ASMT 11th Anniversary LP - Hey There Guy

[AUS]

someone upthread was shitting on XP

i have to say in the strongest possible language:

no, it's good

[Grounder]

someone upthread was shitting on XP

i have to say in the strongest possible language:

no, it's good

Seconded.

Those hills will always have a place in my heart.

[Ashan]

I'll say I probably prefer more modern software designs to stuff of that era, but "bloated" and "embarrassment" probably aren't good words to describe it considering it was pretty stable and didn't harass you every other day to install an update that will at worst softbrick your computer and at best put more ads in the file explorer and re-install Candy Crush.

[1F0]

Huh... I guess no one else here had the experience of their parents upgrading the family PC to XP, finding out the computer is now slow as molasses, a bunch of games no longer work, and that there's this new weird-looking theme. Oh well.

[BobisOnlyBob]

XP was very good but not as an upgrade imo, similar deal to Windows 10. Upgrading from Win7 to Win10 was agonizing, my clean install of Win10 has been absolutely lovely and grief-free since I murdered Cortana and turned off all automatic updating bullshit. XP's theme was very chunky and colourful and 2000s but it was still a world better than Vista's TRANSPARENCY EVERYWHERE inanity.

[darkwitchclaire]

XP was just 2000 with a facelift and a few extra features thrown in.

[KobaBeach]

win95/98/2000 are still my boos

[Leet]

Huh... I guess no one else here had the experience of their parents upgrading the family PC to XP, finding out the computer is now slow as molasses, a bunch of games no longer work, and that there's this new weird-looking theme. Oh well.

Well you see, back then your parents had to do that. Now Windows can do that autonomously.

[raekuul]

XP was very good but not as an upgrade imo, similar deal to Windows 10. Upgrading from Win7 to Win10 was agonizing, my clean install of Win10 has been absolutely lovely and grief-free since I murdered Cortana and turned off all automatic updating bullshit.

Very much seconded. With one exception, every In-Place upgrade from 7 to 10 that I've worked with is bad, every fresh install of 10 I've worked with is good. (My work laptop was an in-place upgrade from 7 to 10 but by the time it was done microsoft had actually worked out all the bugs. Too bad that was two years after their whole "upgrade to 10 for free!" thing.)

XP's theme was very chunky and colourful and 2000s but it was still a world better than Vista's TRANSPARENCY EVERYWHERE inanity.

I liked Vista's aero theme and sorely miss it in this modern Metro era of "everything looks the hecking same"

[J. J. W. Mezun]

The idea is that rather than the final level - indeed, the 2nd most important one - being arbitrarily assigned to any random person, with them carrying both the privilege and responsibility of drafting the culmination of what has been a group effort, everyone on the team gets to be involved in making the biggest most extravagent finale. Of course, this can be done vastly more elegantly than "24 random levels before the midpoint". But I do prefer an inelegent version like this over a level by just one guy.

I was thinking that might be 1 o’ the reasons, but I was wondering why this isn’t the case for the 1st level. ¿Why isn’t there such a fight o’er who gets to make the 1st level? The 1st level’s mo’ important than the last ( back to articles ’bout level design: count how many articles there are ’bout World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. vs. those ’bout World 8-4 ). I’d consider who gets to design the 1st level a far greater privilege & responsibility, since by the time you reach the final level, the player’s already invested, but if the 1st level o’ a game is bad, it can tarnish the whole game as a player may assume the whole hack is that bad & give up before trying other levels — specially considering how many hacks there are that they could try & how easy it is to just download ’nother for free, so there’s e’en less investment than if they already paid for it.

XP was very good but not as an upgrade imo, similar deal to Windows 10. Upgrading from Win7 to Win10 was agonizing, my clean install of Win10 has been absolutely lovely and grief-free since I murdered Cortana and turned off all automatic updating bullshit. XP's theme was very chunky and colourful and 2000s but it was still a world better than Vista's TRANSPARENCY EVERYWHERE inanity.

The truth is that all o’ you are right: all Windowses are bad.

[Leet]

I don't think the level that will be the first level is actually decided for sure until after it's been made. Nobody necessarily claims 'the first level' in a lot of these hacks, it's more like, a bunch of levels are submitted, and then the one is chosen that fits at the beginning the best, so the selection is still not arbitrary*. Although certainly, people might design levels with the intention of "i think this should be the first level", but it is not set in stone until the overworld is actually put together (and even then it's subject to change). (ASMT is a bit different because (I think raocow said) the overworld was made first. This is the only instance of such a thing I'm aware of, though.)

*This is (from my observation) how most level placements are done, up until the point where specific requests sometimes need to be made to patch up some holes. So in theory every single level's placement is the subject of non-arbitrary design; however, sometimes the project managers are busy so they just slot something in where they can fit it, and maybe it doesn't get pointed out in testing, and so you encounter weird difficulty curves in these games at times.

[yoshicookiezeus]

So yeah, I’d like to apologise for that Heavy Press battle, and I really can’t blame raocow for putting a checkpoint after it. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three different ways that I’d improve it if I went back to it today. Although in this context, I don’t think it really adds a lot in the first place; the King Charles battle is already such a strong end to the castle, and another boss before him really wasn’t necessary.

[Leet]

I think if you just replaced the homing bills with a normal bullet or eerie generator it would be totally inoffensive. The bullets piling up and breaking the game is a dynamic that throws the whole thing off course.

Also yeah ASMT was ahead of its time by not even bothering with the 'postgame' distinction. By which I mean that talkhaus games never end, but ASMT was the first talkhaus game yet already knew that this was not to be considered "clearing the game".

[camwoodstock]

ohoho you thought i FORGOT??? i did a little bit admittedly. procrastinated for day 1, wrote it for day 2 and then found out at the end raocow decided to split the boss fights! but i felt like it was better to just post abt this level all in 1 post than split it up.

also, yes... i did have to make this a spoiler yet again. i promise this is shorter than the Wall of Turner though!!!

oh hey it's King Charles's Castle! also known as "probably one of the leading factors in people trying to invent multiple checkpoints, and the source of literally every talkhaus-adjacent process having a collaborative final level". like literally ANY sort of project even if it doesn't explicitly involve talkhaus, if it's talkhaus adjacent it probably has a similar format to king charles's castle. MaGMML2 and MaGMML:EZ come to mind, they're the most recent examples of this format with NULL & VOID in both 2 and EZ, but also the Reality Core. the format of "everyone has returned for the final level" has been tested time and time again in these collab games and it just kinda works, honestly. someone said this thing was "ahead of its time" but. on the contrary, i think if it weren't for this level, i don't think we'd have stuff like the aforementioned examples! asmt taking the plunge is what allowed some of those to exist and that's pretty rad.

okay first things first? i love the music of the main segment, it's actually pretty cool. the aesthetics of the "main" castle? also super neat! i love these! but. main issue i have with the level is the aforementioned total lack of multiple checkpoints. i've been incredibly lax about that in past levels because, well, multiple checkpoints was not a thing in smw hacks yet. but i feel like i HAVE to mention it in this level's case as it's pretty much looked back on as "one of the levels that seriously could've benefitted from multiple checkpoints the most"

thing is, though, if you're expecting me to make some big overview of every level here... honestly there isn't much to say about them besides a few select rooms. things mostly kick into gear when you get past the checkpoint and the rooms are required, outright after the now-famous "everyone returns for the final level" part. i feel like it's pretty notable that even though this is the origin for that sort of approach to a final level in a collab levelpack, the most memorable part is the part where it ISN'T that. like i can look at all the rooms in NULL & VOID and be like "oh yeah, THIS ROOM!", they all carry a unique enough identity and some even came packed with midbosses! not really so much here, tbh??? it's a bit odd.

raocow does pretty much all of these way out of "order" as listed. when applicable i'll be listing their ACTUAL door numbers/listings as specified in JupiHornet's LP before going along with my thoughts. i'm also only covering the stuff in this initial runthrough, if i think of anything to say during cleanup i'll say it then

Door 2 - yoshicookiezeus: BEHOLD THE BOO LINES. i really like this concept but also it seems a bit disjointed? the initial layer 2 with the standard platforms falling doesn't really gel well with the gimmick at hand, and it just kinda gets you killed unnecessarily. having the part at the start where you have to wait for it to sync up is a bit annoying, if that was gonna be anywhere it should've been later. but the tetris ghosts are just. ADORABLE, that is a clever use of the layer 2. i do kinda wish the magikoopa was put in another area, not just because it's kinda much to deal with the Tetris Zone with him, but also... his boo laser shots ricochet off the walls, but there's. no walls. because there's open space for the tetris. if he was put into an area with explicit walls, he'd be a neat inclusion to the segment! it does go a bit long admittedly but i ultimately find this area very charming even if it's pretty rude

Door 1 - Alex-R: this is a demonstration of one of my favorite parts of KCC--the fact that, since these are all bite-sized levels (well, meant to be; sometimes they got a bit long as raocow notes) you get some really unique graphics replacements you just don't otherwise see. like for instance, here everything's a neon outline! others outright replace the graphics associated like the magiboopain yoshicookiezeus' Door 2.

Door 4 - Tails_155: raocow had some choice words for this room and i agree with pretty much all of it and it's a genuine bummer bc like, this room had potential but this thing literally 5 minutes long if you do it legit , if you do things a certain way you need forced damage to spinjump on the jumpin' piranha plant, and ALSO if you don't use doublegrabs you will be here for. so. SO. much time. and then at the end you need to juggle these 2 blocks over a triangle block wall. also the lavafalls aren't ALl decorative--the ones in the foreground (completely identically colored to the ones in the background) are instant death. and it's a shame bc this area generally looks rather nice, it easily has one of the neatest and most memorable setpieces being the castle garden (castles outdoors will always be neat) it's just that it both goes on forever and has some SERIOUSLY rude item babysitting. quite tellingly, in Jupihornet's LP, he outright recommends anyone playing along to skip Door 4 just for this room alone... yikes.

Door 6 - Argumentable: yet another really cool setpiece with the boiler/engine room sorta look! i do like the two gimmicks alone, with the boos/bomb boos, and the bulb brothers/bomb bills, but... the two pairs together? for a total of four gimmicks?! at least these two gimmicks are ultimately quite well-rationed and are 50/50, but MAN it causes something that's ultimately very hectic. very doable! but also very very concerning.

Door 6 - fireyblaze: this is a room that sounds neat on paper but... it's pretty cruel in execution. the gimmick idea of "pillars on a layer that scrollers different from the camera"? LOVE it. kinda like USE YOUR ILLUSION lite, even! but it doesn't really have the difficulty scaling that level has, and as a result it gets really rude REALLY fast. and it kinda stinks bc this EASILY had the most potential to be a cool room! it just ends up being rude, also the charlie spam towards the end is. Questionable

so after this point we get the second half with the only mid-point. this is. a bit silly, yeah you can kinda see why so many people cite this as a reason why multi-midpoints are a big deal.

VR Transport Part 1 - chdata: yep, chdata made this segment! i genuinely forget that at times bc this generally feels much different from his other levels in asmt... and honestly, it feels much better than his other levels in asmt. this is the ultimate resting place for the cursors that supposedly infested House of Turner ROM shown in one of the development videos i found. i LOVE the setpiece here. king charles having a virtual reality area doesn't make TOO much sense admittedly, but the idea to make it a "demon enters windows XP" dealio is SO cool? and the use of various icons from windows XP do different gimmicks! refresh restarts the entire room! close is a muncher! minimize resets your size to small! remember when i went on in my Wall of Turner that one of the biggest problems thematically was that every gimmick seemed to clash thematically? with the exception of the strange "OK/KO" blocks, not so here! my only real argument is that the OK/KO blocks definitely needed a better graphic, and that the pac-man ghosts, while a cool addition, i feel like they're meant to be computer viruses... and pac-man doesn't really represent that? literal sort of bacteriophage lookin' dudes that behave like spinies would've conveyed that better, or if you need a floaty one, maybe a "worm" virus?

but yeah. read it and weep. it's a late-game asmt area by chdata that doesn't make me explode into a giant wall of text. it goes to show that, even though he was 12 and also generally his level design was pretty off back then, he wasn't necessarily a bad dude with implicitly bad ideas! he had potential and he'd later be able to realize it, which is super neat! and that's what makes stuff like House of Turner so fascinating to begin with. despite all their scuffs, despite how terrible they are at times... you can still see potential in them, even if their execution isn't good.

VR Transport Part 2 - raocow: welcome to the raocow dimension. this is a pretty good alternative take on the virtual reality idea--it's the virtual boy! i do agree with raocow on this still looking cool; it's a very neat setpiece! the lack of music is... a bit disdainful though, tbh. and of course, in true Early raocow Level Fashion... enemy spam. so much enemy spam. raocow has gone on record MANY, MANY TIMES that he doesn't really feel his level design proper is much good, and for one, Mood. but secondly, even with how spammy this area is, there's one thing i like; at least the enemy palette is consistent. like, you only see the lova frogs, sandcastles, fish, and later you get super goopas and ponkeys here. the enemy density? WAY too high. and the super goopa generator is ridiculous. asmt raocow had a hyperfixation for generators and that has long passed. but at least the selection of enemies is kept to a reasonable amount and is quite interesting. and of course... the origin of the lullaby.

also, raocow, this one segment is NOT your peak in smw. i remember other stuff much better, even if they aren't quite too good quality-wise (What The Hell, despite being arguably outright bad, is VERY memorable and still sees love to this day). the lullaby that you just, off handedly sung in the original lp, though? THAT is definitely super neato. it's kinda accidentally iconic and has sorta found itself as the ultimate "theme" of asmt, not just in regards to this hack, but the entire series as a whole. it's found its way into effectively being the leitmotif for demo in a way. and the covers it caused! DEAR LORD the musical renditions! this level is not your smw legacy, raocow--even in the context of smw, i feel you have other projects both before asmt, in asmt, and after asmt that stick out more. but i'd argue it is indirectly responsible for the musical legacy of asmt as a whole. and unlike this level, it has continued to remain important well past the 10 years ago. and that is something to be proud of. literally i got the lullaby stuck in my head for the rest of the day. hells yeah

and also, behold. a second midpoint courtesy of the rerelease. what i find odd is that, if the rerelease added multi-midpoints to this level... why'd it ONLY add it here? not between the first door set??? or also after Heavy Thwomp??? odd

so we begin the Final Boss, with phase 1; meet Heavy Thwomp! he's basically just Heavy Press from cave story as raocow mentions, which is. a bit odd? also i was typing this on the 18th and then raocow cut off the video for the bossfight so whoopsie. anyhow, he's a neat boss imo, and i like it quite a bit actually! sure he is Very Much Jank but the setpiece of "having to hit the weapon part to damage the whole unit" is super cool! my main complaint isn't that the homing bill is present--i feel like he'd be fine enough... but he's a bit TOO present, resulting in quite a bit of enemy spam, to the point of invisibility glitches. if that strikes, literally the fight glitches out and becomes nigh-unplayable. that alone means that... outside of controlled environments, actually fighting Heavy Thwomp? is a literal NIGHTMARE. i can't blame anyone for savestating because. for a final boss (yes, a, we've got reserves), he seems woefully untested as raocow points out--especially since the homing bill issue could've totally been resolved with just a simple check in the spawners effectively amounting to "on spawn protocol, if 1-2 homing bills are on screen, do not spawn another, instead only restart timer". i'd wager if that was implemented literally the ENTIRE FIGHT would be fixed! and even then... the homing bill doesn't really gel well thematically, if that makes sense? they just kinda, show up, and it seems a bit odd, to say the least. same with the shells tbh. i wish that instead of there being the walls to the sides of Heavy Press, there were two other cannons that would fire the killer bills instead--and as a bonus, if you timed an up-throw right and hit the cannons with a shell, you could outright disable those cannons, removing that element of the fight. maybe also cannons to "fire" the shells down?

BLACK HOLE! (zone 42, game over) fr though as raocow mentions why the multi-checkpoints didn't go further if they were going to make concessions for the remake

phase 2, though. is SO COOL. King Charles is one of the coolest fights i've seen both conceptually and in execution. King Charles is an immortal charlie, with a twist. the camera focuses on HIM. he will "scroll you off the screen" at all costs--which instantly "deloads" you, killing you. this? one of the most clever concepts for a boss i've ever seen. it's hilarious. it's challenging. it's got REALLY COOL MUSIC, that rendition of the SMB1 Overworld theme, DEAR LORD! i've unironically listened to this song in specific quite a few times. and the setpiece of dunking him into lava at the end. IT'S SO GOOD. GOD I LOVE THIS FIGHT. Heavy Thwomp was only cool conceptually. but King Charles is cool in both concept AND execution. i don't really have any complaints, more just a suggestion; i do wish in the pre-bossfight dialogue, King Charles, in his ramblings, would've said something to the effect of "this is my story, and i'm the hero", so that when this phase hits... the revelation the camera is on HIM is even cooler.

King Charles's Secret Storehouse is admittedly not really much of a level--it's the TOP SECRET AREA effectively--but it's cool. i like the music here too! jazz jackrabbit had some nice bops. i admittedly don't really know where the "raocowology" thing came from either--i assume it's meant to be a joke, but who came up with it seems to have been lost to the sands of time, or at least lost to my admittedly cursory searches; i know chdata at least is responsible for programming the level in, in a video that features high-quality versions of some of the overworld songs in it(!!! and also cat planet!!!). the REAL goody is the functioning sound test. that is INCREDIBLY cool tech to see in a smw hack in 2010! i wish it came with soundtrack numbers in like an external .txt though

and that's King Charles's Castle... for now, at least. as i mentioned we've still got cleanup and if i have anything to say about the rooms we encounter then they'll get their own unified little post when cleanup ends. King Charles's Castle sure is a thing, and i quite like it for that. it was most definitely not the "first" instance of a collab final level, but MAN is it one of the most memorable, and it popularized the trope for future endeavors.

savestate counter x1! i honestly doubt it'll be increasing once we finish King Charles's Castle, because nothing in asmt really comes close to the midpoint fatigue of King Charles's Castle. tabarnak counter x6! or x5.5, depending on the House of Turner. nobody made it clear tbh

all that and i still had less to say about it than House of Turner. dear lord

[SAJewers]

I think if you just replaced the homing bills with a normal bullet or eerie generator it would be totally inoffensive. The bullets piling up and breaking the game is a dynamic that throws the whole thing off course.

Honestly, just fixing the homing bullets so they didn't bug like they do could probably be just enough.

[KobaBeach]

EDIT: ブルーノ城 秘密保管庫

ACTUALLY it's not the first yes but it would absolutely happen either way due to the VIPs being this way, and the VIPs being the big source of inspo for ASMT as they are ronco's big faves. And ASMT was mostly created to pander to raocow. So I feel the biggest credit goes to the VIPs with the second most amount going for KCC.

my only real argument is that the OK/KO blocks definitely needed a better graphic, and that the pac-man ghosts, while a cool addition, i feel like they're meant to be computer viruses... and pac-man doesn't really represent that? literal sort of bacteriophage lookin' dudes that behave like spinies would've conveyed that better, or if you need a floaty one, maybe a "worm" virus?

I distinctly remember that one of the Scarlet Devils (1? I think it was in the Cirno+Daiyousei area) that had a Windows Vista themed stage and it had Baikinman from Anpanman and Dr. Mario viruses representing the viruses, as Baikinman is basically a bacteria themed villain.

also your wall of text was still so long my mom joked if i was reading a court sentence

I think if you just replaced the homing bills with a normal bullet or eerie generator it would be totally inoffensive. The bullets piling up and breaking the game is a dynamic that throws the whole thing off course.

Honestly, just fixing the homing bullets so they didn't bug like they do could probably be just enough.

Someone in the comments (nathanisbored?) said that the issue is with how cluster sprites work, because they always take up sprite slot $01 and any sprite that was in there previously bugs out and gets yeeted to the cluster sprite's (in this case, the flames) position once they finish existing.

[nathanisbored]

Someone in the comments (nathanisbored?) said that the issue is with how cluster sprites work, because they always take up sprite slot $01 and any sprite that was in there previously bugs out and gets yeeted to the cluster sprite's (in this case, the flames) position once they finish existing.

I think not all cluster sprites do it but notoriously the boo cloud and the lightning's fire pillars do, at least.

[LunarRainbowShyGuy]

This heavy press boss is certainly a bit of a mess. I feel like it would at least be tolerable if the homing bullets always appeared at the top of the screen, so you could see them coming before having to deal with them, and of course if they weren't so prone to turning invisible. As it is now they can easily come in and hit you before you can even react to them. That was bad enough on its own, but as soon as I got hit by an invisible bullet I wasted no time in going to get a cape so I could just twirl the bullets away, which helped a lot. Even that wasn't 100% consistent though, since the bullets can still come in at a height to dodge the cape and still hit you. After defeating it a few times I just put down a save state, mostly because I was getting tired of going to get a cape every time I died. I'm glad I did, because I ended up loading it 13 times.

Once I put down a save state I found this fight against King Charles to be rather fun. Having something where the camera is centered on something other than the player character is a neat idea. It does still have some issues though; I wasn't a fan of how the edge of the screen just kills you if King Charles is moving the opposite direction, and the part at the end has a bunch of enemies with little time to react to them, and there isn't really a feasible way you can take it slow. These issues aren't too bad though; the real issue is that you're expected to go back and fight heavy press every time you die.

Anyway, over the entirety of this level I had 50 deaths that were counted by the game (leaving my in game demo counter at exactly 600), and 49 save state reloads, adding up to a total of 99 deaths on this level, which is about 15% of all my deaths in the game so far. Out of curiosity I did the same calculation for raocow; he had 60 deaths, and 16 save state reloads (assuming I counted correctly and he showed all his deaths in the video) for a total of 76 deaths in this level, which is about 18% of his 411 total deaths.

[PSI Ninja]

For the Heavy Thwomp fight, the YT comments say that the Homing Bills cycle left-right-right, which seems to be true. But back in the old LP, the pattern on the first attempt began with right-right. Then all subsequent attempts started with left-left-left. To be fair, raocow put a manual checkpoint after the first attempt, so maybe loading from that savestate every time influenced the consistency in patterns from that point on. I'm not sure if the left-right-right pattern seen today was deliberately programmed, or if it was consistent between attempts due to getting sent back to the submap every time there was a death.

Anyway, over the entirety of this level I had 50 deaths that were counted by the game (leaving my in game demo counter at exactly 600), and 49 save state reloads, adding up to a total of 99 deaths on this level, which is about 15% of all my deaths in the game so far. Out of curiosity I did the same calculation for raocow; he had 60 deaths, and 16 save state reloads (assuming I counted correctly and he showed all his deaths in the video) for a total of 76 deaths in this level, which is about 18% of his 411 total deaths.

I'm glad we agree on the demo count of 411 by the end of this video. I also counted 16 savestate reloads in the King Charles fight, and 76 deaths for King Charles's Castle so far. Speaking of demo counts, here's the scoop for videos 28-31. The stats for King Charles's Castle will be a bit messy until cleanup is finished.

asmt replay - 28 - the last pre-postgame normal level of the game

I thought you were putting a science at [10:46]. Watching both of your playthroughs of ASMT is starting to mix me up. In the item babysitting section, I laughed when you hit the side-by-side blocks, and they both revealed two different P-Switches. Kind of going overboard there...

(then: 10, now: 9) The Final Assault

(then: 421, now: 335) Total demos
(difference: 86, +1 from yesterday)

2010 observations: Every single attempt, you managed to do the item babysitting puzzle with an extra blue P-Switch left over. I think you did this by just racing over to the Disco Goopa once you pressed the first blue P-Switch (you never actually showed it off). The strongest Fence Goopa in the world killed you twice back then, but you mulliganed out of the second one.

asmt replay - 29 - six levels in total which is a fraction of the levels in this level

Okay, so here's where things are going to get messy. I decided to show the demos breakdown on a per-"room" basis, for the winning path you took. All other demos I just lumped together. As you do cleanup, I'll post the full breakdown of all demos for this level. In the old LP, you started using savestate checkpoints for some of the paths - this time, if you died and loaded a savestate, I counted that as a demo. Also, the names of the "rooms" below are courtesy of pastcow.

King Charles's Castle:
(then: 2, now: 3) Lower right path (1: platform place)
(then: n/a, now: 2) Lower right path (2: red lava place)
(then: 4, now: 1) Lower right path (3: orange lava place)
(then: 1, now: 0) Lower left path (4: the most complex puzzle in the world)
(then: 4, now: 1) Lower left path (5: arms depot)
(then: 19, now: 1) Lower left path (6: argh)
(then: ???, now: 12) All other paths

(then: 451, now: 355) Total demos
(difference: 96, +10 from yesterday)

2010 observations:

Lower right path (2: red lava place): This level was not in the version of ASMT you played back then. There were only two "rooms" on this path, instead of three.

Lower right path (3: orange lava place): At the end, you flew over the lava to the right. The full message read: "FLY TO THE MOON!" And guess what, it led to a 3-Up.

Lower left path (4: the most complex puzzle in the world): Back then, you solved the puzzle differently. You reused a P-Switch by pressing it on top of the brown blocks above the yellow pipe at around [27:30], grabbing the depressed switch, and going through the pipe before the sprite disappeared.

asmt replay - 30 - levels in CYBERSPACE

I hadn't thought about this for a while, but seeing the default Windows XP Luna theme being used reminds me of how "Fisher-Price" it all looked. I don't think this type of level aesthetic would have clicked as well if any other OS was used.

King Charles's Castle:
(then: 11, now: 9) virtual-reality-project-2.exe
(then: 7, now: 7) Lullaby room
(then: 1, now: 3) Post-midpoint (unknown, off-camera)
(then: ???, now: 2) Heavy Thwomp (unfinished)

(then: 470, now: 376) Total demos
(difference: 94, -2 from yesterday)

2010 observations:

virtual-reality-project-2.exe: You couldn't skip the cutscene text before this sublevel back then. And yes, you were meant to backtrack with the P-Switch (which looked like a "P" and didn't have the ":P" face) to help you collect all of the cookies in the upper part of the "OK" block section. You tried this in the old LP. Also, dying and getting sent back to the submap didn't give Demo that cool outline.

Nice of them to add an extra midpoint to this level. The savestateless run is still alive!

asmt replay - 31 - two very different boss levels, and a cool thing at the end

Your happiness is more important than the integrity of the run. Heavy Thwomp is one of the few times you became frustrated in the old LP, after all. Don't worry, you're covered with the death tracking. Including yesterday's deaths, Heavy Thwomp took 20 demos.

(then: 14, now: 18) Heavy Thwomp
(then: 24, now: 17) King Charles
(then: 0, now: 0) King Charles's Secret Storehouse

(then: 508, now: 411) Total demos
(difference: 97, +3 from yesterday)

2010 observations:

Heavy Thwomp: Heavy Thwomp's attack used the pink Sumo Bro flame graphics instead of the normal ones seen today.

King Charles: You got softlocked twice in the King Charles fight back then. The first happened when you stunlocked him against a dead end inside the narrow tunnel at around [9:50]. Another occurred in the narrow corridor later on at around [13:03], which looks like it was widened this time to prevent this situation from happening again.

King Charles's Secret Storehouse: Both the static and scrolling block formations that spell out "raocowology" are actually the same, but are offset by one character. That's really cool. Also, the music player didn't look as nice back then - it was just a message block in the center with note blocks on either side. Back then, the message read: "Hit the two blocks on the side to change the music track played. NOTE - Only plays music you have already heard in a level." In the newer version of ASMT, I checked this and the message was different: "Left - increase song number Right - decrease song number Jump - one song Spin jump - five songs".

[SpoonyBardOL]

[Nesera]

Has anyone actually beaten the original (no extra midpoint) version of King Charles's Castle without savestates? Doing two very difficult rooms followed by two very difficult bosses doesn't seem feasible.

In fact, has anyone beaten the 'fixed' version either? It's feasible (though difficult), but I don't know if enough people have played this version to even bother.

[camwoodstock]

ACTUALLY it's not the first yes but it would absolutely happen either way due to the VIPs being this way, and the VIPs being the big source of inspo for ASMT as they are ronco's big faves. And ASMT was mostly created to pander to raocow. So I feel the biggest credit goes to the VIPs with the second most amount going for KCC.

my only real argument is that the OK/KO blocks definitely needed a better graphic, and that the pac-man ghosts, while a cool addition, i feel like they're meant to be computer viruses... and pac-man doesn't really represent that? literal sort of bacteriophage lookin' dudes that behave like spinies would've conveyed that better, or if you need a floaty one, maybe a "worm" virus?

I distinctly remember that one of the Scarlet Devils (1? I think it was in the Cirno+Daiyousei area) that had a Windows Vista themed stage and it had Baikinman from Anpanman and Dr. Mario viruses representing the viruses, as Baikinman is basically a bacteria themed villain.

also your wall of text was still so long my mom joked if i was reading a court sentence

i dare you to show her my Wall of Turner and pretend it's an actual court sentence

[yoshicookiezeus]

Has anyone actually beaten the original (no extra midpoint) version of King Charles's Castle without savestates? Doing two very difficult rooms followed by two very difficult bosses doesn't seem feasible.

In fact, has anyone beaten the 'fixed' version either? It's feasible (though difficult), but I don't know if enough people have played this version to even bother.

Ryu managed to beat the original version without savestates during his playthrough. I think it took him over a thousand deaths, if I remember correctly?

[Nesera]

Holy crap, 1,000 deaths is already a lot even for a short level, but the second half of the level is L O N G. How much time did it take him?

[Ashan]

Huh... I guess no one else here had the experience of their parents upgrading the family PC to XP, finding out the computer is now slow as molasses, a bunch of games no longer work, and that there's this new weird-looking theme. Oh well.

Well you see, back then your parents had to do that. Now Windows can do that autonomously.

The computer is my parents now