- Jump. - Ooh it feels. - No. - Oh wow. - Is something off? Is something off? - [Director] All right that's it. [fun techy music] - One one is a very interesting level. It's kind of a master class in how to design a platformer. [robot noises] I have speed run Super Mario Brothers in the past. I have speed run the warpless category and can beat the game in under 20 minutes. [Super Mario Brother's theme music] There will be a lot of suffering. So I've definitely played Super Mario Brothers one one in the thousands of times. - For those who don't know, speed running is aiming to beat a game as fast as possible. [robot noises] It's pretty much just running through each level and never slowing down. - [Author] One one is a very interesting level. It is the quintessential tutorial level. For instance, you sort of encounter this coin block with a goomba running right at you. - Oops. - The placement of that enemy is actually quite good because if you run toward him and jump, you're naturally going to hit your head on that coin block which instantly teaches you that sometimes blocks contain things. And so you learn instantly about that. - No. - [Author] And then shortly after that you encounter another power-up block which can teach you that there are sort of graduated power ups. Then shortly after that you start encountering pipes that become higher and higher and you learn that you have to build up some speed in order to overcome obstacles. - Yep, that's the hard one. How do I jump? Ah. [chuckles] I'm not dead yet, but. - Wow it's a little harder than I remember, actually. - I know A is to jump but. - I literally don't know how to get over this. - Oh God. - Oh there you go. - Oh and I jumped higher. Okay, got it. - There's even a hidden one up in it so you can discover that there are hidden items throughout the game. - Like this one right here. - There's a secret one right here, yeah. - Yes sir. - Still remember, I still remember. - An optimal speed run is going to take you to the fourth pipe which you can actually enter so you can press down while you're standing on top of that pipe and it enters a little sub area. - Coins. - Do some hoarding. - Nice little shortcut to the end. - It's funny how like you just know generally like from, you have that muscle memory from like years back. You know that there's a pipe you can go down. - Get the flower power. - Ooh. - I try to get everything. - Gimme. - [Author] There's these sort of staircase patterns that have a pit in between them but it's just a gap. Like, it's safe, you can fall in there, it's no big deal. - I'm stuck. - [Author] But then directly after that there's another set of staircases that do have a pit that can kill you. So you sort of get to try it out first and then shortly after that you have to actually contend with the real thing. And then finally it ends with the very normal staircase that leads up to the flagpole teaching you how levels end. - Ah, that's it. - So you learn as you're going. It's a great tutorial. [fun techy music] [Super Mario Brother's theme music] - Which one is the start button? Oh, the one that says "start" in a very, like, okay. And you're gonna tell me what to do? [laughs] I don't play video games. - I don't have any experience with video games. Oops. - So I mean I should start doing something. Oh, okay. - Okay I'm gonna do this again 'til I get this. Okay so I'm going to jump over this- Ah! I guess you have to do it sooner. - Oops, I think I've just died. I was confused. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. - That was actually kinda fun. Don't tell my kids. - Quick, good. - Ugh, oh wow. - I've definitely played Super Mario Brothers before. I'm not great. - [Director] All right, that's it. - I've never played the original Super Mario Brothers. Maybe I have played this. I haven't played since I was in sixth, seventh grade, maybe? And that's my experience. Nope. - No. [laughs] - Ooh it feels, is something off? Is something off? - I have a little bit of experience with original Super Mario Bros. Not too much though. Ah! - When I was seven, eight years old I was obsessed with Mario, obsessed with Nintendo. I'm a gamer, so, I'm excited to be here. I was born for this. Oh my frickin' gosh. Okay, see this. I was just warming up. If I got a second round at that I swear I would have just destroyed, so. Okay, oh my God. This is um, okay, I'm just. - I'm a dancer so I don't really consider myself a gamer, like, at all. I didn't know the controls, so. Exactly how I expected it to go. - Oh my God. - I haven't held one of these controllers in a very long time and I'm a little scared. - The original game, I remember playing that around like, four or five. It is bringing me back. It was always a simple game, that's why I liked it. Oh, I just died. See, now I shouldn't talk. So how do I focus? See look, I'm all dying. - I haven't died yet so that's good, right? - One of my uncles talked my mom into buying Nintendo, ay. - What are these two? - This was one of the first Mario games that I kind of started off on. - Oh my God I can't even go back. - [quietly screams] Okay. Nice. - I remember there's like little, some of these have like secret, you can go down them. - No. [laughs] - The most infamous goomba in Nintendo history. - No! - Go back and be diligent. - Whoop. [chuckles] - I remember I wasn't always one to like, get every single point but I just wanted to get through it as fast as possible. - Yes. - Bam. - So when I was younger I played Super Mario, the original. I remember when I was younger I used to be able to jump through these but I guess not. It's actually one of my favorite games. I don't know how people can't love that game. Oh, there we go. - Let's see. Which pipe can I go down? - Oh I'm a noob for that. - Oh there we go. - The secret dungeon. - One time I cross jumped at the pipe and I was like, "huh?". And then I went in the pipe and there were coins and I was like, "oh boy, note taken". - Yeah, there you go. You get some gold. - I remember some, yeah there it is. [chuckles] - Nice little shortcut to the end. - I don't even know how long since I've played this game but. Oh man, yeah, they get me with that every time. - And you finish strong, and then reach the top of that, but. - Start here, right? Yeah, I remember. - Gimme. - Star power. - The star makes you invincible so you might as well use it when you have it. - Aw, completely missed my shot. - Nice. - Nope, all right. - And that's how we do it boy. - No, okay, well. - Made it, whoo! - Now you want to get to the top of the flagpole. - Ah, failed that one. [chuckles] Bottom of the flag, but pretty good. [video game sounds] [techy robot music] - My name is Kosmic. I currently have the world record for the fastest completion of Super Mario Bros and my time was four minutes and 55.64 seconds. The goal of speed running is where your high score is just how fast you beat the game. So you're competing so you get the lowest time. One of the first challenges you can kinda give someone when speed running is you can say, "Try and finish the first level with 370 on the end game timer". Which mostly comes down to the underground section. If you can get through that with 380 left on the timer then that's what you need to do. So you just push start on the title screen and during the black screen beforehand you're holding B and right and that is kinda your bread and butter during this speed run. That makes Mario run when you hold B and going to the right is the direction you want to go to get to the end. Jump over the first goomba, of course you don't want to die to him. You don't need to stop to pick up the mushroom. Once we go down this pipe about seven seconds into the run that's gonna save a little under three seconds getting to the end of the level 'cause it's just less travel time. This part's like pretty specific on how I move here. As Mario's falling down you want to start holding right about halfway down and that gets a little bit of speed so that you can jump up onto the blocks where all the coins are. But you wanna do the smallest jump you can while still getting up there, 'cause then Mario will get up to full speed as soon as possible. And then if you have like a really clean jump down to the pipe that let's you get down there as fast as possible and that really clean movement through that section is what's gonna get you a 380 left on the end game timer. That means you're doing the level perfectly. From there you pretty much just keep holding B and right once you get out of the pipe so that he'll run to the end. I do a really precise thing to make the flag not come down called the flagpole glitch which sounds like it would save quite a bit of time. It actually only saves one frame rule or .35 seconds each time you do it. Super Mario Bros runs on this system that's called frame rules, or the 21 frame rule. A really common way that people explain frame rules is imagining a bus that's sort of waiting for you at the end of each level, and the bus leaves every 21 frames or .35 seconds. So if you don't beat the level fast enough you're gonna miss the bus and you're gonna lose .35 seconds. The difference between someone who's first starting out, a lot of times they would probably finish the level with 369 on the clock. That would finish at about 30 seconds. If you manage to get the 370 then you'll do like 29.7 seconds. And then if you do the flagpole glitch you'll finish at like 29.3 seconds. The reason it's so precise is because you have to actually grab the flag from inside the block that the flag sits on. The only way to like, get inside that block is like a super precise jump right at the base of the flagpole. It requires several frame perfect inputs which means you only have a sixtieth of a second to push a button. The inputs we figured out was to land on the third step from the top. The very edge of it, don't hold the run button 'cause that will slow Mario down a little bit. And then you have to start holding run to get him back up to speed, and then two frames later exactly, so a thirtieth of a second later, you jump. And then that will get you exactly the right jump towards the flagpole, and then it doesn't really end there because in order to actually get all the way inside of it you have to kind of abuse the game's wall mechanics work. The game tries to keep you out of walls by pushing you away from the direction you're holding, but this jump gets you a little bit inside the wall. And then you actually hold away from it for exactly 3 frames and then Mario will be on the ground and you have to jump on the frame he touches the ground or else you'll get pushed out. [laughs] When you're trying to get a perfect run any tiny mistake, pretty much any mistake at all, [chuckles] at this point you hit reset, and you try again. And I've played one one quite a bit. [chuckles] [fun techy music]