Which was also neat. A walkathon isn't very comparable, it's not an arbitrary goal, is something anyone can try and compete against (just don't press B), etc. This isn't. The goal is arbitrary and there's far too much waiting. The game turned into a bizarre autoscroller. No vote. ---
Radiant wrote:
I suppose that since we have a "minimum B presses" run (a.k.a. the walkathon) it makes sense to also have a "minimum A presses" run. I must say I don't find the movie entertaining per se. But I agree that this is a technical achievement and worthy of publication.
That's not the "minimum B presses", it's literally none. This does press A though, and quite a lot. It is the definition of arbitrary.
Experienced player (991)
Joined: 1/9/2011
Posts: 227
There were some entertaining spots. Voted Meh. I want to compare this to your warpless walkathon run. What if you ended up having to press B in order to cross the gap in 4-3? That would immediately have put the entire run into a gray area. And now you want to pass off a Jumpless run with "only" 60+ jumps? Trying to disguise it as minimum A presses is too much of a stretch for me.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1234)
Joined: 4/17/2010
Posts: 11251
Location: RU
WarHippy wrote:
I want to compare this to your warpless walkathon run. What if you ended up having to press B in order to cross the gap in 4-3? That would immediately have put the entire run into a gray area.
Since avoiding B completely was already very possible with warps, submitting "1 B press, warpless" would feel underdeveloped. So naturally, it only was submitted when true walkathon was achieved.
WarHippy wrote:
And now you want to pass off a Jumpless run with "only" 60+ jumps? Trying to disguise it as minimum A presses is too much of a stretch for me.
The very first sentence of the submission text reads:
Mario got tired of jumping, so he thought: how do I save the princess with the fewest jumps?
And then:
We ended up using only 62 A presses. It's also a completion with the fewest jumps.
Why do you think this movie is meant to be "Jumpless"? Why do you think there's something to disguise here, when it's stated at the top of the submission? Why do you think the authors aren't being honest with their goals? Are you reading their minds?
Acumenium wrote:
A walkathon isn't very comparable, it's not an arbitrary goal, is something anyone can try and compete against (just don't press B), etc. This isn't.
Why can't anyone compete here?
Acumenium wrote:
That's not the "minimum B presses", it's literally none. This does press A though, and quite a lot. It is the definition of arbitrary.
It presses A as few times as known to be possible, which is what "minimum" means. If 0 is possible, 0 is minimum. When you try to complete a game in minimal time, you don't say "it's not 0 frames therefore it's arbitrary", do you? Because it wouldn't be "movie duration the author arbitrarily picked and decided to stick to", it'd be, once again, known minimum, of time. Same thing with A and B presses in this and in walkathon.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Acumenium
He/Him
Banned User
Joined: 6/11/2020
Posts: 73
No one can compete because it's strictly a TAS run due to the bizarre frame-perfect glitching and use of multiple directions here. Walkathons can be competed with by normal people. Doesn't matter if the TAS is faster---you can at least try to play against it, and it's a goal that real people can try and entertain. The problem is, pressing B 0 times is not arbitrary, you can't do better in a B-less run than that. This is not the "minimum" amount of A presses---ACE aside, this can and will change over time, look at it in Pokemon Red/Blue, etc., it lowers as new glitches or quirks (buffering, etc.) are found. So this is a minimal A button challenge, not minimum. If ROM hacks have to enter a fierce survival of the fittest to determine what can occupy the limited spaces of Moons when the hacks only faintly relate to each other in terms of entertainment space, I am very curious why entirely arbitrary goals like only pressing one of the buttons [x] amount of times is something that can be kept and maintained as a tier, especially when the goal has no possible speed focus. Routing can determine how quickly you can complete a walkathon, so there's still an element of speedrunning to those. This has none, speed is not a focus. This will probably be accepted as it has a lot of Yes votes. Perfectly okay with that. That's how these systems work.
Bigbass
He/Him
Moderator
Joined: 2/2/2021
Posts: 153
Location: Midwest
Acumenium wrote:
So this is a minimal A button challenge, not minimum.
Minimal and minimum, mean the exact same thing. minimal is just minimum + al. Where -al is just changing the word from a noun into an adjective. Regardless, how is the least amount of time, different from the least number of button presses? Both are equally arbitrary, it's just that time is more often chosen as the primary goal.
TAS Verifications | Mastodon | Github | Discord: @bigbass
Expert player (2448)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 822
Acumenium wrote:
No one can compete because it's strictly a TAS run due to the bizarre frame-perfect glitching and use of multiple directions here.
Of course people can compete. This TAS can be obsoleted if a lower amount of A presses is reached, or a faster time with the same amount of A presses. People can aim for fewest jumps or minimum A presses in a real-time gameplay also. It's a less popular goal, but still some people do. The goal (A Button Challenge) is more popular in SM64, and there were actually wiki pages created for this challenge. https://ukikipedia.net/wiki/A_Button_Challenge https://smo-speedrun.fandom.com/wiki/Minimum_A/B_Presses https://pannenkoek2012.fandom.com/wiki/A_Button_Challenge In a TAS, entertainment isn't all about speed. If you like speedy TAS, I've made lots of speedy SMB TASes over the years. Hopefully this TAS shows that SMB TAS isn't all about holding right and run all the way through, and there could be interesting alternative goals other than fastest time.
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Editor, Skilled player (1408)
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
I don't know how common this is because it's been a while I don't lurk the site, but some of the negative feedback this run received is just bizarre. I surely understand and see legitimacy in people genuinely feeling not entertained due to waiting sections, but the way some people got almost hostile with negative feedbacks grounded on not very sane analysis is pretty disappointing. I wish people were kinder and lighter when submitting negative feedback - it's perfectly possible to express the same message while avoiding exaggerations and without sounding accusatory. It must be upsetting to put in so much hard work into a run and read some of the comments around here.
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVoUfT49xN9TU-gDMHv57sw Projects: SMW 96 exit. SDW any%, with Amaraticando. SMA2 SMW small only Kaizo Mario World 3
Acumenium
He/Him
Banned User
Joined: 6/11/2020
Posts: 73
Bigbass wrote:
Acumenium wrote:
So this is a minimal A button challenge, not minimum.
Minimal and minimum, mean the exact same thing. minimal is just minimum + al. Where -al is just changing the word from a noun into an adjective. Regardless, how is the least amount of time, different from the least number of button presses? Both are equally arbitrary, it's just that time is more often chosen as the primary goal.
They have the same root word. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/277236/what-is-the-difference-between-minimum-and-minimal Per Oxford and Merriam-Webster, both sourced there, the words are indeed a bit different and minimal refers to something that is almost at the lowest point, but not quite. Speed is an arbitrary goal if there's no end point. How fast you can run does not matter if it's not specifying for how long, or for what distance. Everyone can be Usain Bolt for one step but I don't think they'll be like him for a ten yard dash, or for an hour. Super Mario Bros. has a clear ending point: saving Princess Peach. If ACE could do this at the title screen, that would be the fastest method to do it, like in Mario 3. I wouldn't even compare this type of run to the submitted and likely to be canceled run of SMS California Games as that at least lists a defined goal that is easily understandable: you beat the default high score. That is the "endpoint". Going past it makes no sense per the game itself.
HappyLee wrote:
Acumenium wrote:
No one can compete because it's strictly a TAS run due to the bizarre frame-perfect glitching and use of multiple directions here.
Of course people can compete. This TAS can be obsoleted if a lower amount of A presses is reached, or a faster time with the same amount of A presses. People can aim for fewest jumps or minimum A presses in a real-time gameplay also. It's a less popular goal, but still some people do. The goal (A Button Challenge) is more popular in SM64, and there were actually wiki pages created for this challenge. https://ukikipedia.net/wiki/A_Button_Challenge https://smo-speedrun.fandom.com/wiki/Minimum_A/B_Presses https://pannenkoek2012.fandom.com/wiki/A_Button_Challenge In a TAS, entertainment isn't all about speed. If you like speedy TAS, I've made lots of speedy SMB TASes over the years. Hopefully this TAS shows that SMB TAS isn't all about holding right and run all the way through, and there could be interesting alternative goals other than fastest time.
This isn't a speedrun though. It is tool-assisted, but it's not a speedrun. I also hesitate to say that anyone can compete, these glitches are 100% tool-assisted. No one is doing these in real-time. Therefore this run is in the same category as a Kaizo ROM hack or something: it needs tool assistance, but then it loses all of its luster. This also isn't very entertaining. Most of the run is waiting for paint to dry enemies to finally move. Minimal A button presses is entirely arbitrary, and notice that the first and third links you referred to do not use the term "speedrun". Considering its creator, Pannen, calls it the "A Button Challenge", I don't think it's in good faith to call it a speedrun, especially when it just isn't one. But if you didn't call it one, how does it fit on a site with speedruns?
Expert player (2448)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 822
Acumenium wrote:
This isn't a speedrun though. It is tool-assisted, but it's not a speedrun. ... I don't think it's in good faith to call it a speedrun, especially when it just isn't one. But if you didn't call it one, how does it fit on a site with speedruns?
I've never once called it a speedrun in the submission text, despite the fact that speed is the secondary goal of this TAS. Check out our site logo. It clearly says: TASVideos, Tool-assisted superplay movies.
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Editor, Skilled player (1408)
Joined: 12/28/2013
Posts: 396
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Acumenium wrote:
I also hesitate to say that anyone can compete, these glitches are 100% tool-assisted. No one is doing these in real-time. Therefore this run is in the same category as a Kaizo ROM hack or something: it needs tool assistance, but then it loses all of its luster. (...) Minimal A button presses is entirely arbitrary.
This point in specific is very silly. First of all, a category not being playable in real time is not a demerit in any way, and it's certainly the case of many game-end glitch runs that involve ACE or tricks too hard to pull off by a human. Secondly, this category is absolutely playable without tool assistance. Anyone can try to beat Super Mario Bros with the smallest amount of jumps. They won't get it in as few jumps as the TAS does, just like time-based RTAs aren't as fast as a regular TAS - all very normal. Thirdly, it's really silly to call minimal jumps 'entirely arbitrary'. The goal is crystal clear objective and it's a pretty popular and recognized challenge for many games. Lastly, let's stop getting Kaizo games wrong - they were meant to be played tool-less.
My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVoUfT49xN9TU-gDMHv57sw Projects: SMW 96 exit. SDW any%, with Amaraticando. SMA2 SMW small only Kaizo Mario World 3
Bigbass
He/Him
Moderator
Joined: 2/2/2021
Posts: 153
Location: Midwest
Acumenium wrote:
Per Oxford and Merriam-Webster, both sourced there, the words are indeed a bit different and minimal refers to something that is almost at the lowest point, but not quite.
Comparing a definition of a word from one dictionary, to another word in a different dictionary is not a fair comparison. Per Oxford, minimal is the adjective form of minimum; even the definition of minimal uses the word minimum to define it. Per Merriam-Webster, the top definition of minimal is "the least possible". Where as the top definition of minimum is "the least quantity assignable, admissible, or possible".
Acumenium wrote:
Speed is an arbitrary goal if there's no end point.
But there is an endpoint, regardless if you focus on speed or minimum A presses, the endpoint remains the same.
Acumenium wrote:
This isn't a speedrun though. It is tool-assisted, but it's not a speedrun.
Even though I'd still consider this a speedrun, with a different primary goal than usual, it doesn't have to be a speedrun to be acceptable on this site.
Acumenium wrote:
I also hesitate to say that anyone can compete, these glitches are 100% tool-assisted. No one is doing these in real-time.
No one has to be able to compete in real-time. Many, if not most, TASes are beyond human ability. That's the whole point of a TAS. It's a speedrun (or superplay) that is tool-assisted, which typically means it is beyond what a human could normally do. However, it is still possible for people to compete at a TASing level (faster completion with same number of A presses, and/or less A presses).
TAS Verifications | Mastodon | Github | Discord: @bigbass
Active player (497)
Joined: 11/19/2007
Posts: 128
I'm not really a fan of using words like arbitrary in these discussions. My quick google search yields the following definition: "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system". Minimizing A presses (and then time) is a clearly defined goal and was presumably chosen because it's a technically interesting challenge with notably different gameplay to the traditional speed-first categories (how interesting you find it is obviously subjective). I don't consider that to be random choice or mere personal whim. But even if you think it is arbitrary because the goal choice is still in some sense subjective or random, so what? Why is it a problem if it leads to an interesting movie with notably different gameplay to already existing categories? If you weren't entertained then fair enough, but I don't understand comments like "no because it's arbitrary". I think whenever these offbeat categories come up the movie itself is the argument for why the seemingly arbitrary goal choice is a good one: if the movie is good then the category is good. I don't think a TAS being comparable to RTA runs is really relevant in relation to potential publication on TASvideos.