3 HN users recommended this documentary3 months2023–2024score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
Recommended as a deep-dive rabbit hole showing extraordinary knowledge of game internals.
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.
“The amount of knowledge and abuse of bugs these guys are performing is insane.” (HN, 2023)
Complete History of the A Button Challenge [this 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.
Five-hour history of the A button challenge showing deep bug exploitation.
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!) [this video]
Long video about beating Mario 64 without the A button.
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. [this video]
Five-hour history of the effort to beat Mario 64 with minimal A presses.
> 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] [this video]
Example of players manipulating game code in complex ways.
That was Bismuth, not pannenkoek2012 [this 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.
Corrects creator attribution and notes it explains pannenkoek's break from videos.
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