Speedrunners Discover New Super Mario 64 Trick

The Rise of a New Challenge in Speedrunning

Super Mario 64 speedrunners consistently push the boundaries of the classic N64 game. In 2024, a game-changing glitch emerged, offering a potential time-saver, but its precise execution seemed humanly impossible. Fast forward to February 2025, legendary speedrunner Bubzia achieved this intricate trick in real time—blindfolded.

Breaking Boundaries in Hazy Maze Cave

The first star in Hazy Maze Cave is notoriously challenging. It requires navigation through the level, riding Dorries back to a floating island in an underground lake. Surprisingly, this area lies directly beneath a sign in the starting zone. In April 2024, tool-assisted speedrunner Alexpalix1 discovered a method allowing Mario to perform a double wall push. This lets him clip through the wall and fall directly into the cavern, significantly speeding up the process.

Executing this trick, however, demands extreme precision. Fellow speedrunner Krithalith, in a breakdown video, explained the complexity: "A double wall push requires hitting the seam between two wall triangles. The odds are 1 in 135 for each attempt involving Z floating-point values."

The adrenaline kicks in when you grasp how tiny these Z values are. "One Z unit is 1/2048th of a regular unit," continued Krithalith. "Imagine a red blood cell’s width in real life." This precision renders the success rate between 1 in 1 million to 1 in 10 million without a setup. Finding a replicable strategy seemed daunting, yet real-time success dates back to June 2024. As months passed, setups improved.

Enter Blindfolded Speedrunning Legend Bubzia

Blindfolded speedrunning maestro Bubzia enters with the latest setup. "This transforms an infinitely precise trick into two frame-perfect inputs," Bubzia explains in a video. "You run into the sign for a straight angle, crouch, and Mario cam, holding the stick for six frames exactly. Use visual cues or pause-buffering like carpetless setups."

Once airborne, you alter the camera and pause a frame later. This guarantees success. Bubzia didn’t settle for real-time execution; he pursued blindfolded mastery. Ironically, getting the clip was simpler blindfolded. The real challenge lay in angling Mario towards the star upon landing in the lake. Still, he nailed it repeatedly during a day’s stream, breaking his own blindfolded record.

The evolution from an impossible trick to a consistent feat that can even be done blindfolded is staggering. Speedrunning communities united to make this dream a reality. Bubzia quipped on Bluesky, "Visual speedrunners have NO excuse now."

In a touching anecdote, Bubzia almost reached a world record pace blindfolded. Unfortunately, his run was invalidated due to a webcam malfunction. Despite this, his achievements mark another groundbreaking chapter in speedrunning history.