by ersatz_cats
Summer is upon us (at least here in the Northern hemisphere), and so is a new round of TG bounty challenges. For those who aren’t familiar with these, they’re intended to be fun, unique gaming challenges not featured on typical high score or speedrun leaderboards. These use the Twin Galaxies bounty system to facilitate fair adjudication. Every few months, we wrap up the previous round and send you all on a new batch of adventures to explore.
THE HIGHEST HONOR
Before we begin though, I decided to retool one aspect of our PPMDC bounty challenges. The core idea was always to focus mainly on participation: Achieve this thing, and get the same recognition as all others who do the same. But of course, there are folks who prefer the more competitive angle; there’s a top spot, and goshdangitall, they want it. My answer to that was what I called “top billing” – whoever does the best at a given metric (usually time-based) is the overall “winner” of the bounty.
But as it went on, I disliked calling it “top billing”, for a few reasons. Let’s say someone submitted an absolute god-tier run on a challenge (such as one we’re about to see below). Well, that’s “top billing”, so I’ve got to put them first in the write-up, right? Isn’t that what “top billing” means? But let’s say we also have another, otherwise solid submission from someone else. It seems kinda rude to be like “Oh man, let’s start by discussing this insane perfect run”, and then afterward say “Oh, I guess we gotta talk about this other run. It’s okay, but not as cool as the one we just spent all that time raving over.” Those two should be discussed in the opposite order. There’s a reason Top 10s always start with number 10, and work up to number 1. (Also, the best run is most likely to use the most advanced strategies, so it’s best to build up to that, etc. etc.)
The answer seemed to be changing “top billing” into some sort of… marker? I kicked around a few boilerplate ideas, calling it the “gold star” or “blue ribbon”. And all those ideas were dumb.
But then something crossed my mind…
That would be the original Billy Mitchell bumper sticker from the early aughts, bragging about his likely fake perfect score on Pac-Man and his definitely fake “Video Game Player of the Century” title. For those who never read “Dot Seven”, Billy’s friend and business partner Walter Day named Billy “Player of the Century” in 1999 as a promotional tool, before dishonestly trying to pass that title off as an independent creation of game publisher Namco. Walter put that “Player of the Century” title in quotes in a few press releases, while occasionally appending the words “Video Game” outside of the quotes. Of course, Billy Mitchell was never interested in such details. The above bumper sticker is the first known instance of Billy dropping the quote marks altogether, and just running with the expanded title, while of course feverishly denying he had any hand in its devising.
That bumper sticker was also how my research collaborators and I discovered Billy previously owned the web domain www.perfectpacman.com, which he had allowed to lapse years ago. Naturally, we quietly swooped in on this abandoned piece of Internet real estate, which I later used to publish the entire “Dot” series and various updates on the Billy Mitchell lawsuit and the evidence against him. Who knows, maybe this site doesn’t even exist if not for that bumper sticker?
But I thought about all this in the context of my “top billing” conundrum. In a way, this domain has been the official certifying authority for “Video Game Player of the Century” for over twenty years! Sure, we’re talking about different site owners, and the previous owner was a massive lying douche who gave the title to himself. But there’s still a legacy there to point to. Any old site can come along and name anyone they want “Video Game Player of the Century”, but (aside from Walter Day’s TG) this is the only domain that can say it was doing so decades ago. And this time, we can do it right, by giving that recognition to the community at large.
So that’s what “top billing” will be going forward! Of course, we’ll have to clean things up a bit. Yes, there can be as many “Video Game Players of the Century” as can achieve the title. We can even have multiple Video Game Players of the Century slots available on the same bounty (as you may have already seen on our new Tetris challenge). Officially, the “Century” can be any hundred-year period of the player’s choosing – even something wacky like March 4th, 2017 at 6:58pm through March 4th, 2117 at 6:57pm. While it should go without saying, I as site administrator exempt myself from consideration; even if granting one’s self a title like that wasn’t the height of tackiness, I am the one designing these challenges, which gives me an unfair advantage. Oh, and I guess I should make clear that it is perfectpacman.com, and not current Twin Galaxies, awarding this title; Jace Hall has had to deal with enough Walter Day / Billy Mitchell bullshit without me adding to his headaches.
Going forward, this site will maintain a complete, unabridged list of all verified Video Game Players of the Century on the bounty page. As you can see, all previous “top billing” winners have retroactively been given the title and added to the list as well. That list will help you identify genuine, accomplished gamers, who respect true success and who excel at their craft. And obviously, lying cheaters won’t be allowed anywhere on that list.
That old bumper sticker also adds a nice visual, but of course, I had to use my limited MS Paint skills to scrub that loser’s name off of it:
Much better! Now, with that out of the way, we have two brand new Video Game Players of the Century to crown.
KIRBY SUPER STAR: CLEAR THE ARENA WITHOUT A HELPER AND WITHOUT HEALING
Our first challenge this month is for Kirby Super Star Arena on Super Nintendo and DS. For those not familiar with Kirby, this game is sort of like a collection of short stories, with titles like “Milky Way Wishes” and “The Great Cave Offensive”. Each of these games includes their own mechanical distinction to separate it from the rest of the greater package. As always, Kirby can copy enemies’ abilities, and in this game can even generate buddies with those abilities to fight alongside him. And at the end of it all is the “Arena” – a super-fun boss rush where you tackle every boss and mini-boss from those games, in a mostly randomized order. There’s already a standard RetroAchievement for beating the Arena without healing, so I upped it to winning without healing and without a buddy. I didn’t know if maybe that would be too difficult, but thankfully, someone out there was up to the challenge.
Sawneyrath11 is an accomplished Kirby Super Star speedrunner, currently boasting solid times on KSS’ two most competitive leaderboards, with an any% time of 37m 53s (#28 of 118, close behind the WR of 33m 01s) and a 100% time of 1h 16m 57s (#17 of 62, behind a WR of 1h 04m 56s). In addition to various classic RPG titles, Sawneyrath has run KSS in particular for almost eleven years, which I’d say makes him an expert. My favorite part, though? He loves a good challenge. Not long after I posted a May reminder in the KSS Discord, he stepped up to the plate, and delivered a ruthlessly efficient submission for this bounty.
This run, achieved on the Japanese Super Famicom version, starts how you’d expect:
At the start of the boss rush, Kirby manifests in this utilitarian backrooms-style nether-chamber where you’re treated to a smorgasbord of every halfway useful ability in the game, both for yourself and (aside from this challenge) one buddy. But experienced players always make a beeline for the strongest ability, which is this green fiery thing called Plasma. Plasma fires weak needles when used normally, however it allows you to charge up massive shots. Interestingly, the way you charge these shots is by spamming various directions on your D-Pad; thus, if you play the ability correctly, Kirby always looks like he’s dancing around trying not to piss his pants.
Sawneyrath got right to work, tearing through a few of the less intimidating bosses before obliterating the big cannon. Subsequently, he eliminated the faux RPG boss fight, still without having taken a scratch:
He took his first damage flying through a barrier on the Gradius/R-Type stage, although if you ask me, it did look suspiciously like an intended speedrun strat:
The laser boss scored another hit, but that was the last damage Sawneyrath took for a while. He tore apart Wham Bam Rock, he destroyed that frog thing, he blew away Kracko, and – as a testament to his ruthlessness – he shot poor LaLaLa in the back.
But here’s where Sawneyrath encountered the real run-killer. Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about… the rematch with Waddle Dee!
Just kidding, of course. But following a WWE-style smackdown of Prince Dedede, he did arrive at the actual no-joke pivotal moment of the entire run:
What you see in the corner is a preview of your next boss, which is there to inform your decisions regarding weaponry and (aside from this challenge) healing. But Meta Knight is an interesting case. His run begins with him prompting you to take on the Sword ability:
To be clear, you can retain your existing ability by waiting out a lengthy timer, at which point Meta Knight will give up on his feigned chivalry and attack you as you are. (Or, if you have a buddy, you can toss the ability to them and retrieve it later.) But Sawneyrath is a speedrunner, so waiting was not an option. As you can see, he was already racing to take the sword before the screen had even faded in from black. Showing that he’s no one-trick pony, Sawneyrath wasted Meta Knight, and carried the sword over to the next fight with Heavy Lobster as well:
But sometimes, even legends need a helping hand. Between each fight, the game offers two random abilities, in case you’ve lost yours along the way. And after doing a balancing act with his Sword against Heavy Lobster, the RNG gods smiled upon Sawneyrath, giving him his Plasma ability back:
I don’t know what the odds on that are. All I know is, as someone who loves playing Arena casually, sometimes you find yourself waiting a looooong time for that Plasma to come back around.
Sawneyrath continued the pro maneuvers, taking out two Whispy Woodses at once with Plasma’s forward and backward damage:
After making quick work of Dyna Blade, and skewering Fatty Whale so fast he couldn’t even finish his first maneuver, Sawneyrath finally arrived at the ultimate boss of Kirby Super Star: Groucho Marx!
In the Kirby series, Marx is a weird mechanical space jester thing from… somewhere. I mean, I guess everyone’s from somewhere, aren’t they? He’s definitely not from Ohio though, that’s for sure. For casual players, Marx can be very intimidating, with lots of high-powered attacks and a wide variety of scripts and maneuvers, and a very difficult…
…aaaaaand, he’s dead. Sawneyrath had no trouble with that one.
The full Arena, no buddies, no healing. Final time: 4 minutes, 24 seconds, and 57 microseconds.
Wait wait wait, four fucking minutes!? I know he’s an accomplished speedrunner, but damn. It takes me forever to clear Arena, and that’s with a buddy, and assuming I even get to Marx in the first place.
Our first fresh Video Game Player of the Century of the new era, Sawneyrath11 kept his remarks short and sweet:
Hey, thank you so much for having this! KSS has been a long time speedrun of mine, and it was nice to see something different posted for this game! I appreciate you having reached out in the Kirby Speedrunning discord so many people could see it and give it a try for themselves, as I hadn’t even thought about this being a potential challenge!
And thank you for playing! Sawneyrath11 can be found on Twitch, regularly streaming plenty of classic RPGs, randomizers, and yes, the occasional Kirby as well. Please do give him a watch and a follow!
SUPER MARIO BROS. 3: CLEAR AS MANY STAGES AS YOU CAN WITHOUT TAKING DAMAGE
Our other submission this month was for the damageless challenge on Super Mario Bros. 3. And lemme tell you right now, this one is a doozy! Not to put anyone else on the spot, but as you’ll see, this is probably the most thoroughly dominant submission we’ve ever had on any of our PPMDC bounty challenges.
But before we get to that, we have to clear up a few rules snafus, which were owing to the fact that I only somewhat know what I’m doing. The basic challenge as I entered it was pretty solid; rather than just beating the game damageless, a player’s score was tallied by how many stages they cleared in this way, encouraging full game playthroughs. Rather than make any distinction between what is and isn’t a “real” level, any area or challenge that puts the player in non-timer-related peril gets you one point. And it just so happens, setting aside a major caveat we’ll get to in a moment, every such stage can be played only once, except for the World 5 tower; this necessitated a special rule clarifying that, while you’re not forbidden from dropping back down the tower, you only get credit for your first trip up to the World 5 clouds. (Yes, the Tower could be considered equivalent to a warp pipe, but the pipes don’t try to murder you.) The intention also was for a single playthrough with a finite end, and no “second quest” looping; if someone gets a perfect score, they get a perfect score, and that’s that. I also added my standard qualifier of “No major glitches aside from any specified in the bounty description”, but the only trick I explicitly acknowledged was where you can fall behind the entire background, such as in the water area on 3-9:
As a casual player, I’m much more familiar with this one than I am all the little wall clips and such. At the time, I felt this was fair, in that this trick directly impacts the ability to take damage. You literally can’t get hurt when you’re behind the water. So, I figured, toss that shit out! We don’t want no stinkin’ cheaters here!
Not long after I posted the challenge, TAS legend Tompa inquired about various other speedrun tools I failed to address:
And in that immediate moment, I said “Sure, why not?” I was aware that entire stages could be skipped with specific wall clips. But I figured, that’s the fun of it, right? People want to do the cool tricks. In retrospect, this made my prior declaration about hiding behind water a bit silly. You skip lots of damage by clipping your way past the entire stage! So what’s really the difference between that, and hiding behind the water? If I had to design this challenge over again, I would just say it’s all allowed (though of course players foregoing these skips and tricks would get credit for swag strats).
But here’s where the challenge got really interesting: I was imagining players tallying up stages in order, but hadn’t thought about the fact that Warp Whistles can also take you backwards.
For those who aren’t familiar with this, using a Warp Whistle in World 1 takes you to the track with Worlds 2, 3, and 4 as options. (In fact, that’s the only way to access that track.) Using a Whistle in Worlds 2 through 6 takes you to the second track, granting you access to Worlds 5, 6, or 7. Using a Whistle in Worlds 7 or 8 takes you to the World 8 track, as does using a Whistle while on that island. (For those who don’t know, you can use items while you’re there. This is how you go directly from World 1 to World 8 with only two Whistles.) In most cases, using a Whistle in this way brings you forward, or at the very least resets your current World. But there is one case where it can actually take you back to the previous World, by using a Whistle in World 6 and choosing World 5 as your destination. So, if you ever wanted to throw hammers with your Hammer Bros. suit while dancing around in Kuribo’s Shoe, that’s how you do it.
But this just made the challenge even spicier! Because now, for a perfect score, you can’t just play each stage once; you have to collect each Whistle, and loop through Worlds 5 and 6 four times!! (As some discussed, in the Japanese version, you can get a glitched Warp Whistle at the end of 5-1, which means on that version you could loop Worlds 5 and 6 infinitely, but obviously that would not be in the spirit of this challenge.)
A week later, four hours into some random stream, this challenge was brought to the attention of the SMB3 legend himself:
When Mitchflowerpower isn’t busy kickin’ it with Stephen Colbert, or getting his NES console reset, or grilling with Wendy, he destroys any version of Super Mario Bros. 3 he gets his grubby Canadian hands on. I mean, really, why the fuck am I even writing this intro? Y’all know who Mitch is. He’s literally the World Record holder.
Mitch mulled over the bounty rules, and Tompa’s clarifying questions, and the gears started turning. There were some jokes in chat about the bounty being “paid in exposure”. (For the record, this site has no ads and generates no revenue; the challenges are for fun, and participants get paid the same amount I do.) Others did understand the intention, and most were cheering for Mitch to destroy the challenge:
And that he did! Mitch ended up producing his own video, briefly touching on his few failed attempts and covering his final successful run, and you should totally check that out if you want the full recap:
While I’m usually limited to writing about the official submission at Twin Galaxies (which in this case is mostly covered by Mitch’s video), Mitch’s earlier streamed attempts offer much more ground to cover. On the morning of March 23rd, Mitch fired up his stream and got to work:
In his first attempt, Mitch got all the way to the first World 4 fortress, which honestly probably would have destroyed any other submissions by itself. He ended up taking his first damage attempting a little speedrunner sneak past this Thwomp:
Mitch did ponder aloud whether the challenge would remain interesting after the excitement of the initial run wore off:
I’m worried… I’m worried that this game… that this challenge is gonna have the… the “Only Up” syndrome, where you play “Only Up” once, and when you fall the first time, you’re like “I don’t want to play it anymore.”
But Mitch remained undeterred, and got right back into another attempt. However, each loss did make him more cautious. This time, and in each subsequent run, he used the pipe tunnel to skip that World 4 thwomp altogether:
Mitch remarked on the need to consciously avoid some of his speedrun muscle memory for this challenge:
Because I have the combination of like speed strats and stuff, this challenge might be harder for me than the average person if you think about it. Like, I literally just took damage from a speed strat. All I had to do was take the pipe, which is what I’m gonna do next time. See, I learn from my mistakes.
While casually blazing through World 5, having surpassed his previous PB, Mitch fielded chat questions about Twin Galaxies:
I’ve never done anything with or for Twin Galaxies before. […] I’ll tell you what though, if I did anything with Twin Galaxies, I’d make ’em look better than what Billy Mitchell did, that’s for sure. Listen, Twin Galaxies, you gotta get the right Mitchell on your site, okay? You gotta get the right Mitchell on your site. You got the wrong one there.
Of course, with anything Twin Galaxies, you had your usual round of jokes, worth a chortle or two:
As before, Mitch was rolling until he wasn’t. On the first fortress of World 6, he randomly bonked his head on the first overhang, killing his jump and dropping him right into the lava:
Mitch was incredulous:
What!?!? I’ve never even done that in a speedrun! What!? Come oooonnnn, man!
But once again, Mitch fired it right back up. His third attempt brought one of the wildest moments of the day. On the World 5 twisty tower… he just straight up ran across this gap:
Now, if you’re a Mario mortal like me, you may not understand the significance here. But Mitch freaked out once he realized what he had done:
I ran over the gap!! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh man. You’re not supposed to be able to run over that gap. I’m pretty sure I just got… Oh my… I’m like dizzy now, my heart rate just shot through the roof. I’m pretty sure it’s like random if you can run over that gap or not. I didn’t take damage, though! That is right, that is correct.
After stopping for a moment to catch his breath, he offered an explanation for why running straight across that gap almost always involves taking damage:
I’m pretty sure it’s only because I had a good subpixel. I probably had a high subpixel when I came out of that pipe. I’m not even kidding you. Which means I… I move forward one pixel a frame earlier, probably. Something weird like that. Because like… You have to ask yourself, why don’t speedrunners just run over that gap, if you can do it? It’s because you can’t, really. You can’t reliably do it.
At this point, this run seemed blessed for success. Once again, Mitch learned from his earlier mistake and took his previous death spot nice and slow:
And yet again, like a baseball no-hitter, all it takes is one pitch, and the whole thing is over:
This was on the final fortress of World 6. The worst part is, Mitch still hadn’t even gotten to do a single full lap of the Worlds 5&6 gauntlet. He was just that one fortress away from using his first Warp Whistle.
Mitch was now up to attempt number four. But once again, Mitch blew away everything up to World 6. He had a keen angle on breaking his PB yet again, when… he just ran right off some bullshit ledge:
You could see the frustration on Mitch’s face in his stream window:
And of course, chat was there to express the same:
As for what happened, all Mitch could say was this:
No, honestly… So here’s a good chance where I could lie to you all. I could literally tell you all that the game ate my input and I pressed the button and it didn’t register. “What happened?” But that’s not what happened. I actually thought that that was the platform that I run off of and then jump.
Mitch continued streaming, but at that point, he did finally switch over to playing an Ocarina of Time three-heart challenge, which he was also interested in trying. But then, later that day, a funny thing happened…
Mitch, who lives in North America, started a rare evening stream to compliment his earlier morning attempts. It seems his close calls weren’t sitting well with him, and he just couldn’t wait to give the SMB3 no damage challenge another shot.
Now, you might say “Wait a second ersatz, I watched Mitch’s video, and he made very clear that his next stream was ‘the next day'”. And listen, I don’t begrudge Mitch trying to be humble by downplaying his otherworldly brilliance. Or maybe when stitching together the clips, he just forgot that the second stream was also on March 23rd. But I deal strictly in facts. Mitch’s successful run was streamed the evening of his earlier attempts, and I’ve got the chats to prove it:
At any rate, one t-shirt change and a homemade crunchwrap later, and Mitch was ready for no-damage greatness:
Throughout all of these runs, Mitch would just fly head first into imminent danger and come out unscathed. I would love to attempt this challenge some day, but I know I’d be taking everything so precariously. Not Mitch, though! Reviewing his runs, I lost count of all the times his wild speed stats brought him a hair’s breadth away from ruin:
Mitch joked about this during an earlier run:
I wonder if the judges watching that part will be like “Oh my god, he almost got hit.” Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. I won’t reveal my secrets.
You can see most of Mitch’s successful run in his video, which only glossed over the first four worlds. He used a valuable P-Wing to skip the dangerous water stage 3-4, he once again took the pipe path to skip that World 4 thwomp, and he used Stars on the two World 6 fortresses where he took damage. And as for that ice ledge, I don’t know, this time he just decided not to die.
I always encourage “swag strats”. Part of it is that I like when people layer on additional challenges, but also, I’m curious to see what folks may come up with. But I didn’t expect the ultimate swag strat Mitch broke out during his first World 6 lap on his final run. Recall that the game offers you three Warp Whistles, and that you have to use each of them at a specific moment to maximize the number of stages you clear. Well, on that fateful evening, Mitch randomly started farting around, using his B-button to demonstrate Tetris-style rolling in the middle of his run, while he had a Warp Whistle loaded in the chamber!
I’m telling you, this man has zero fear.
After clearing the final World 6 fortress, Mitch entered PB territory, returning to World 5 to begin his second lap. The scariest moment of this run came on his second trip to World 6, when Mitch got caught on a ledge during a crucial P-Switch:
This presented a danger later. The final whirligig of the stage has a chance of sending the player straight down to their death. Every other time through, Mitch avoided this by speeding to the end during the P-Switch timer, and running off a short row of temporary bricks to jump over that perilous pinwheel altogether. But with those bricks reverting back to coins, Mitch had to jump through and trust his luck, which came through once again.
Apart from simply being excellent at the game, the only specific strategy of Mitch’s I could discern was some tactical use of Jugem’s Clouds in World 6. Each time through, he would skip the second fortress to play the later levels first. In particular, he’d always use a P-Wing to safely fly over the otherwise hazardous 6-9. And since Mitch was now Raccoon Mario, he could return to that fortress to use all the flying shortcuts. I guess, if one were to make a Mario 64 analogy, it’s like holding an A-press from one level to satisfy a requirement of another. Mitch would then pick up 6-7, where he would regain his Fire Flower, which he maintained for almost the entire run.
On Mitch’s 3rd and 4th laps, he got the star kill on Boom Boom, an important swag strat. And on his third lap, for more necessary swag verification, Mitch somehow collected exactly two of these three coins to generate a coin ship:
Some of you may say “That’s easy, there’s a moving platform that slides in underneath there, just grab two coins, land on that brick, and wait for the platform to come in.” Except Mitch didn’t set foot on that brick, or the moving platform. Hey, he’s just that good.
(To be clear, the coin ship replaces an existing Hammer Bros. It is not a bonus stage, and thus generating one does not increase your actual score for this challenge.)
The four repeats of Worlds 5 and 6 began to grow redundant. Like Captain Picard stuck in an infinite time loop, eventually it was time for Mitch to break free of his Whistle circuit and bust Lemmy’s airship. In World 7, Mitch skipped the easy Starman to start 7-3, but used Star items on both Piranhas. With his inventory down to mostly Music Boxes and Jugem’s Clouds, Mitch felt the need to replenish his Starman inventory, which meant a trip to those spade games he had been racking up:
As a reminder, these mini-games appear for each 80,000 points you accumulate. And Mitch had accumulated a lot of points! And when you don’t play them, they just keep reappearing each new world you go to, all stacked one on top of the other. By the time Mitch got to World 7, he had twenty-six of those things waiting for him! Normally, when you enter one, you’re stuck playing all of them out in sequence, but Mitch knew the timing necessary to cut in, solve one or two, and escape before the next one generated.
What Mitch didn’t know, however, was how to solve the dang thing in the first place:
It took Mitch a few attempts to get the Starmen he needed. I guess it makes sense, since card-matching is not exactly part of the speedrun. Now, I may be a filthy casual at this game, but I love matching those spade cards. When I’m allowed one mistake, I can clear the whole board basically ten out of ten times. Obviously, I didn’t go to all this trouble just to rag on Mitchflowerpower, who’s a better gamer than I ever will be. But I will say, as a mere mortal, there is something satisfying about seeing the greatest SMB3 player of all time struggle with, of all things, the silly spade game. It’s like watching Shaquille O’Neal brick a game of Horse.
P-Wings on 7-5 and the first fortress, another Starman on 7-7, and some careful strats got Mitch to World 8. At that point, he was happy to break out his last two P-Wings, on the first tanks and on the air fleet. While the trap hands are normally a source of speedrun RNG, in this case each stage was required for the perfect score. The third hand stage with the cheep-cheeps scared me the most, but yet again, Mitch just flew through without any worry:
At this point, while chat kept going, Mitch got really quiet. He got his final card fanfare on 8-2 – a triple-Mushroom to go with his twenty-one Star fanfares this run – and tore through the World 8 fortress. For the final tanks, he stayed on the far right edge of the screen, roasting those little wrench guys as soon as they appeared. In Bowser’s castle, he leapt over the first laser statue to avoid the possible hit, and used the old Nintendo Power clip with the 1up. On Bowser, Mitch got awfully close while spamming those fireballs, logging the massive win just in time:
It’s easy to overlook just how impressive this was, given that it only took Mitch five attempts across a single day to seal the perfect score. But I want to emphasize just how motherfucking clutch this was. There were a million points at which Mitch could have died. Any great player could have easily spent a couple weeks trying to get all the elements together in a single run. And I honestly was never truly expecting a complete game perfect score when I posted the bounty. Mitch once again showed why he’s the greatest.
Due to my haphazard wording, Mitch was unsure how to tally the World 5 tower. The description did specify that “one trip up the World 5 tower” counted as a cleared stage, but that was just to prevent people looping the tower itself infinitely. It was written prior to the discussion of repeating Worlds 5 and 6, which was allowed because Warp Whistles are finite. Mitch played it as written, announcing his score as 198 on stream (197 other stages plus one Tower trip), before submitting an even more cautious claim of 197 at TG. But as the person who designed the challenge, I would definitely say the intention was for the Tower to count once for each trip to World 5. That gives Mitch’s perfect run a final score of 201:
Not surprisingly, after Mitch absolutely crushed the challenge, nobody else submitted any partial game runs of their own. Mitch did not take up the offer to post his thoughts on the bounty or another gaming topic; I can only assume he’s too busy banging hookers atop a mountain of cocaine, or whatever it is popular Twitch streamers do during their off hours. But he did offer these remarks on stream:
I really liked the idea of the bounty. I’ve never been pushed to try and do something like that. I started to get really nervous at the end of World 6 on lap three.
Honestly, I’d love to give this challenge a try myself some day, though obviously I’ll take it much slower and more carefully. If I had to design the challenge over again, I would say the water glitch is as fair as the wall clips and such. I also would have changed the tie-breaker from fastest time to fewest lives. If you think about it, when you’re never dying, you’re just accumulating more and more lives which can never be lost. (By my count, Mitch ended with 141 extra lives, though the game stops counting at 99.) It would be an interesting added tension to have to limit the number of lives and coins while also staying damageless. Mitch also suggested various bonus requirements, such as at least one coin ship and a fire-kill on Boom Boom. These would’ve been extraneous for the posted TG bounty, but would make for a great super-challenge. Heck, could you imagine doing all 201 stages damageless, with all required coin ships and white mushroom houses and everything else… and doing it as small Mario (with no Starmen) throughout the entire game!?
Of course, being the Mario master he is, Mitch has expanded the bounty in his own way. Not satisfied with having dominated a single Mario game, he’s broadened the challenge into an entire no-hit gauntlet, first including four games, then six, and now up to seven classic Mario titles. And while, as of my writing, he has yet to hit all seven damageless in a single sitting, he did complete the first three in order, as seen in this YouTube compilation:
As with Sawneyrath11, you all should be following MFP on Twitch, where you can catch all the damageless action live, and maybe even be there for the inevitable moment he clears all seven flawlessly:
https://www.twitch.tv/mitchflowerpower
Once again, thank you to both Sawneyrath11 and Mitchflowerpower for their bounty submissions this round!
PHANTASY STAR: ACQUIRE THE SHORTCAKE USING ONLY YOUR DEFAULT EQUIPMENT
And here we go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. When you’re trying to generate lots of ideas, some will be good, and some will suck. And I’ll be real with you: This Phantasy Star challenge sucked. It came from a good place. I like to include an RPG in each round, and I wanted to show off this overlooked Sega gem from the 8-bit era. But unlike customizable RPGs like Dragon Quest 3 and the early Final Fantasy games, this one didn’t lend itself well to a good self-imposed challenge. You don’t start with magic, so you can’t do magic-only, and the early magic you get isn’t potent enough to make no-magic a meaningful restriction. Admittedly, I’m reluctant to reach out to runners ahead of time, since I’m using TG adjudication for these and I don’t want to give the appearance of playing favorites. I figured if I thought about it for a while, something good would come to mind.
The only real customizability you get early on is your equipment. There are stronger swords for Alis, and a sweet Needle Gun for Odin that blasts everything. And so I landed on “Use only your original equipment”. I even checked this former world record on YouTube, to confirm that, yes, at least Alis gets a better sword as part of the route:
Since there were no reasonably early boss fights, I set the cutoff as acquiring the Cake from the bizarrely located shortcake shop deep in the northern dungeon. Thus, I pitched it to the Phantasy Star community via Discord, aaaaaaaaand nobody cared lol. As was pointed out, even addressing this one point of customizability, the sequence of events is still always the same. You get the Passport, you free Myau, then Odin, then you find the Dungeon Key, then you get your cake. There’s no variance. The one sword for Alis wasn’t considered meaningfully different from the standard speedrun route, and the whole point was to offer something distinct.
However, like an unsuccessful shortcake chef who bombs the recipe, it was up to me to scarf down my own failed creation. In late May, I fired up a stream, just to give myself something to write about for this bounty:
It turns out, this “challenge” involved lots of grinding. RPGs of this era were already heavy on grinding, but this challenge mostly amounted to “grind more than usual”. You have to stay close to base, and you get a free heal in the first town. Once you accumulate some Mesetas, which appear to be the currency of choice on the pleasant green glades of Palma, you can effectively buy your first companion – a cat named Myau. I was just about there, when I got a bit too greedy in one battle, and this happened:
My first instinct was to continue from where I saved – I am a casual gamer, after all. But then I remembered this bit from my own bounty description:
Obviously, this must be achieved as one continuous run.
Yes, obviously, guy who both wrote the description and was now playing the run. In Dragon Quest / Dragon Warrior games, death means you get summoned before the king, like being called into the principal’s office, and scolded for allowing yourself to be disgraced like that. But Phantasy Star runs by Final Fantasy rules, where death is just death. There wasn’t even any point in me saving, honestly, not that I was particularly interested in breaking such a long-held habit.
At any rate, I had to reset what was already a long, tedious grind, to start fresh with yet another long, tedious grind. For story purposes, we could just say I invested all those lost Mesetas in bitcoin or whatever. Anyway, through hard work and a little moxie, I rebuilt my fledgling financial empire, and acquired my two allies. Once Myau the cat joins your party, the average number of enemies in each encounter goes up. And when Odin joins as well, that average goes way up:
With all that new character excitement out of the way, it was time to… grind some more. No boss fight or anything. I just had to accumulate enough money to buy me some Cake, and then make the journey and seal the deal. Twenty or so minutes later, I made the trek up north, and found Blue Space Zeus and his ill-advised confectionery.
While the Cake may not have been a lie, some untruths were involved. Despite advertising his work for 1000 Mesetas, he only charges you 280 for it. This is good, both because I only had 556 Mesetas at the time, but also because I got absolutely murderized moments after leaving Zeus’ azure patisserie.
I completed the challenge in, I don’t even know what time. Who cares? The Shortcake is liberated. The challenge is over. And we can return to more fun things.
MISSILE COMMAND: HIGHEST SCORE WITHOUT USING “DELTA BASE”
Our final bounty, also without any non-ersatz submissions, was for the classic arcade defense game Missile Command. A while back, Twin Galaxies legend Robert Mruczek suggested a “No Delta Base” challenge, recalling that some players attempted this back in the day. Basically, the objective of the game is to defend your three missile sites and your cities from an aerial barrage meant to annihilate you and, presumably, all of civilization. Restricting yourself from using your middle missile base poses an interesting challenge, in that it increases the time it takes for your shots to land, and it depletes your ammo faster, perhaps to the brink of unsustainability.
I was surprised to not receive any submissions for this one, as this is a beloved arcade classic, and because the TG community tends to favor that genre. Admittedly, I’m a complete noob at this game, but with no one else’s game play to write about, it fell on me to produce something. I ended up not making a formal submission, because I wasn’t sure my local arcade’s multicade machine was up to TG verification standards. But it did have one important element to separate it from MAME – an actual trackball.
Unfortunately, while I could’ve sworn I tested it during a previous visit, I lugged my camera and tripod downtown only to discover the dang trackball didn’t work! I could’ve just stayed at home. Oh well, since I was there, I got some footage:
As a testament to what an amateur operation I run, I had no idea my camera would auto-stop at 27 minutes, or that my SD card would be full after about 43 minutes total. Had I known, I may have focused on recording later attempts rather than my early practice. But if watching terrible Missile Command play is your thing, today’s your lucky day!
Of course, after some time, I started to get… okay. Not good, but I got a bit more comfortable. I realized I was aiming my shots too far away to be effective. I even put up a decent two-base beginner score of 12,845, only some of which you get to see when the first recording cut off:
The trick was to keep as much of your resources for as long as you can. With only two missile bases, it’s easy for one stray bomb to disable one of those bases and effectively blank you out from one side or the other. And if both bases go down on the same stage, the ongoing barrage will basically mean annihilation. It will eventually all fall apart. You just have to keep your solid start going for as long as possible.
Eventually, I made it my goal to beat the established high score of 15,975 (again, while limited to two missile bases). However, at 50 cents a pop, I also gave myself a $20 cutoff. With my camera no longer complying, and a buck-fifty worth of tokens left in my pocket, I had the run of my life. Three cities left, and I was on the cusp of breaking that damn top score. Even if I could’ve stopped mid-game to attempt a still picture, I was operating on the hope that my camera was still rolling. As I approached the target score, the inevitable collapse arrived… but not after I had squeaked my way past the finish line!
I set my third initial in place, but I didn’t hit confirm, hoping I could leave it there as I tried to coax a couple still pictures out of my grumpy camera. Little did I know, without confirming that third letter, it got dropped off of the final leaderboard:
Well, my tip of the hat to Missile Command champ Mister Awesome didn’t work, but at least I get a Star Trek reference out of it:
And with all of that nonsense out of the way, we have four-ish new challenges for the summer.
NEW BOUNTY CHALLENGES
I don’t know if this is the best time or the worst time to issue an NES Tetris challenge, but we’re gonna go for it. While the top pros are currently stacking four-bars on their way to the “Rebirth” screen, this challenge aims to twist the game by requiring “triples only”. In other words, all line-clears must come exactly three at a time.
I gave this a shot, just to make sure it was feasible. After about an hour of playing around, I had a great run with 17 triples, taking me into Level 5, before an L-piece drought denied me my 18th triple:
I opened this bounty a bit earlier than the others, since there’s a thriving NES Tetris community that was already scheduled to gather for CTWC in early June. After showing this to some folks, it was pointed out that J-pieces are actually a bit more common than L-pieces, and thus you’ll likely have more luck operating with a left well rather than a right well. Or you could go for a middle well, if that’s your preference. At any rate, I’m excited to see what people can do with this one. I opened two tracks – one for highest score (encouraging later level starts) and one for most lines (encouraging early level starts). Feel free to submit to both!
There are so many games and challenges out there waiting for a spin, but eventually I do have to repeat some games I’ve done before. It only made sense that the first challenge issued by perfectpacman.com was for the yellow gobbler himself, and it also makes sense that his game is the first repeat. This time, his wife… girlfriend?… partner?… gets in on the action, too! (Wait, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, lol.)
This time, the challenge is to rack up as many ghost pass-throughs as possible. For those who don’t know, the game detects collision using invisible tiles; if the player and a ghost occupy the same tile at the same time, either Pac-Man dies, or if the ghost is in “blue time”, the ghost is eaten. However, if the player and a ghost head toward each other, and if both cross over to new tiles at the same time as each other without ever occupying the same tile at the same time, they appear to pass right through each other. This happens occasionally by chance, but usually it’s the result of a predetermined pattern designed to safely cause such a pass-through. And for this challenge, that’s what we’re looking for. Forget about your score, your level, your fruits, and your kill screens. Find a way to pass through as many ghosts as possible in a single playthrough!
And to change it up a bit, I opened separate threads for the original Pac-Man and for Ms. Pac-Man. The sequel uses the same core engine as the original, so the pass-through mechanic works the same way. But in addition to there being different board layouts, some pattern-thwarting measures were implemented, including randomization not present in the original. Will this be enough for the ghosts to finally win? We’ll see.
Recently I wrote about the Final Fantasy 5 “Four Job Fiesta”, going on now. But it turns out, there was actually a method to my madness. I had to explain how FJF worked before I could issue a FJF challenge!
For this one, I struggled to come up with something interesting. It can’t just be a Fiesta-style finish, cuz hundreds of people do those every Fiesta season. I can’t say “Secondary abilities only”, because !Mix exists. And I can’t say “Primary abilities only” because !Sing exists. I can’t say magic only because lol, and I can’t say “No equipment” because that immediately prejudices against fighter classes.
But after some time, I figured out the magic formula. You can use any ability… but you can only use each ability once. I spell out exactly what this means in the TG bounty thread, but basically, you can only mix Dragon Power once, you can only sing Hero’s Rime once, you can only cast Mighty Guard once (twice if you captured a Crystelle), etc. After you use those up, you’re stuck using plain items and your basic fight command. Oh, and on top of that, you have to obey “Four Job Fiesta” rules – your party must reflect four chosen jobs, and you can only use abilities from those jobs.
Now, I know this challenge is possible if only for the fact that you can beat the game with four bloody Berserkers, and they don’t have any “abilities” to speak of. At the very minimum, this challenge would allow you to layer on three jobs’ worth of incidental abilities, like Artful Dodger. But I’m interested to see how folks tackle the no-repeat-abilities restriction with more creative parties. To keep it interesting, the top mark will go to whichever party boasts the lowest level, with the benchmark being that party’s highest leveled character at the start of the battle. (In other words, you can’t play two characters at level 99 and two dead characters at level 1 and say your party’s “average” level is 50.)
For obvious reasons, I prefer to issue challenges on games I know, which tend to be older. (At some point, I will buy a Switch, probably when they finish that Dragon Quest 3 remake.) But this round, I wanted to add a challenge for something much newer. I consulted with a coworker about the possibility of a damageless challenge on either Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, but they suggested that might be unfeasible due to ambush range attacks from enemies you never even see coming. (It seems someone has taken up those challenges, albeit perhaps in a segmented fashion.)
Then my eye turned to Metroid Dread, which looks super sweet. And look at that, someone’s done a full game 100% damageless run on Dread Mode difficulty no less! This challenge won’t be quite so cruel. Just get as far as you can on the default difficulty of Normal Mode. Progress will be measured by maximum missile capacity acquired. Minimum for entry will be getting the Phantom Cloak, acquired after defeating Corpius.
https://www.twingalaxies.com/bounty/metroid-dread-get-as-far-as-you-can-without-taking-damage-ppmdc
And as always, don’t be afraid to pile on a little extra swag.
Happy gaming, everyone!