Video of strat attempts:
After getting a 10:18, I've been trying to implement some advanced strats. The three things I address in this post (Ghost House, Dark Room, and cloud glitch) are three points in the 11 exit run where things often go wrong for me, but I don't know why. It's probably going to take a lot of effort to reply to this post completely, so any help is appreciated.
Ghost House: I've been trying to implement the strat where Mario jumps through the boo rings in the first and second room, but the position of the boo ring in the second room seems to be inconsistent. It feel like it has something to with how fast or slow I do the first room, but in the video above, I included what looked to me like nearly identical attempts but had different results in the second room. Any help or information on this?
Dark Room of Bowser's Castle: When I try to keep P-Speed in the dark room, I have to spin-jump on the second mecha-koopa in the section with the short ceilings. Sometimes I kill the koop and other times the koop kills me, as I show in the video above. I've practiced the jump hundreds of times and have tried jumping at many different points, but nothing seems to consistently work. Am I missing something?
Cloud glitch: I'll write out what I understand about getting the cloud to see if my struggle to obtain the cloud is just due to some misunderstanding of what I've read. After reading the SMW Cloud google doc, I understand that you have to get either a B4 or B5 address by jumping on the second to last koopa. If I get B5, I discharge the shell after I spawn Yoshi, and if I get B4, I discharge the shell before spawning Yoshi (I don't go for fast Yoshi). From there, I place the green shell at the top of the hill and let it get hit by the fire ball. I hold L, R, and X (and right) after jumping off and sticking Yoshi's tongue out to collect the coin. After collecting the coin, I should have the cloud, right? Is there some randomness or variability when you go for the cloud? In the video above, I included two attempts with what I believed to be B5 (one that worked and one that didn't), and two similar attempts with B4. Maybe I was wrong about the B4 and B5 in these attempts, but I've practiced enough to the point where I feel like I know what memory addresses I've gotten just by looking. Anyone have any tips to make this more consistent? One day I got the cloud 5 out of the first 9 attempts, and yesterday, I got it 2/27 attempts.
In all these cases, I find it frustrating to press all the right buttons at the right time (although maybe I'm not and that's my problem) and still have the trick not work. I probably used more words than was necessary in this post, so thanks in advance to anyone who bothers answering.
Well first of all I guess I'll explain how boo rings work. When one despawns, its position is saved in memory, and the next one that spawns will spawn in that position. This means that doing room 1 slower will result in a slightly different starting position for the ring in room 2. You can scroll left at the very beginning of room 2 to compensate for this if you need to
As for dark room, there's a paint guide somewhere which shows good visual cues for where to jump (unfortunately I don't have a link to it, but maybe somebody else will)
It's hard for me to see on my phone (especially cause dark room is, well, dark) but I think you want to land a bit sooner before the mechakoopa you're getting hit by. This will give you more time, and hence more leeway, for the jump to kill it
As for cloud, I can't really help as I use a different setup, but I'll answer your question about randomness by saying no. It should be consistent if you do the setup right. No real randomness involved.
Sorry I can't really help too much on this one, but I'm sure somebody else will. There's also a discord server with a #help channel which is more active than the forums here. You can join it at discord.me/smw if you haven't already
For the Ghost House: Xander is right about the Boo Rings. Also, the Fast Strat is INSANELY difficult to pull off. I try to go a little bit further to the left, which I feel gives me a better chance of going through the ring. There's really not much I can help you with, since you will have to get a feel for it over time.
For Dark Room: At the second Koopa, I think you're jumping too soon? Not too sure tbh.
For Cloud: The setup is LITERALLY pixel-perfect, and sometimes it's hard to tell if you got the right pixel. B5 makes it easier, while any other pixel (besides 10 and a few others) require a 1-frame R tap to prevent the game from crashing (I've only seen Aaron do this successfully twice). Another suggestion is to do Fast Yoshi strats. The biggest time save though will be in the Cloud Fight.
Extra:
Fast Yoshi: This is a 1-frame trick where you throw the shell up into the block and hit the block with both the shell AND mario at the same time. It's an insanely tight throw, basically throw the shell 1 frame after you jump. (Retrobob says his strat is to roll his thumb over the buttons quickly, which is the strat I use).
For Cloud Fight: Learn Ball skip. It will piss you off, but you will save time.
