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aka forte27
Oh man, I'm getting close to that WR.  Just clocked a 2:49.00.  Check it out below.  What's even better, my run had a really obvious mistake, so we know that big_walsh's goal is achievable.



Out of curiosity, I'm timing based on the first frame that the ball moves, and not from the frame that the ball appears on screen in stage one.  I'm making the assumption that the first frame of movement is indicating the first frame of control.  Can anyone confirm that this is right or wrong?  If anything, it would add 6-14 frames to my time, making 2:49 an accurate approximation anyway, but if we go by the first frame of movement, 2:49.00 is exactly the time down to the frame.
timing for sda runs is movement to end of movement. Technically you should time it from the frame before the marble moves to the frame after the marble stops moving at the end
Quote from bassdeluxe27:
Oh man, I'm getting close to that WR.  Just clocked a 2:49.00.  Check it out below.  What's even better, my run had a really obvious mistake, so we know that big_walsh's goal is achievable.



Out of curiosity, I'm timing based on the first frame that the ball moves, and not from the frame that the ball appears on screen in stage one.  I'm making the assumption that the first frame of movement is indicating the first frame of control.  Can anyone confirm that this is right or wrong?  If anything, it would add 6-14 frames to my time, making 2:49 an accurate approximation anyway, but if we go by the first frame of movement, 2:49.00 is exactly the time down to the frame.


I think your way of doing it is probably the most correct... I went back and it looks like I actually started my timer on the same frame that the blue marble renders.  By the time I hit the first frame of movement, my timer says 0.1, so I think that had I done it properly I would have a 2:50.8.  I spent ~0.1 seconds timing the marble just sitting there.

Andrew, wouldn't it be the first frame after the marble crosses the goal at the end?  It's the last frame of player control, right?  The marble continues "moving" but it's just bouncing around the goal.
yeah, im not exactly sure where, but it should be once it crosses the finish (didnt think about the fact the ball keeps moving), but its last ftame you can move the marble. Hitting finish line should be the ending frame
control to end of control, sorry for the typo
Quote from andrewg:
yeah, im not exactly sure where, but it should be once it crosses the finish (didnt think about the fact the ball keeps moving), but its last ftame you can move the marble. Hitting finish line should be the ending frame

There are a number of visual cues for that frame.  The number pops up above the marble, the score changes, and the flags change color.  Basically whatever happens first, as none of them occur until the goal is crossed...
I played for 6 and a half hours today and sooooooooooo nearly got 2:47 and also invented some new and exciting routes.
aka forte27
Thanks Elipsis and Big_walsh for donating during my run.  Very happy with how it went.

Also, I'm pretty sure I got an unrecorded 2:47 in practice here.  Splits were 55-48-69-79-80-79.  Such sadness...

Yeah you did great man!  Way to represent our game.  2:56 is beast considering the WR was 2:54 not all that long ago.

(I was worried they didn't see my donation but they read it during the beginning of Metal Storm.)

BassDeluxe are you on SRL?  Walsh and I were talking about having some races over there down the road to hopefully hype up the game some more.
Edit history:
big_walsh: 2014-06-26 06:50:01 am
big_walsh: 2014-06-26 06:49:02 am
Def an awesome run, 2:56 with a wand is really good.  I basically consider any run under 3 minutes to be a display of Marble domination based on how much can actually go wrong in the game.  As for the donations, it would be a sin if we didn't.  There are probably 10-15 of us worldwide that play this (possible overestimate).  We have to show some love.

As for the 2:47, it is definitely possible.  But it's the 2:46 that I really believe to be the human-controlled ceiling for this game.  Going blind like the TAS is (in my opinion) just an impossibility for a human to navigate, especially because going too far ahead of the camera has been giving Elipsis, Benash72, and I "Mystery Deaths" where your marble just respawns w/o the fall sound.

At this point for timing, I think anything close will just have to go thru the re-timing process.  I find myself resetting immediately sometimes if my timer doesn't seem to match up, and I can't seem to get the timing down to do the timer right away (as in w/o a countdown).  I have to start the countdown from selecting "A 90" to get the best results.  If anyone's run gets a new time, I think the re-timing is the best way to figure that out.

Cheers, boys.
Jesus fuck I need an exorcist...

I hate this game. I really, really hate this game...no gains, no hope, just sadness. A big ol bowl of marble sadness...
https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/t1.0-9/300527_10150317507512051_2122334691_n.jpg

Can someone please get this time and make my life complete?
Mmm, the madness.
Edit history:
Elipsis: 2014-07-24 02:33:04 am
Hahaha nice Andrew.

I am getting amazing at 2:50.X runs... three PBs in a row in two sessions by the narrowest of margins:

How about a new WR?!


Original VoD

I lucked out and got an absolute flawless Silly Shortcut at the end of a four hour session, and then I had to finish out the run with my hands shaking.  Yes literally.  My nerves are terribad.

This was sooooo close to Big_Walsh's WR that I wasn't even sure I had it until I encoded the thing in Yua and got a frame count on it.

On one hand I love how the Silly Race looks in this one.  I'm not so happy about the Ultimate Race performance though... it doesn't even look like I made any mistakes (unlike the current SDA entry) it's just a bit too... cautious.  So now I'm torn between submitting this run to SDA or holding off and trying harder for the 2:47 again.  But the precision and rarity of that shortcut working properly is driving me to (marble) madness.

What do?
Go play Super Dodgeball is what I suggest haha. Nice run. The race to 2:47 is on.
Edit history:
Elipsis: 2014-07-25 09:05:51 am
Quote from big_walsh:
Go play Super Dodgeball is what I suggest haha. Nice run. The race to 2:47 is on.


SDB might actually be more frustrating to try to run than Marble Madness.  I'm not sure about that.  Trying to predict the AI behavior gets me pissed though, maybe I'll start working at that Typing of the Dead: Overkill IL series instead.  I hope it's cool but I mentioned your run pretty much everywhere where I submitted this vid, people should know how tight this battle is getting and your WR run deserves recognition.  And honestly without you and BassDeluxe raising the bar I might have left well enough alone at 2:50.

I think I'm going to try for the 2:47 still, but much less intensely.  The marathon 4 to 8 hour sessions were really getting to my sanity.  That and the skin on my left thumb is actually peeling off from Wednesday night, it's pretty bad.  You might see shorter sessions from me for awhile... like maybe I'll actually stop after I get frustrated instead of doubling down and making myself crazy over it.
Hey man, no worries. I am just breaking your marbles. Good run honestly and the shortcut was donk. Once I get some time to dedicate to playing again, I'll be back. I won't stop until someome gets a 2:47, then I will still probably stream in vain haha.
aka forte27
Nice run.  I streamed some attempts yesterday, and had a WR pace run up through a wand just before the shortcut :/

I also learned some more things about frame rules.  I had been using the in-game timer to time the drawbridge in beginner, but I was getting confused as to why sometimes it lowered at 58, and sometimes it lowered at 57.  As it turns out, it's entirely dependent on which frame rule you finish practice.  The slow 55 practice stage (as seen in the new WR) results in a slow tick down from 65 on beginner.  However, the next fastest frame rule on practice results in a practically immediate countdown from 65 in beginner, which means getting a 48 is extremely difficult, but a 47 on that frame rule is actually about as fast as a 48 on the slower frame rule in beginner, resulting in no net gain/loss of time on that stage, despite it being a 47 instead of a 48.

Then there's an even faster frame rule in 55, which I have dubbed the "superframe."  That results in a slightly quicker tick down from 65 in beginner, but not as fast as the frame rule before it.  I think this is the TAS frame rule, and a 48 is still possible here.

tl;dr: Be careful using the timer to time the drawbridge in beginner.  It's not always consistent.
Thanks for the info BassDexluxe.  I had a feeling that the IGT was bunk because it seems like I have had "47s" that felt every bit as fast if not faster than some of my "48s".  I know frame rules are a thing, but I try not to get overly focused on them because in the end when I get control of the marble I just want to get it across the goal as fast as I can.

Also, you mentioned a soft lock in the ultimate race?  What is that all about?  I don't think I've ever seen it.


Lastly, I wanted to switch gears for a minute and share this production with you guys.  I hope you enjoy:

General Kong - Bullets and Bananas
That's funny Elipsis.  The intermediate race with the green wave was especially horrible.
aka forte27
Yeah, I've gotten pretty much all of those troll wands before, but never quite as bad as the beginner ice one that you got.  I'm amazed that it let you out.

I've even gotten the one on the Aerial launcher, which is the first time I "softlocked" the game (ie, couldn't continue, but the game was acting normally).

The other one I referred to in the SGDQ run was really crazy.  In practice, about 30 minutes before my run, I managed to go down the ice section at the end of Ultimate, only to get hit back onto the ice by the black ball.  It ricocheted me off the bottom left pillar in such a precise way that I was bouncing endlessly between the top right and bottom left pillars.  A couple of guys were watching me and I gave them the controller to show that yes, there was absolutely nothing that could be done.

In all honesty, that is one of the scenarios that I would have been happy with if it had happened in the marathon run.  It was such a fluke, I couldn't help but laugh.
Edit history:
tesselode: 2014-08-03 12:44:00 pm
Hey guys! I started learning Marble Madness recently. My current PB is 3:24 3:17, so I'm still forever away from a good time (I'm not aiming for WR, but I still want to be decent). Besides not dying and holding A a lot, any tips for running this game? I imagine a lot of the time savings comes down to some major skips and optimization, but is there any crazy techniques going on that aren't obvious?
Quote from tesselode:
Hey guys! I started learning Marble Madness recently. My current PB is 3:24 3:17, so I'm still forever away from a good time (I'm not aiming for WR, but I still want to be decent). Besides not dying and holding A a lot, any tips for running this game? I imagine a lot of the time savings comes down to some major skips and optimization, but is there any crazy techniques going on that aren't obvious?


Hey man.  Welcome to Marble Madness speedrunning, glad to hear that you've taken an interest in the game!  You'll see a lot of talk here about the Silly Shortcut and YOLO hammer and all of that, but honestly the one skill that you should be trying to get better at is cornering.  Watching my gameplay from months ago, I didn't even realize that I was just overall moving slower than I do now-a-days.  It's subtle, but important - and you almost get better at it just by playing the game.


Here's my tip on cornering though - not sure how Bass and Walsh come in on this - but don't just rely on the diagonal inputs for movement.  While the level designs rely almost entirely on diagonal layouts, I find myself using a lot of cardinal directions to make those corners.  EX:  Between the pipes of the beginner race - I'm not just inputting downright downleft downright.  I'm inputting downright, down, left, downleft (and that's just the first corner).  Obviously there are plenty of tricks and routes and timings to learn... but really keep a part of your brain focused on learning to corner efficiently at all times.