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Introduction

This is an improvement to the pulished sidestroller movie of Happy Lee.
It is:
  • 88 frames measuring from touching the axe
  • 106 frames faster measuring the length of the input file
I stop input at 24556, I hit the axe at 24574
The entire improvement comes from using the ullet ill glitch in 8-3 as demonstrated y andrew_g ack when the pulished movie was still in queue. I managed to improve on andrew's movie enough to avoid the fireworks at the end saving more time.
I found a frame improvement in 8-4 ut then lost it due to ad randomness with the flying fish segment.
Other small improvements were found ut they were all a pixel or less and nowhere near enough to conquer the dreaded 21 frame rule.
In addition I tried to improve the movie stylistically as much as possile. In doing so I prioritized in this fashion:
  • Coins
  • Points
  • Close calls
I got 17 more coins and 1750 more points than the pulished movie (for whatever that is worth).

Thanks to

  • Happy Lee for his previous movies that are very tightly optimized.
  • andrew_g for the 8-3 trick.

Additional comments

My main reason for doing this was my disappointment that Andrew or Happy Lee othered to employ the 8-3 trick in the movie (especially since it is proaly the most creative improvement to the sidestroller to date). So I set out to improve it. I was also interested in tinkering with SM1 since it is one of the few games I grew up with that I haven't attempted to TAS yet.
Overall it was a fun project, and opened my eyes to how much complexity there is in this seemingly simple game. It is a shame that there is the 21 frame rule or else I think there would have een far more opportunities for frame optimization and competition among TASers.

Categories

  • Emulator: FCEUX2.1.0a (actually the latest SVN of 2.1.1-interim)
  • Category: Avoid pressing B!
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Auses programming errors in the game
  • Fails to color a dinosaur
adelikat: Oh noes, I've een osoleted!

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Posted: 7/14/2009 6:46 PM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2330: adelikat's NES Super Mario Bros. "warps, walkathon" in 06:48.59
Posted: 7/14/2009 6:54 PM
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mmbossman
Experienced player (828)
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
GBx TAS of 2008
Your "B" appears broken :) (heh, amusing) And yet another unexpected improvement to SMB. Edit: Shouldn't it be "Super Mario ros."? :D
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Posted: 7/14/2009 7:01 PM
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ShinyDoofy
Former player
Joined: 12/5/2007
Posts: 716
Seems like you really did miss the B key, even in your submission text. Anyway, voting yes for nice, yet almost imperceptible improvements. / Damn, mmbossman beat me to it. :/
Posted: 7/14/2009 7:48 PM
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Sir_VG
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Seems like you really did miss the B key, even in your submission text.
Thanks for Lampshading the obvious.
Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing
Posted: 7/14/2009 7:57 PM
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Randil
Skilled player (1826)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Nice improvement! I liked your stylistic choises, 8-2 and 8-3 were my favourites (I think you can figure out why). Yes vote!
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Posted: 7/14/2009 8:27 PM
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Samsara
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Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2108)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2821
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Ah, submission text gimmicks! Yes vote.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
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Posted: 7/14/2009 11:50 PM
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OmegaWatcher
Joined: 5/2/2009
Posts: 656
Sir VG wrote:
Seems like you really did miss the B key, even in your submission text.
Thanks for Lampshading the obvious.
Actually, I didn't noticed that in my first read. Seems I read it too fast, huh
My first language is not English, so please excuse myself if I write something wrong. I'll do my best do write as cleary as I can, so cope with me here =) (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ
Posted: 7/15/2009 12:06 AM
(Edited: 7/15/2009 12:12 AM)
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andrewg
Experienced player (702)
Joined: 2/19/2006
Posts: 742
Location: Quincy, MA
NES TAS of 2011
Nice! Glad to see my time-saver in effect. :) The only thing I'm curious about. Does getting the mushroom affect the 21 frame rule in any way? I kinda feel like if you got the mushroom in another level, it might be better? Probably not, but that's my suggestion for if someone still wants to improve this. I'm doubting it would make any difference though. Now to figure out how to do the normal flagpole glitch without pressing B. ;) Also, It's April Fools Day already?
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner - Andrew Gardikis
Posted: 7/15/2009 12:06 AM
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Bobmario511
Experienced player (583)
Joined: 2/23/2008
Posts: 266
Location: CA, USA
Gameboy TASer of 2012 Funny TAS of 2012 Gameboy TAS of 2012
Very nice improvements, 8-3 did look nice. Yes vote.
Posted: 7/15/2009 1:23 AM
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Acheron86
Joined: 8/23/2008
Posts: 417
The submission text gave me a laugh. Well done. It's not often you can have a run's category and its description follow the same rules. (it's not a bug in the submission: read the bottom!) This was a lot more fun to watch than the previous runs in this category. Not that they were lacking or anything... I just found your style to be more entertaining. Yes vote.
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Posted: 7/15/2009 2:31 AM
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adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3570)
Joined: 11/3/2004
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TASer of 2010 NES TASer of 2010 DS TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 NES TASer of 2008 NES TAS of 2008 Funny TAS of 2008 TASer of 2007 NES TASer of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
andrewg wrote:
The only thing I'm curious about. Does getting the mushroom affect the 21 frame rule in any way? I kinda feel like if you got the mushroom in another level, it might be better? Probably not, but that's my suggestion for if someone still wants to improve this. I'm doubting it would make any difference though.
Actually, I did consider this. The problem is that the only other viable option is 8-2. This is because these are the two levels where you have to wait for the bullet bills anyway. On another level you lose the mushroom animation time plus the time it takes to stop and get it (which is pretty significant). I tested 8-2 and there is no way to get that mushroom without the bullet bill passing you by. So there isn't another option for getting the mushroom.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Posted: 7/15/2009 8:28 AM
(Edited: 7/15/2009 8:33 AM)
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HappyLee
Expert player (2554)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 829
NES TASer of 2012
Voted yes. But shouldn't you stop the movie when you hit the axe?
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Posted: 7/15/2009 8:30 AM
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HappyLee
Expert player (2554)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 829
NES TASer of 2012
I have tried 8-3's mushroom eating before, but I think this can be very hard to choose where to get the mushroom.
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Posted: 7/15/2009 9:15 AM
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Flygon
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
Looks like I'll be removing HappyLee's movie when this is published, if he does not mind. On YouTube of course.
Posted: 7/15/2009 11:36 AM
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HappyLee
Expert player (2554)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 829
NES TASer of 2012
Maybe a little:)
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Posted: 7/15/2009 12:52 PM
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andymac
Experienced player (622)
Joined: 11/30/2008
Posts: 650
Location: a little city in the middle of nowhere
an easy yes. simply an improvement in both stylistic and optimisation on the previous movie.
Measure once. Cut twice.
Posted: 7/15/2009 10:39 PM
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minglw
Joined: 4/3/2006
Posts: 269
I can't believe that SMB1 is setting another record. Very entertaining TAS. I found the submission text (avoid pressing B) equally entertaining. Actually, it's one of the most creative submission text I've seen. Voting Yes obviously!
Posted: 7/16/2009 5:31 AM
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HappyLee
Expert player (2554)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 829
NES TASer of 2012
There's one thing I want to ask one more time: Shouldn't you stop the movie when you hit the axe?
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Posted: 7/16/2009 5:44 AM
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alucard
Joined: 4/19/2008
Posts: 31
Location: Chicago
HappyLee wrote:
There's one thing I want to ask one more time: Shouldn't you stop the movie when you hit the axe?
You stop the movie when you enter your last input.
Posted: 7/16/2009 6:45 AM
(Edited: 7/16/2009 6:58 AM)
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Kyrsimys
Former player
Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1286
Location: Finland
I think there's been a lot of discussion around when to stop SMB movies because people are competing over single frames. I think the consensus back in the day was that you need to stop the movie when hitting the axe rather than when ending the input so the actual time from start to completing the game (i.e. hitting the axe) doesn't actually become longer because of ending the input earlier and letting Mario roll slowly to the end. Maybe it's time for change in this regard? EDIT: See for example ziplock's comment and Bisqwit's answer here as well as Bisqwit's comment here and adelikat's (:D) comment here.
Posted: 7/16/2009 6:55 AM
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HappyLee
Expert player (2554)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 829
NES TASer of 2012
alucard wrote:
HappyLee wrote:
There's one thing I want to ask one more time: Shouldn't you stop the movie when you hit the axe?
You stop the movie when you enter your last input.
No kidding, if that's true, it's easy to break the SMB record of klmz just to end up the movie earlier.
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Posted: 7/16/2009 2:24 PM
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adelikat
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Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3570)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
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TASer of 2010 NES TASer of 2010 DS TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 NES TASer of 2008 NES TAS of 2008 Funny TAS of 2008 TASer of 2007 NES TASer of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
Kyrsimys, thank you for bring up my highly newb post from 5 years ago :P The issue was indeed about not delaying the axe grabbing by ending input. In this movie (and most all my movies) I end input as earlier as possible without delaying the final completion time. This is my preferred method. This is why I included the frame counts and comparisons in the submission text. Ending input earlier is not considered an improvement in time though. If someone simply ended klmz's movie sooner, then that would not be considered an obsoletion. At least, this is my opinion on the subject.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Posted: 7/16/2009 9:06 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Player (206)
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Posts: 5712
Sometimes I wish there were less emphasis on "least input required for ending to start on its own", instead going for "least input to make the ending start the soonest" or "last input that controls the character". All those ways are fun to see in certain situations, it's just that it seems more natural to end the timer when the game actually awards you victory, not at the moment when you can drop the controller and run away. :) I probably wouldn't go as far as some recent submitters have and record all the way to the end of the credits, unless there's something WAY COOL at the end of the credits that requires tool assistance.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Posted: 7/16/2009 9:07 PM
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adelikat
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TASer of 2010 NES TASer of 2010 DS TASer of 2010 Arcade TAS of 2010 NES TASer of 2008 NES TAS of 2008 Funny TAS of 2008 TASer of 2007 NES TASer of 2007 Funny TAS of 2007
I get to my goal in the same number of frames either way, so why keep record beyond what I need?
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Posted: 7/16/2009 9:13 PM
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Bag_of_Magic_Food
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Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
So no one will press Left as the movie ends and make Mario miss the axe and die!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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