I'm honestly stunned to see TTC being completed entirely with 0 A Presses, outside of entering the level itself. I never thought I'd see the day

I love that all the remaining stars are really simple but complex due to the simplicity

Whoever decided to not add a time limit for levels in this game has a spot reserved for them in heaven

That damn treasure chest star has been edging the community for almost a decade now

it seems so crazy that we've figured out how to conquer TTC 0x, but we still can't get the JRB chest star EDIT: this community is amazing! as of february 15, the JRB chest star is 0.5x

I love that TTC is done in 0 presses but "jump off pole" is a hurdle

Pannenkoek finally managed to save the A press of the word "leech"

We live in a universe where it takes more A presses entering TTC than actually collecting the stars inside!

6:17 "that's the version we plan to use for the final run" Can't wait to see the 500-hour submission to TASVideos lol

We live in a world where there are 0 A presses within TTC but 1 to collect the JRB chest star...

There is no star that infuriates me more in regards to this challenge than that JRB chest star. It passes through my mind at nights when I'm trying to sleep. It's so close yet so impossibly far

It’s interesting that we are now at the point where the number of “this A press save is functionally impossible” to “we might have a solution” is much higher

What kills me about the jrb chest star is that it seems like there _should_ be SO much to work with there. The star spawns super low compared to the spawn There's water to make momentum saving tricks on the table There's SEVERAL different entities that could hurt Mario, triggering something else that was setup before Goombas to possibly bounce off of. Even a shell (at the other end of the level) to make HOLP/Clone usage theoretically possible. Yet somehow despite everything, nothing can seem to align for it Wishing y'all the best of luck. Edit: It is well worth noting that nothing in this comment is meant to be a suggestion, but rather a bunch of tools that exist in the level that FEEL like they should amount to something, but are rendered un-helpful in some way or another Edit II: :D

Seeing these A press compilations videos are simultaneously exciting and depressing. They’re incredible, but at the same time it always feels like the end of an era.

It is honestly insane that only fourteen instances are blocking us from completing the game without pushing the A button. It is also insane that the vertical clock level has every star collected as such.

So it seems like the problem with most (if not all) of these is the lack of objects than be exploited for A saves. That being said, the fact that you can pull off LLL Elevator Tour 0x means that sometime we need to see beyond the boundary of possible and impossible. Good luck for the remaining part of the journey!

I love seeing this number get closer and closer to zero

We are at almost 10 unique A presses. That will be a big achievement to hit.

TTC being 0x (in-level) while stars like JRB Chests and the Slide Box star still being 1x just goes to show how powerful a couple of Bob-ombs can really be.

I'm a true believer in the BitFS save. You guys have got this.

Thank you so much for the chart at 6:50. I've been wanting to see a comprehensive graphic showing all the crazy tricks developed over the years and the A presses saved.

I don’t know why but the mosaic of the remaining A presses at the end is so satisfying to look at, maybe it’s because there are so few left they can be shown like that, but I just mean in terms of rhythm

I remember seeing "The 19 remaining A presses" and THAT being an impressive amount, and here we are. That was years ago, too, I think... Weird how we lost only 5 in that time, yet it feels like such a substantial amount.

the day this makes it to single digits will be a legendary one

(6:48) Seeing that timeline chart there certainly makes you realize and appreciate just how far the A Button Challenge has come since it first began.

Kind of wild that a full third of the remaining a presses are in the TTC lobby room. If someone found a way to enter TTC 0x, not only would you save the three presses from entering, but also would remove the need to use a version with spawn displacement (and the 0.5 press for it), meaning you could switch to Wii VC and save an *additional* A press from rising platforms in BitFS.

pannen and the a press run have been a really nice constant in my otherwise tumultuous life. thanks as always for all you do

You guys are absolutely incredible. Italo Calvino said that nothing intrigued him more than a person setting harsh boundaries to itself and going until the last consequences with it. It proves determination and honor to oneself. If you can play a jumping game without jumping you can provide a really beautiful metaphor to inspire people to go for the unthinkable. You already did. For that and for hours of fun and amaze thank you really really much.

the year is 2094, the abc crew has saved every A press. all except one. the JRB chest star. they have spent tens of thousands of hours trying to get just a few more units of height but to no avail. they’ve tried every combination of cloning, HOLPs from other levels, going across parallel universes to no avail. all because some japanese developer in the mid 1990s decided to place a star slightly higher than some others

In my opinion, here are the A presses ranked from most likely to be saved to least likely. 1: BitFS Pole. Currently being worked on and by far the most likely to be saved. Bully battery can be extremely powerful, as demonstrated by the LLL elevator star. 2: JRB Chest Star. This is the new Top O' the Town. So many ideas that just barely don't work. Most likely is a way to build up enough hyperspeed, since you need about 300 speed I believe and can only get around 200 with current starts. It's just so close and has been worked on so much that I feel this is pretty likely to be saved. 3: THI Red Coins #1. While the red coin cave may seem desolate, there is surprisingly much to work with. It is possible to gain hyperspeed using Wiggler up above the red coins, but currently there is no way to clip under the floor with that hyperspeed. There is also the option to use the hanging-ceiling upwarp to reach the highest red coin in only a single A press, but it doesn't seem possible to reach the other red coin from there. 4: WMotR Cannon. Notice I don't specify which cannon since I feel like I feel like there could be strategies to save either one (but not both). It might be possible to use the infinite wing cap height glitch to save the second cannon shot, but the problem is that the wing cap doesn't last long enough to pull it off. The second cannon platform is also located not to far from the starting cloud, so it might be reachable, but the problem there is that you have no way to open the cannon. Falling off or exiting the course after opening the cannon won't work, since falling off takes you outside the castle and it requires an A press to enter the stage. The only option would be to die, but it currently doesn't seem possible to die 0x after opening the cannon. 5: SSL Elevator (for secrets). This star can be collected in 1x A Presses from the bottom entrance as well as the top. Currently the only thing blocking us is the pole all the way at the top. There are some homing amps nearby, but other than that there really isn't much. There is not a single grabbable object inside the pyramid, so cloning or HOLP shenanigans are impossible. 6: THI Red Coins #2. I find this one less likely to save than the other THI A press. The red coin in the corner is just way too high, unless Wiggler hyperspeed ends up working out. 7/8: Enter TTC #2/#3. The 2nd and 3rd TTC entrances are more likely to be saved than the first one because of spawning displacement. The big problem is that there seems to be no way to do that for the remaining stars. Stomp on the Thwomp is very far away from any walls, but I feel like it's the best candidate for spawning displacement because of the nearby Thwomp. Of course, that's only if it doesn't get overridden by another object when the castle loads, and there is no known way to conserve momentum when collecting a star other than using a wall. 9: SSL Elevator (for pyramid star). This star takes 2x A Presses from the bottom entrance, one of which is the aforementioned pole and the other of which is either to jump up some stairs or to reach the star platform (both of these can be solved with a Star Dance Clip, but we can only use one 100 coin star). We would need to find a way to get past the pole AND get up one of these platforms, which is why this one is much less likely than for the secrets star. 10/11: Enter RR/WMotR. There just isn't much to work with on the top floors of the castle. Even though the entrance to BitS is much higher up, there doesn't seem to be any way to reach the entrances from there. It is possible to use C-up sliding on the banister, but it's so short that you barely gain any speed. 12: Enter TTC #1. Less likely than the other two TTC entrances and the RR/WMotR entrances. The clock is much farther away from the BitS platform than the other entrances, so even if we find a way gain enough speed to enter RR/WMotR, it would be much harder to redirect it into TTC. 13: PSS Box Star. There's just nothing to work with. The star is in the middle of an empty room in the middle of an empty level. Using the demo won't work either, since the demo-Mario does not use A as one of his inputs. There may be some way to gain hyperspeed using the slide, but it seems unlikely. 14: WMotR Other Cannon. Once again, just nothing to work with. The highest cloud is just way too high to reach and even if you get up there, how would you collect all of the red coins without flying? Definitely the least likely to be saved.

All of these seem near impossible at the moment but Wing Mario Over the Rainbow seems *literally* impossible

We're truly in the endgame now, But I have faith in the ABC crew. YOU GUYS CAN DO IT!

The humility pannen displays by explaining the 0.5 A Press at 1:56 is genuinely awe-inspiring. My mom knows about the half-A press. Surely he knows that he changed the world, right?

It seems like it ways yesterday that there were 19 A presses left...

So if we were able to obtain some speed on the 3rd floor, we'd save 5 a presses...

I had to double check where the ABC started. From 240 A presses down to 14! That's absolutely insane Edit: lol should have waited til the end, I wonder what the difference between the 240 count and the 211 count is. TIME TO REWATCH THE ABC documentary

and theres already an improvement

absolutely insane that you guys are so close to the single digits in A presses.

I can’t believe the JRB star can’t be collected using a dive rollout off one of the chests. It’s such low hanging fruit and yet somehow with all the TAS tricks we can’t get it without jumping.

I'm guessing the existence of this video is an acknowledgement that these remaining A presses are going to be very, very tricky to save. Most might not even be possible, unless a miraculous new technique is discovered. We have reached endgame. With that being said, I have faith that we can still bring that total A press count down a little further. Good luck!

The JRB chest one is the memey final boss of ABC, but WMotR is terrifying

And this video is noe outdated after 2 months, contrary to the 2 years it took for the remaining 19 a presses

6:48 love how the names changed from wave 9 to wave 10 "10k glitch" can't even compare to "bully battery"

I am in complete awe. As I've always been at this challenge. I believe it can be done. You and the community are doing great work!!

Maaaannn my guys frickin' killed it What a goddam good job

It's been like 5 years since I discovered this project, and I feel obliged to comment for the first time ever to say thank you to you and all the ABC crew for this amazing journey so far! Truly fascinating and can't wait for the rest 👊

I wish I had this level of dedication to something

I really like the new format for showcasing the version-specific A presses, I feel like it makes a lot of things a lot cleaner. I also had no idea that ETitV 0x didn't work on Shindou! I also can't believe that TTC is now tied with Wing Mario over the Rainbow of all things for "most associated A presses".

It's worth noting that the 0.5 A-Press in TTC is used to avoid a repetition of the A-Press used to enter TTC, rather than actually being necessary to acquire the star within the level. So if 0 A-Press TTC entry is ever found, that 0.5 A-Press in TTC should indirectly be saved along with it.

I was waiting for this lol, just watched the (outdated) remaining 19 yesterday!

gosh it feels so good to get a video with textual explanations , cause i dont understand your videos theses days and that makes me sad 😢 keep doing your great work!

The creation of this video suggests BitFS isnt going well

JRB star looks so close to solving but actually so far.

I am shitting and crying in 0.5 a presses rn rn

The 5 entry-jumps from the upper floor are probably never going to be saved, but at this point i would not be surprised if one brave Pfannkuchen found out some major discovery in the castle.

I believe that in total the lowest the a press count could ever get is 1. JRB TotOC has been solved to 0.5. SSL PP/ItAP I believe could be done with an Amp clip with some "magic" movement from the bottom to get the top star. THI WRC if you fell through you would save one and with some kind of movement save the other. This probably is impossible though. For PSS ! a speed glitch was found in this course. If there was some way to fall off the slide in the perfect way with that speed you could fly to the star and ground pound, collecting the star WMotR requires an a press. Flying is required and to fly you need to press a. The other a press has a little wiggle room with unknown strategies but it seems impossible. BitFS has a totally insane stratagy in the works involving a bully. I don't know whats happening with it now but if it works it will be something like LLL ETitV. Its also saved in the WiiVC version via rounding errors. For all 3 of the entrance a presses for TTC, RR and WMotR, if there were a way to build speed in the tippy top section of upstairs, they could be saved. ETitV could have a solution for shindou editions involving some kind of burning on poles or RLBs but it seems unlikely. Would save a ton of time off the final run though. In order of how likely I think each one is: PSS, BitFS, SSL, THI 1, entrances to TTC, RR and WMotR, ETitV, THI 2, WMotR 1, WMotR 2. Edit: Added ETitV as its technically unsolved, moved BitFS and SSL up by 1 on my list as I've changed my mind and used slightly more grammer.

I remember when there was 27 remaining A presses. Kudos to you and the whole dedicated Mario 64 glitch hunting/speedrunning/TASing community for accomplishing so much.

Yeah this update was sorely needed. Wild how Stomp on the Thowmp is 0xA now.

I think its really cool how you went through every version of the game for this one! Thank you ABC team for all your hard work!

I just wanted to thank you for your amazing content. Despite the "lower standards" you set for yourself on your newer videos, your stuff is still just as amazing as ever.

Seems to me the biggest potential save here would be finding a way to access TTC, RR, and WMotR without the A button. That would be 5 A press saves, but it would also mean no more need to use spawning displacement in TTC, which would remove the need for the leeched A press in TTC (technically saving another A press overall) and open up the possibility of using a version other than the JP original for this challenge. The obvious idea would be to find a way to build up speed and launch Mario from the deck with the 70 star door, but to do that without a BLJ or any obvious usable object seems quite tricky indeed. I look forward to the day when someone finds a solution to this part in particular. It would be the single biggest save in terms of percentage of remaining A presses knocked out in the history of this challenge.

Really feels like one good break through would solve so many, excited for the future!

14 A presses sounds like something you'd have for a single star on some levels...

I've been watching this challenge for years. I fully believe in you, Pannen.

oh damn, since bismuth's last video where he showed 16 said 15 remaining at the end, there has been more progression. lovely.

You've all done really great work!

Incredible work.

My Names for the challenges: Pandora's Chest Pandora's Box Pandora's Pyramid Pandora's Earth Plates Pandora's Cannon Pandora's Pole Pandora's Roof

This video is now 0.5x outdated.

Great analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

The insane amount of knowledge you all have on mario 64 at this point is insane. Every time I see new improvements to ABC I wonder how much more crazy shit there is yet to be discovered.

I feel like the final A press is gonna be most dufficult because of the half a presses that would need it

I believe this project might be the greatest example of human ingenuity applied throughout the gaming history. Congratulations to everyone involved for such awe-inspiring achievements, it can't be overstated how incredible it has been to see this over the years. I still remember laughing back when this started, thinking how absurd it was that one would take over 20 minutes setting up Goombas just to save an A press. Back then, I really thought it was a joke which was taken too seriously. Little did I know... It really became something really unlike anything else.

These are always a delight. The progress is delicious.

Honestly, at this point it feels like the only way to remove more A presses is to invent a machine that generates cosmic rays lol

Wow, just wow. There are only 14 a presses left. If you've made it this far already, you can definitely find a way to save ALL the remaining A presses at some point! Keep up the good work abc crew!! I believe in you!!!

The worst part about the WMotR Star is that even if someone found a 0 A press way to get the star, the glitch required to do so would be so game-breaking, it would probably trivialize the entire challenge.

Just 14 and then it's resolving the remaining half-A presses, we're so proud of the entire ABC team!

This community is full of brilliant minds. I’m sure this number will come lowers someday. Tool assisted inputs may be needed for experimentation, but even at the human level, this is already an astounding accomplishment.

im curious, how do you guys expect the A button challenge to end? my headcanon is that a glitch will be found that prevents demo mario from ever ending, thus leading to an infinite monkey theorem where in a few thousand years he will eventually collect 120 stars without a single input required

Seeing that updated wall of GiFs was just beautiful. When I first found out about this little puzzle it was already down to 19. Now, its down to 14. Barring a major game breaking discovery, I can only see that being 11, and that's being generous. Some of these stars just have nothing to work with. In decending order of hope: BitFS has the Bully idea building. Now that I've seen this work in LLL, maybe the SC spots in BitFS will get us through. Though if you thought LLL was complex... JRB: To save we need 262SPD. We are capable of generating 181 (Thanks for correcting me.) That float point seem where the water bordures air has interesting properties, and I haven't given up on the idea of reactivating sliding speed, then free falling for a single frame back into the water, rinse and repeat (get it? Rinse?! OK I'll see myself out) THI coins. An idea I've seen floated around of spawning a 100 coin star to skip the first A press, (Alternatively a way to ledge grab after being burn hopping.), OR use Wiggler Hyperspeed to do a negative jump through the floor, and conserve that speed to skip the second A press. Both ideas have been rigorously tested though and that seems to be a dead end. Its been amazing seeing this journey, and I've dabbled in TASing enough to know just how much work this all takes. Brava to the ABC crew!

There’s one that’s probably never going to be saved in our lifetime

You’ve come a long way!

Can we just take a moment to imagine current pannenkoek telling his 2013 younger him that the challenge will still be on even 9 years later, and that the number of A presses has been absolutely destroyed ?

It's so weird to see this approaching the end after all these years. The achievement is simply astounding. For what's left... BitFS: Hopefully JRB: Frustrating, but at least there are objects for interaction. Big question mark. But the other ones are basically impossible. Maybe SSL star 6 with a lot of wishful thinking, but that's about it.

I hope Penguinz0 considers putting a bounty on the remaining A presses in this challenge.

So much serotonin seeing the total

13 A presses remaining

if i rip van winkled all the way to the year 2100, the first thing i would ask after waking up would be "did they get JRB #3 0x?". i'm assuming this would be a perfectly normal question that any ordinary person in 2100 would be able to understand and answer readily

We're now at 13 after saving half an A press in JRB! LETS GOOOOO

The fact this video is already outdated. Bravo, ABC crew!

Yes! I've been waiting so long for this video!

It's gonna be fun when they get to 1 a press and have to deal with all the 0.5s...

one day there might be a way to enter TTT, RR, and WMOTR, saving 5 A presses likely all in quick succession

keeping up with this through the course of my life has been great, please get a 0 a-press run before we all die thanks pannen

I notice lots of comments saying that the simplicity of some stars makes them difficult to solve, meanwhile TTC was conquered because there were more elements to use. Maybe if you designed an unsolvable level in 0 A Presses and you added lots of elements to the world, you could develop new tech there. It seems easier to create new strategies when you have stuff to work with, so creating a challenge might help the cause. Especially when you bear in mind that TTC was a very vertical level, crafting a couple of vertical Towers could be fun

If the crew get to take out all of the a presses but the WMotR ones I wouldn’t be sad actually. I feel like the ABC is more about beating a game which resorts so much in jumping without any jumps, which would be accomplished in this case.

13 A presses left (10 unique)

I'd love to see a video of those visuals at the very end, featuring some the challenging A presses, then having them get removed from the scene as they get solved. Would be a great visualization of all the progress made over the years.

These keep me up at night