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The Complete History of the A Button Challenge

Bismuth · documentary · Watch on YouTube

Speedrunning, glitches & game hackingGame history & retro gaming

What it is

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.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Recommended as a deep-dive rabbit hole showing extraordinary knowledge of game internals.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2023, last 2024

What HN commenters said

  1. “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.

    pests, 2023-07 · Recommendation · in “Super Mario 64 – Watch for Rolling Rocks – 0.5x a Presses [video]”

  2. “Beat Mario64 without hitting the A-Button (5h22m long!)”

    Long video about beating Mario 64 without the A button.

    houseatrielah, 2024-02 · Recommendation · in “Ask HN: What niche YouTube rabbit hole do you recommend?”

  3. “Here's a 5h video with the history. Bismuth says the history video took roughly 1500-2000 hours.”

    Five-hour history of the effort to beat Mario 64 with minimal A presses.

    g___, 2024-04 · Recommendation · in “Super Mario 64's invisible walls explained [video]”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: mario 64, speedrunning, glitches, a button challenge, game history

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