Super Metroid FAQ/Speed Guide
September 23, 2015 12:36 PM Subscribe
03. What program did you use to justify the text?
None. I just chose words carefully so that everything lined up on the
right hand side. Everything was done with an ASCII editor.posted by jedicus at 12:46 PM on September 23, 2015 [44 favorites]
Holy shit is that an impressive level of attention to detail. It reminds me of Trees, maps, and theorems (pdf sample) where every paragraph was written so that the final line would be the full column width, making each paragraph perfectly rectangular.
posted by books for weapons at 1:00 PM on September 23, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by books for weapons at 1:00 PM on September 23, 2015 [7 favorites]
There are approximately 1700 lines of justified text in this guide. Madness.
I was thinking "wow, what an obsessive attention to detail" but then I realized this person is a game speedrunner so you know it all fits really.
posted by atoxyl at 1:03 PM on September 23, 2015 [23 favorites]
I was thinking "wow, what an obsessive attention to detail" but then I realized this person is a game speedrunner so you know it all fits really.
posted by atoxyl at 1:03 PM on September 23, 2015 [23 favorites]
[clicks link, skims FAQ]
Huh. Interesting, I guess?
[reads comments]
[goes back and clicks link again]
[scrolls down]
oh my god
[scrolls down]
oh my god
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:08 PM on September 23, 2015 [28 favorites]
Huh. Interesting, I guess?
[reads comments]
[goes back and clicks link again]
[scrolls down]
oh my god
[scrolls down]
oh my god
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:08 PM on September 23, 2015 [28 favorites]
That's nice, now if you could just go back and make it two spaces after every period, that'd be great.
posted by Wolfdog at 1:09 PM on September 23, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by Wolfdog at 1:09 PM on September 23, 2015 [17 favorites]
I am with you, Wolfdog, but the "two spaces" thing could start a war on here. Also, it's full stop, not period - a period is something a pendulum has.
posted by marienbad at 1:17 PM on September 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by marienbad at 1:17 PM on September 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
"97. You mispelled something.Love this guy.
So what if I cannot spel !?!? I'm a mathematician!"
posted by Dee Grim at 1:31 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
I just chose words carefully so that everything lined up on the right hand side.
For beauty is nothingposted by Gerald Bostock at 1:46 PM on September 23, 2015 [11 favorites]
but the beginning of terror, which we can just barely endure,
and we stand in awe of it as it coolly disdains
to destroy us.
(Rilke, Duino Elegies)
Man, I miss text game FAQs. The current trend is to 15 minute YouTube videos to illustrate something that would take two lines of text to explain. "What's up guys, this is xXXxMLG_NoSCOPE_MILF_WRECKERxXXx bringing you another video. Be sure to thumbs up this video and subscribe to my channel and like me on Facebook. Now here's 5 minutes of me dorking around loading the game while listening to a really execrable dubstep song..."
posted by Nelson at 1:50 PM on September 23, 2015 [65 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 1:50 PM on September 23, 2015 [65 favorites]
Kids today will never know the pleasure of reading a Jeff Rovin brook for the prose.
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:05 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:05 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
12. Hey, you didn't save the friendly creatures in the BOMBS item room!My man.
This is a speed run, remember? Besides, the only difference is that a
tiny purple dot will fly from the right side of the Planet during the
ending. That doesn't quite cut it as a good reason for the detour.
posted by isauteikisa at 2:08 PM on September 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
I did a CTRL-F on " " (two spaces) and there's like 2 in-line double spaces. This is truly amazing.
posted by GuyZero at 2:09 PM on September 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 2:09 PM on September 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
xXXxMLG_NoSCOPE_MILF_WRECKERxXXx
QFT
posted by GuyZero at 2:10 PM on September 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
QFT
posted by GuyZero at 2:10 PM on September 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
44 min 26sec real time single segment (29 minutes clear time by the in-game clock), Matt "Zoast" Thorne, October 27th, 2013
posted by radwolf76 at 2:43 PM on September 23, 2015
posted by radwolf76 at 2:43 PM on September 23, 2015
Here's a 4-way Super Metroid speedrun race, with commentary
posted by clorox at 2:44 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by clorox at 2:44 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
The justification reminds me of the comments in this assembly code (which does this with 256 bytes).
posted by neckro23 at 3:04 PM on September 23, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by neckro23 at 3:04 PM on September 23, 2015 [17 favorites]
> Text justification is hard, yo.
That was really interesting; I don't normally watch ten-minute videos of people talking, but I learned a lot. Thanks!
posted by languagehat at 3:44 PM on September 23, 2015
That was really interesting; I don't normally watch ten-minute videos of people talking, but I learned a lot. Thanks!
posted by languagehat at 3:44 PM on September 23, 2015
Man, I miss text game FAQs.
All the way with you. You can't ctrl-f a goddamn youtube video.
posted by juv3nal at 3:54 PM on September 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
All the way with you. You can't ctrl-f a goddamn youtube video.
posted by juv3nal at 3:54 PM on September 23, 2015 [5 favorites]
12. Hey, you didn't save the friendly creatures in the BOMBS item room!
This is a speed run, remember? Besides, the only difference is that a
tiny purple dot will fly from the right side of the Planet during the
ending. That doesn't quite cut it as a good reason for the detour.
My man.
posted by isauteikisa at 6:08 on September 24
"Kill the animals! Save the frames!"
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:02 PM on September 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
This is a speed run, remember? Besides, the only difference is that a
tiny purple dot will fly from the right side of the Planet during the
ending. That doesn't quite cut it as a good reason for the detour.
My man.
posted by isauteikisa at 6:08 on September 24
"Kill the animals! Save the frames!"
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:02 PM on September 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
I remember when i first discovered gamefaqs in what, 1997? I was amazed at the quality and thoroughness of some of the guides. I never bought one of those "prima strategy guides" again after that. The ones posted on gamefaqs were better, anyways.
Cool ASCII art and formatting was par for the course, but i never really thought about how much work it was. And holy shit, that comment about manual justification is ridiculous.
posted by emptythought at 4:24 PM on September 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
Cool ASCII art and formatting was par for the course, but i never really thought about how much work it was. And holy shit, that comment about manual justification is ridiculous.
posted by emptythought at 4:24 PM on September 23, 2015 [3 favorites]
Oh my god. ⌘-F, and search for every place he inserts more than one space in a row to justify the text.
He almost never does it, nor does he hyphenate.
This person is truly a Shakespeare for the modern age.
posted by schmod at 4:26 PM on September 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
He almost never does it, nor does he hyphenate.
This person is truly a Shakespeare for the modern age.
posted by schmod at 4:26 PM on September 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
OK, there are a lot of typos and whatnot, but I'm still impressed that there are basically no orphans, widows or rivers in the text. This is really obsessive.
posted by loquacious at 6:28 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by loquacious at 6:28 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]
whoa, I had no idea that that was the favored control scheme for Super Metroid speedrunning
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:55 PM on September 23, 2015
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:55 PM on September 23, 2015
Man, I miss text game FAQs. The current trend is to 15 minute YouTube videos to illustrate something that would take two lines of text to explain
And yet, AND YET, these are still better than the "I'm going to dork around with a game and not even say anything useful, and here's my grinning idiot rictus superimposed on the bottom corner" videos.
posted by zippy at 7:12 PM on September 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
And yet, AND YET, these are still better than the "I'm going to dork around with a game and not even say anything useful, and here's my grinning idiot rictus superimposed on the bottom corner" videos.
posted by zippy at 7:12 PM on September 23, 2015 [4 favorites]
Fuck, while we're at it, i just hate that everything is a video now. Nearly every time i search for "how to do X with Y piece of software" the ONLY useful results are 15 minute videos. Usually with terrible quality or audio, and sometimes not even focusing on the area you have to be clicking to do the thing.
And usually having the actual meat of it, where it shows how to do the thing, being like 12 seconds long and buried somewhere midway through the video after many minutes of talking and foreplay. And of course, there's no index so you might just skip right past it if you try and fast forward through!
I really wish i could add up how much of my actual time this has wasted. It's a lot. The last bastion of sanity from this is ifixit, and i occasionally feel like i'm going to wake up in the morning to them switching to an all-video format for major products.
Videos are fine for certain things, like when it's "this is how this thing works, and this is what using it is like". I actually seek out video reviews of things! Videos, however, are fucking terrible at "this is how you do $thing" unless that thing is like, sanding sheetrock mud or something. Fuck off with your video of how to open an iphone, or get an effect in photoshop. Show me a text tutorial with some photos/screenshots and if you put it in a stupid gallery where every image and part of the directions are on a separate page i will stab you.
You can pinpoint exactly when this happened too, like 5 years ago or something. If you search for "how to do thing in oldsoftwarepackage" you'll get old articles about it that are just text instructions. But if it's like, photoshop CC? videos.
posted by emptythought at 7:27 PM on September 23, 2015 [19 favorites]
And usually having the actual meat of it, where it shows how to do the thing, being like 12 seconds long and buried somewhere midway through the video after many minutes of talking and foreplay. And of course, there's no index so you might just skip right past it if you try and fast forward through!
I really wish i could add up how much of my actual time this has wasted. It's a lot. The last bastion of sanity from this is ifixit, and i occasionally feel like i'm going to wake up in the morning to them switching to an all-video format for major products.
Videos are fine for certain things, like when it's "this is how this thing works, and this is what using it is like". I actually seek out video reviews of things! Videos, however, are fucking terrible at "this is how you do $thing" unless that thing is like, sanding sheetrock mud or something. Fuck off with your video of how to open an iphone, or get an effect in photoshop. Show me a text tutorial with some photos/screenshots and if you put it in a stupid gallery where every image and part of the directions are on a separate page i will stab you.
You can pinpoint exactly when this happened too, like 5 years ago or something. If you search for "how to do thing in oldsoftwarepackage" you'll get old articles about it that are just text instructions. But if it's like, photoshop CC? videos.
posted by emptythought at 7:27 PM on September 23, 2015 [19 favorites]
I love finding out new things about games I loved, and I have a weird fondness for speedrunners, glitchers, and other generally obsessed fans.... there but for the grace...
posted by Jacen at 8:31 PM on September 23, 2015
posted by Jacen at 8:31 PM on September 23, 2015
This is a neat guide. It's a pity that given how old it is, it is incredibly out of date in terms of what people who speedrun Super Metroid do these days. It remains a popular speedgame and is a staple of the two GDQ charity marathons that happen every year (the four way race from AGDQ 2014 is not a bad one to watch if you're only going to watch one).
posted by sparkletone at 10:09 PM on September 23, 2015
posted by sparkletone at 10:09 PM on September 23, 2015
I recently bought and played Alpha Centauri for the first time, and my first instinct was to search YouTube for tutorials, to no avail. So I went back to GameFAQs for the first time in about ten years.
Is there a word for the realisation that what you took for granted as progress was in fact a huge step backwards? Because, yeah: that.
posted by Acey at 7:56 AM on September 24, 2015 [10 favorites]
Is there a word for the realisation that what you took for granted as progress was in fact a huge step backwards? Because, yeah: that.
posted by Acey at 7:56 AM on September 24, 2015 [10 favorites]
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