List of RTA tricks

This article is a list of tricks and terms commonly used in speedrunning. Tutorials for these can be found in their respective RTA Guides.

Bomb Clip

In the mission Behind Chain Chomp's Gate, players can use a bloated bob omb to clip through the gate. This is faster than ground pounding, and doesn't trigger a cutscene.

Breezeless

The term breezeless was coined from a new trick that was faster than an existing trick. In the mission Mysterious Mountainside, the star is located in a hole. Players found out that Mario could skip the slide by jumping directly into the hole from above. The optimal route was to head left to the thin ledge, and use the breeze to get up, then jump down. Later, it was discovered that Mario could perform a triple jump, wall kick and ground pound to reach the hole, which was faster than using the breeze. This new trick meant the breeze wasn't needed, hence the name.

Cannonless

Demonstration of Cannonless in Whomp's Fortress

Ship Long Jump

Framewalk cannonless in Jolly Roger Bay

Cannonless or “Cless” for short is a term used for a speedrunning strategy that bypasses the need for a cannon.

Whomp’s Fortress

In Whomp’s Fortress players can get the star Blast Away the Wall by shooting out of the cannon and breaking the wall open, revealing the star. Players then found it was possible to clip into the wall by grabbing the ledge that the star rests on. A couple years later, there was a setup found that allowed the player to get the star consistently rather then blindly running at the wall. The no setup cannonless is called “OG Canonless” Then, another optimization was found that let the player look for a texture on the plank and use that instead dubbed “Texture Setup”.

Jolly Roger Bay

In Jolly Roger Bay the star Blast to the Stone Pillar is obtained by shooting out of a cannon and grabbing a pole and jumping onto a platform. Then, players realized you could shoot directly to the platform and skip grabbing the pole. If you shoot very quickly, you can get what is known as “Insta-Shot”. Players had another realization in the fact you can long jump off the ship and then wall kick to get to the star platform. Finally, it was found you can use Frame Walking to scale the stone pillar and get the star that way. The TAS uses a Backwards Long Jump to get up here.

Carpetless

Carpetless is a trick in the star The Big House in the Sky which saves roughly 50 seconds off of the mission. For many years, it was unused, as its extreme difficulty made it seem unviable in a 120 star run. This trick in its first form which seemed possibly RTA viable was originally done in the Shindou Edition 120 Star TAS. Mario first heads to the ship and grabs a bloated bob-omb. He then drops it at the platform on the other side of the plank. Mario then regrabs it while falling off the edge, causing the bob-omb's fuse to stop and for Mario to hold it hands free. He then navigates through the glass boxes, ground pounding to prevent him from walking. Once he reaches the warp, Mario the does 2 sideflips across the glass boxes and then sideflips to the castle wall, performs 2 glitchy wall kicks, and ground pounds, reaching the roof.

In mid 2015, 2 players, snowman and toadfan5, attempted to do this trick in real time using savestates. Eventually, toadfan successfully did it, making them the first to do carpetless RTA with the help of savestates. This achievement further implied that this trick could be done RTA. The first full completion of carpetless came in 2019, when Xiah was able to complete it after 2 weeks of grinding. This achievement re-ignited hope that this trick could one day be used in a 120 star run, but it still was deemed too difficult to perform. There have only been 5 people to ever do this trick using this method: Xiah, Mikko, Shake, TaylorSwiftSimp, and Parsee.

Parsee became remarkably consistent with carpetless, performing it many times, including in the first stage RTA world records with it. Eventually, they believed carpetless may be viable for 120, and even got it after 10 minutes in a run.

On Sept. 17th, 2023, a new RTA viable method for carpetless was found by the TASer Krithalith. A setup—based on timing several frame-perfect inputs—was created for the current BLJless/Shindou TAS carpetless strategy, with a slight change. The strategy involves using the teleporter to get to the Big House, traveling up the blue glass blocks, and getting onto the House's window. Two glitchy wall kicks are then used to land onto one of the corner's spires, which can then be scaled by jumping up the slope from a buttslide. Krithalith realized that with a small range of angles, just holding right after the second glitchy wall kick will have Mario land uphill enough on the slope to be able to kick up it. This is much less precise, because it takes 5 frames to jump out of a buttslide, but a kick can happen immediately. The setup was very difficult, however many top runners were able to perform the setup. The setup seemed to many to have a real chance of being implemented in a 120 star world record. This became solidified with the "Orthogonal Jones" setup, released the following day. The key factor that made this setup viable was use of only cardinal joystick angles, which have a range of joystick angles that all result in exactly straight angles, due to Super Mario 64's deadzone. The original setup used a perfect down-right diagonal, which requires an exact angle. Another key element increasing the setup's viability for 120 was the Orthogonal Jones dictionary, which lists every valid setup for every frame of wall kick on the second glitchy wall kick. Carpetless was first used in a world record by Puncayshun, and has been in every world record since.

Lakitu Bounce

Lakitu Bounce, in speedrunning context, is a trick Mario uses to in Rainbow Ride to reach the ship faster. It is done by triple jumping on the rotating octagons, wall kicking off of the side of the wooden ramp, and bouncing off the lakitu to get onto the ramp. From there, Mario can reach the ship quickly by climbing the pole and traversing the blue blocks. This trick is notorious for its difficulty, as it's very precise and needs to be done twice very late into a run.

Owlless

Owlless is a trick used in the mission Fall onto the Caged Island that skips using the owl. Players first head to the rotating platform, and then triple jump or double jump and wall kick into the cage. Although it is faster to sideflip instead, it is much more difficult to execute.

Pillarless

Pillarless is a bloated bob-omb trick in Shifting Sand Land that gets the player into the pyramid from the upper entrance without using the pillars, as the name suggests. This is used for Inside the Ancient Pyramid and Pyramid Puzzle. It is done by grabbing a bloated bob omb, holding it hands free, and then travelling up the pyramid and clipping through the entrance. This trick in considered very difficult to perform.

Ship Clip

The ship clip is used in Jolly Roger Bay to get into the sunken ship without luring the eel out, a time consuming maneuver. By swimming into the corner of the ship, Mario can clip through and enter the warp behind the eel.

Sicko Kick

The Sicko Kick is performed in the cave section of Tiny Huge Island's 100 Coin Star, during the jump to the platform with the blue coin switch. The (much) safer way to cross this gap is with a double-jump, but there is a very short window wherein a jump kick is sufficient.

Side Kick

In the stage Lethal Lava Land the star Red-Hot Log Rolling can be obtained by going around a small obstacle course and getting to it with the rolling logs. Players eventually found you can just triple jump from the stone archway at the beginning of the level and fly over the gate blocking you from the star. Eventually, players found that there is a platform near the gate in which if you do a triple jump and then a wall kick, you can get on top of said fence and then get the star like that which was faster and didn't require the wing cap.

Volcano Lava Boost

In Lethal Lava Land the star Hot-Foot-It into the Volcano can be obtained by climbing the volcano. Players found that with clever use of Lava Boosting and a triple jump the player can scale the lavafall to get to the top rather quickly. Eventually, an optimization was found that uses a long jump instead of a triple jump. Also, for the star Elevator Tour in the Volcano players found you can boost at the very beginning to skip the use of the first intended elevator.

See Also

Abbreviations

RTA Guide