When asked by meauxdal about how to land wheelies off course I responded

First I generally hold down a lot in the air when looking for a landing wheelie even past where it's optimal to maintain speed; this slows my descent a bit making the landing a little less jarring If I can I try to land with my front wheel slightly off the ground which prevents the reset for a split second and gives me a window to wheelie; you can do the same thing with a very slight turn but the window is smaller .

Landing perfectly flat and not going fast enough always resets you so you need to keep some speed and not completely level off. Once you give yourself a small window that way you can input the wheelie; don't press the boost button more than once you really only have 1 shot at it in that little window after you land. You have to time both a push down and the b press at the same time in the window created by landing slightly off level.

There have been times where I've landed with my front wheel way up and then bounced up back up straight into a wheelie"

if you press b twice going for a wheelie you reset

you can't just buffer it you have to just get the timing right and commit to it

There are some comments in the code that have been highlighted here on the cutting room floor https://tcrf.net/Excitebike_64

There's no reasonable way to limit this technique through ruleset; the game treats taking the corner as intended the exact same as this. Banning the use of the off course reset would just incentivize the third strategy shown in this video where you land on the other side of the track and turn around

I am investigating more about this game by examining the memory so starting a thread here to document my finds and create a discussion to help us learn more about how this game works(and by extension how to exploit when it doesn't). Addresses and Mechanics added to this list will be labelled by what we think they are and I will update this OP when additional ones are posted in discussion. Speculation is invited but please label it clearly if possible; posting in forum so finds are documented and anyone can weigh in.

List of Addresses:

Course Segment Counter = 0xDFF3A124

Lap Counter? = 0xDFF547C0

List of Relevant Mechanics:

Off Course Reset - This mechanic places the player back on the course after you jump over the barriers around the course

Crash Reset - This mechanic places the character back on the course after they have crashed

CHECK Value - This Value is a maximum value found on every course 4294967295/FFFFFFFF

D85B0C0E accesses DFF547C2 to write lap

D85B0C0E writes to DFF547C0(Lap Counter)

D8324237 accesses DFF3A124(Lap Segment)

D8324F9E accesses DFF3A124(Lap Segment)

D863FD93 accesses DFF3A124(Lap Segment)

D8324237 continually accessed while game is unpaused

D8324F9E continually accessed while the game is unpaused stops accessing while occupying the Lap Segment behind the finish line

D80CBFDE accesses 24A1F3DF(Lap Counter) after Start of Each Race or Restart Race 4 times

D8238CDE accesses 24A1F3DF(Lap Counter) after Start of Each Race or Restart Race Once

DFF60F74 Increments value with the timer onscreen DFF60F74(Timer Counter)

D84FFD6F accesses DFF60F74(Timer Counter) right before each lap completes

List of Known Behaviors:

• Course Segment Counter advances while in Off Course area as well as on the course
• Off Course Reset places you back on the course in the segment that was last driven on(speculation)

I have started a video tutorial series for Excitebike 64

Initially, it will be focused on explaining the skips used to give other players the tools to complete and improve skips runs

This is the first of those videos showing the basic concepts and techniques used on most skips

Pretty sure this same list is all over the internet but doing some reverse engineering and thought to dump here straight from the game's code

List of Cheat Codes

PINHEAD Pin Head Mode

PATWELLS Beat This!

UGLYMUGS Team Photo

MOWER Invincible

TRICKSTER All Stunts

XLURIDER Transparent Rider

ROTCOLS Odd Color Mode

MIDNIGHT Night Mode

INVISIRIDER Invisible Rider

SHOWOFF Stunt Bonus

WHEEEEEEEE Down Hill

IMGOINGNOW Debug Mode

YADAYADA Mirror Mode

BLAH BLAH Big Head Mode

You've been very kind and patient I wouldn't ban you for accidentally breaking a rule

I just want to change the timing method and seperate emulator no additional rules will be added, nothing changed in term of gameplay

if you have it running on 1.7 then you are good to do runs and I'll figure out the timing and post new rules/categories probably by tomorrow; guides as well

Still seems pretty fast compared to n64 now that I have it running; gonna put it in a different category and I'll compete with you on emulator instead.

Also the softlock just doesn't work on emulator at all; a huge oversight in terms of categories/rulesets on my part gonna have to rethink the timing method.

Thanks for the wakeup call gonna make some changes to this leaderboards to switch to real time and also include emulator as a separate category; the water effects just slow the N64 down so much because this game is very poorly optimized for console. Using 1.7 as a standard should keep competition fair but I'll writeup a separate guide on getting setup on emulator and another on how to time it.

Just figured this out thanks for your troubleshooting I appreciate it should have tested before putting it in the rules

Step 1: Use Project 64 1.7

Step 2: Set the ROM directory

Step 3: Right Click on the Game in the List and Select Edit Game Settings(doesn't matter if it says bad game just ignore it)

Step 4: Find Memory Size and set it to 8mb, this enables the expansion pack which is needed to run the game, hit apply and ok

Should fix the problems thanks for your patience

Just saw your speedrun now good job

video proof of this advantage is this 1:30 TAS(emulator) being run on an n64 console same inputs but the IGT comes out to 2:25; a clear illustration of the advantage I am talking about

If you watch this comparison this should illustrate what I mean about pj64 3.0 running faster; my run uses an exploit you don't seem to exploit and much more refined routing and cleaner jumps and still doesn't come close to beating your time http://viewsync.net/watch?v=xa0iCPwXVrg&t=12&v=HeGuQrvJEPA&t=7&mode=solo

If emulators just can't be comparable we can create a seperate category if need be; I got the suggestion for 1.6/1.7 from other speedgames on n64 who want to ensure fair competition.

Thanks for asking before submitting; I will add a clarification on how to get it to softlock to the rules as that's the way to "end" the run; there's a little bit of skill in optimizing how fast you can softlock so it's included in the with the time.

That's why they're listed but I am open to discussions on other emulators that stay close to the performance of a real N64. These are the emulators I know of that are accurate to the console where the new PJ64 is not(mostly for a better experience for casual players). The load time doesn't matter for in game timer but there's significantly more lag on console.

This game runs pretty poorly on N64 and emulator would just be outright better than console if not limited; there's likely other emulators that are comparable, I know 3.0+ pj64 runs faster. Shouldn't be a big deal to download and run 1.6/1.7 but if it is let me know and maybe more emulators could be added just ignorant to alternatives. Just trying to keep the competition fair.

Let me know if you have any questions looking for more competition.

Cheers, GhillieGuide

Hot Takes?

I don't think there's that much room for strategy innovation left in 1 player (too ignorant to say about bonuses)

I have started a video tutorial playlist for Polaris Snocross focused on the N64 version but applicable to PS as well

Let me know if you have questions or ideas for more videos to make https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlAkSmzMhm7rhRhQp5n4SVizffiPprB3p

I've just been timing from the frame the wipe transition starts without adding time for the button press; assume that's what others were doing

I found a 61

Based on the definitions agreed to there are no skips in 1 lap even possible I think; none that surpass 50% anyways

I believe going off course is faster in Toyko towards the finish

While making these changes

There's a skip version of Japanese Challenge Round and Japanese Challenge Round is longer(3 laps to every track) and no possible skips on NTSC-U challenge round

So technically there's these 3 challenge categories AFAIK under the current rulings(however you want to word them): Challenge Round Challenge Round JP Challenge Round JP Skips