The Complete History of the A Button Challenge
Bismuth3 HN recommenders · 2023–2024
2.4M views · documentary · evergreen · Uploaded 2022-12-20
A five-hour documentary history of the Super Mario 64 A button challenge, which aims to beat the game with as few A presses as possible. It covers the bugs and exploits discovered over the years.
Recommended as a deep-dive rabbit hole showing extraordinary knowledge of game internals.
1:25:348 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box
GDC Festival of Gaming
![Video frame: SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated) [OUTDATED]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kpk2tdsPh0A/hq2.jpg)
24:39SM64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated) [OUTDATED]
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5 comments from Hacker News
Complete History of the A Button Challenge [VIDEO] It's over five hours long. I put it on in the background or to pass the time. The amount of knowledge and abuse of bugs these guys are performing is insane.
> Games only hold a challenge until the game-writer's secrets are broken. Games ultimately are code themselves, and you can manipulate it to some extent, creating other infinitely complex interactions (source: advancements in speedrunning or various game challenges like the A press challenge [1]) [1] [VIDEO]
Langlangs program (The Dream: Riemann Hypothesis and F1 (RH Saga S1E1)) [LINK] History Dose (The Mongol vs. Order of Assassins War) [LINK] Beat Mario64 without hitting the A-Button (5h22m long!) [VIDEO]
For over a decade, the author of this video has been leading an effort to complete Super Mario 64 with the smallest amount of A presses, often using extremely complex strategies. Here's a 5h video with the history. Bismuth says the history video took roughly 1500-2000 hours. [VIDEO]
That was Bismuth, not pannenkoek2012 [VIDEO] Though Bismuth does spend some time explaining why pannen took a break from making videos, which I'm very glad to see was temporary.