A Button Challenge: Difference between revisions

The '''A Button Challenge''', '''ABC''' for short, is a [[challenge]] in which the number of presses of the [[A button]] is minimized, whether on a per-mission or a per-file basis. Because the A button makes Mario jump, great creativity and precision are required to progress in the game without using this "vital" function. The ABC is often connected to the discoveries of new glitches and techniques that can be used more generally throughout the game. Much of the material on the [https://www.youtube.com/user/pannenkoek2012 pannenkoek2012] and [https://www.youtube.com/user/pannenkeok2012 UncommentatedPannen] channels is related to the A Button Challenge, with only 20 remaining A presses (15 unique A presses) left to optimize.<ref>[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wVD60DYcPPjWmfObqwV-1Kb0ic478dsL9znCMqM2X4M/edit?usp=sharing "SM64 120 Star ABC Route" spreadsheet]</ref>

Although much of the progress in the ABC has been made since 2013, the ABC existed for over a decade earlier. Pieces of what would become the ABC were present in different terms, as early as 2001 on Walton Dell's site on multiple level pages.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20020614010118/http://www.wdell.com/videogames/sm64/course01/ An archive of A Button Challenge on Walton Dell's site]</ref> Curtis Bright, who runs sm64.com, was keeping track of ABC at least as early as December of 2006.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20061209073313/http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cbright/sm64/a-presses.html An archive of A Button Challenge on sm64.com]</ref> Thiago Trujillo had what is the earliest, nearly complete count for the game (that we have access to) with a total count of about 263 presses.<ref>[http://www.oocities.org/thiagotrujillo/abut.html A Button Challenge on oocities.org]</ref> (This list is missing all navigation presses, two of the [[DDD]] stars, three of the [[TTC]] stars, one star in [[RR]], and [[BitS]].)

Pannenkoek's first ABC video was for 5 Itty Bitty Secrets, and was released in August 2013.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy7XDStV5WE "SM64 - Five Itty Bitty Secrets - 0x A Presses (OUTDATED)" by pannenkoek2012]</ref> The count at this point was about 212 presses, although this number dropped fairly quickly. Within the first 4 months, the count had fallen nearly 100 presses, and was down to 118. Over the next five years, many different people have worked on removing as many counts as possible, and the number has dropped to only 20 A presses in a 120 star run (as well as 0 in any% on WiiVC).