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Tag Archives: video game glitches

Fun Things, Nintendo

Super Mario 64 Speedrunners Discover Bizarre Underwater Standing Trick

Posted on by Owen

Speedrunners and glitch hunters in Super Mario 64 continue to push the game to its limits, and their latest discovery is as impressive as it is seemingly pointless. A recently unearthed trick allows Mario to stand motionless underwater—a feat that requires an astonishingly precise sequence of 41 button inputs.

The technique, uncovered by dedicated members of the Super Mario 64 speedrunning community, demands an extraordinary level of dexterity and timing. While it currently serves no practical purpose in speedrunning or casual play, it stands as yet another example of the game’s deep and complex mechanics, even decades after its release.

This glitch joins a long list of intricate exploits that fans have found over the years. Super Mario 64 remains one of the most dissected games in history, with speedrunners continuously discovering new ways to manipulate its physics and behaviour. From wall-clipping tricks to movement exploits, each new find contributes to the game’s rich legacy within the speedrunning world.

The discovery of this underwater standing technique may not revolutionize the speedrunning meta, but it highlights just how much Super Mario 64 still has to offer for those willing to dig deep. Whether future research into the glitch leads to a useful application remains to be seen, but for now, it’s a fascinating display of skill, patience, and sheer dedication to uncovering the game’s hidden possibilities.

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Arcade, Nintendo

Breaking the Myth: Donkey Kong’s Kill Screen Conquered After 44 Years

Posted on by Owen

For over four decades, players of Nintendo’s 1981 arcade classic, Donkey Kong, believed that the game concluded at the infamous “kill screen” on level 22. This stage was notorious for a bug that caused the bonus timer to overflow, leaving Mario with mere seconds to complete the level before an inevitable demise. However, speedrunner Kosmic has recently demonstrated that this kill screen isn’t the definitive end.

In Donkey Kong, players navigate through four distinct stages that loop with increasing difficulty. Upon reaching level five, the game’s difficulty plateaus, and these stages repeat in a set pattern. Traditionally, elite players would amass high scores up to level 22, where the kill screen would abruptly end their run due to the aforementioned timer glitch.

Kosmic’s breakthrough involves an exceptionally precise maneuver exploiting a glitch on the barrel stage—the very stage where the kill screen occurs. This stage requires Mario to ascend ladders and traverse slanted girders to reach the top. By executing a meticulous trick, Kosmic utilised a broken ladder glitch to swiftly climb to the top, effectively bypassing the constraints of the kill screen.

It’s worth noting that while this strategy was theorized as early as 2013, previous attempts, even with tool-assisted speedruns, couldn’t overcome the timer limitations. Kosmic’s success hinged on an extraordinary stroke of luck. The game’s timer decreases with each barrel Donkey Kong throws, and these throws occur at random intervals. To have sufficient time to perform the glitch, a player would need Donkey Kong to delay his initial barrel throw—a 1 in 3 chance—and then further delay subsequent throws, a 1 in 32 chance. Combined with flawless execution, the odds of achieving this are astronomically low, making such a feat exceedingly rare in actual gameplay.

This discovery not only challenges long-held beliefs about the game’s limitations but also showcases the dedication and ingenuity of the gaming community in uncovering new possibilities within classic titles. There is a supporting Pastebin technical white up on DK’s delays here.

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