Is this the perfect youtube video? Amazing Mario soundtrack in the background and gameplay visuals. Home made charts that VISUALLY show what's going on. AUDIO voice commentary explaining what you see. References to other youtube videos and commenters. Detailed, insanely knowledgeable, not selling me anything, created for love not for viewers. IDK this is peak youtube for me.
The sheer depth of knowledge and analytical ability pannenkoek has is honestly quite amazing. I've become quite spoiled watching their SM64 videos, it's been incredibly hard to find something of similar rigor and production value for other games. The closest I've found so far has been a video on how a group of speed runners were able to conquer RNG for a puzzle in Wind waker[0].<p>[0]: <a href="https://youtu.be/1hs451PfFzQ" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/1hs451PfFzQ</a>
I just want to say that this is nerd-porn at its purest and I love it! There's something about someone explaining things like how the game's collision detection actually takes a float value and converts it to a short that tickles my brain.<p>It says a lot about a game like SM64 that it manages to still fascinate and captivate decades after its release while a dwindling number of mainstream games made today share that level of player enthusiasm.
Complete History of the A Button Challenge<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXbJe-rUNP8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXbJe-rUNP8</a><p>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.
I kind of lost it at the point where he "builds up speed for 12 hours". AHAHA<p><a href="https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A?t=640" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A?t=640</a><p>His mind is so clear. I love how there's so many super super smart people on the internet! :)
If you enjoy talking about parallel universes, I highly, highly recommend watching the SM64 1-Key speedrun [1] and then Bismuth's explainer [2]. It's a truly amazing technical achievement based in large part in pannenkoek2012's research.<p>[1]: <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=iUt840BUOYA">https://youtube.com/watch?v=iUt840BUOYA</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=wjge1bVobN0">https://youtube.com/watch?v=wjge1bVobN0</a>
I am so amazed by this. I am always impressed when people are so moved by some passion that they can put this extreme level of dedicated work into something. I have only rarely felt passions that move me to work as hard as this creator did. Sometimes I wish that people like this would use their talent and energy to work on truly important things like curing diseases or making scientific breakthroughs - if only for their own sakes to feel like their great potential didn't go to waste. Certainly the effort that went into this video could have produced a decent research paper, for example. I also wish I could have this level of motivation for my own work. But overall I am just amazed.
I love this video. He made a more recent one as well that goes into specific technical aspects of the N64 (TW: floating point) - <a href="https://youtu.be/nYDmBdUalgo" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/nYDmBdUalgo</a>
Can anyone recommend other rabbit hole videos like the parents? It can be in any topic. I love these types of videos that show just how deep things are.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/_hjRvZYkAgA" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/_hjRvZYkAgA</a> is my current favorite.
This video also explains what a 0.5 A press ("Half A-press") is and why they care.<p>Because Mario64 doesn't care about releases, the runners don't distinguish releases, you can <i>always</i> choose not to release A and so if you're doing this run (fewest A presses) you would only ever release in order to press A again. In a live setting commentators might briefly explain what a 0.5 A "means" but without this explanation to head off questions you'd likely have about why they care.
I love their videos, so full of insight and quite elaborated with a bunch of self-made scientific terminology, it's even timidating for a IT professional.<p>By the way, if you want to see more of that content you should check out their more active secondary channel: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@UncommentatedPannen">https://www.youtube.com/@UncommentatedPannen</a>
I would hire this person based on just this video. This demonstrates every quality I want to see in a smart candidate. I wouldn't even care if they know X language with Y framework, if they made this then they are more than equipped.
Every time someone posts this I have to listen to the "Space Oddity" parody song based on it.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/Pyn3N55elS4?t=30" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/Pyn3N55elS4?t=30</a>
pannen's commentated videos are always a treat. He started uploading again this year after a long hiatus (that started after this video) and I can't wait for more.<p>If you're interested in Super Mario 64 speedruns, the video[0] "The Story of the Greatest Super Mario 64 Speedrunners" is great.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLj5OrTOdY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLj5OrTOdY</a>
On one hand, hacking/speed-running/homebrew and other gaming niches should make it so older games like Mario N64 remains popular longer... On the other, I doubt niches make much of a difference for Nintendo's bottom line, and considering their track record, I assume they would kill all sorts of hacks around their platforms, if they could.<p>So, fuzzing tests [1] seem to be in order for Nintendo games... :-)<p>1: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_fuzzy_lop_(fuzzer)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_fuzzy_lop_(fuzzer)</a>
I remember seeing one of his videos years ago about half-A presses. Did it ever catch on as something other people in the speedrunning (or whatever this is) community care about? I kinda assume not…
I dislike the "half a-press" term of art because it creates the question: If I release the a-press within the level to access his non-a-pressed abilities, would that count still as half-an-a-press? It seems to me that "half" an a-press should represent an edge (going up or down), and starting out holding "a" should count as like 0.1.
I know this is a silly point but imagine if this guy put the same amount of effort, inventiveness and attention to detail to some engineering or scientific endeavor. The video is great but arbitrary benchmarks in old games aren't pushing society forward as much as technological advancement can.
Going to go on a semi-related rant.<p>The youtuber does a bit of complaining about how people keep asking something he's ostensibly answered. Even does that "well, akshyually, I said that right here in the man page (comments section) if only you would RTFM".<p>This is important: if the user (customer, patron, etc.) is repeatedly doing something "wrong", then it's not they who are wrong, it's <i>you</i>, your design, your inadequate explanation, etc.<p>On top of that, the whining and blame directed at the user for not conforming to your own internal model is just so unwarranted and does nothing to help your case here. It's pure self-cope for not doing a better job at explaining, designing, etc.<p>Empathize!<p>I know it's hard for nerds to do this, especially when they so often feel the opposite, that they not only don't lack empathy, they feel they have more than the average person. How wrong they are! Consider that maybe you're wrong and the customer is right. Adapt to their world view rather than trying to get them to conform to yours. You might be so deeply immersed in your domain that what you consider common wisdom is a foreign language to others. Again, empathize! And you use that empathy to improve your communication, design, etc.<p>I think engineers and designers really need to hear this stuff because there's just so much user-blame, whining, bad interfaces, and bad communication out there that doesn't have to be bad, if only the nerd-engineer would cultivate some empathy and humility.