PangaeaPanga

This article is about the ROM hacker PangaeaPanga. For the Singaporean political dissident with the same birth name, see Alex Tan.
PangaeaPanga
Born
Alex Tan

(1996-03-13) March 13, 1996 (age 28)[1]
EducationUniversity of Connecticut
Occupation(s)Speedrunner, livestreamer, YouTuber

Alex Tan (born March 13, 1996), better known under the screen names PangaeaPanga, PePanga and formerly penangbenny, is an American ROM hacker, speedrunner and tool-assisted speedrunner.[2] He is best known as the creator of difficult Super Mario World ROM hacks and Super Mario Maker levels. His notable work includes Super Mario World ROM hack Super Dram World and Super Mario Maker levels "P-Break" and the "Pit of Panga" series. He has also played through Super Mario World blindfolded.

Personal life

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Tan is from Rocky Hill, Connecticut, and is a graduate of Rocky Hill High School. His fastest mile run is 4:23.13.[3][4] In 2018, he graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Business with a degree in management information systems, and was an NCAA Division I cross country runner for the UConn Huskies during the 2014–2015 season.[4][5] He also plays the piano and trumpet.[6]

Speedrunning career

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PangaeaPanga was the world record holder for speedrunning Super Mario World in 2015, having beaten the game in 1 minute and 38 seconds using arbitrary code execution,[7] though this record has since been beaten.

PangaeaPanga started playing Super Mario World while blindfolded on June 16, 2015, and completed a full run of the game this way eight days later.[2] He has stated that he got the idea from fellow player of Super Mario World DavisKongCountry, who played portions of the game blindfolded. To beat the game in this way, PangaeaPanga memorized a route that was "easy and consistent", using musical cues from the game to know when to carry out certain actions.[1] The run took 23 minutes, despite playing as the character Mario, dying a few times, and getting lost.[8] After having his world record beaten on July 20, 2016, in a time of 17:46, he reclaimed the title a few days later on August 8, 2016, with a time of 15:59 using the Japanese release, before once again having his world record beaten on May 24, 2017, with a time of 13:31.[9][10]

In September 2015, shortly before Super Mario Maker was released, YouTube removed the majority of PangaeaPanga's tool-assisted speedrun videos from his channel after a Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim was made by Nintendo. PangaeaPanga described his YouTube channel as "wrecked" on Twitter and stated that he finds it a "shame" that content creators "are restricted to … Super Mario Maker instead of the way we have always done."[11][12]

Super Mario levels

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ROM hacks

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A segment of PangaeaPanga's Item Abuse 3, depicting the game's difficult platforming challenges. The game has been cited as the most challenging Super Mario World ROM hack.[13]

Through ROM hacking, PangaeaPanga has made several difficult levels for Super Mario World, the most famous of which is "Item Abuse 3". This level, which took three years to create and beat, has been described as "the hardest Super Mario World level ever". The level is impossible to beat without making use of tool-assistance to allow individual frame button input. PangaeaPanga has declared that "Anyone who can complete this is pretty much mentally insane."[13][14]

In addition to the Item Abuse series, PangeaPanga has also created three additional hacks inspired by the Kaizo Mario World series titled Super Dram World, Super Dram World 2, and Super Foss World, of which the former two have been speedrun live at a Games Done Quick event.[15]

Super Mario Maker

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In September 2015, 10 days after the American release of Super Mario Maker, PangaeaPanga uploaded "Pit of Panga: P-Break". The level, which took five hours to create, had to be beaten beforehand to be uploaded to Super Mario Maker's servers, as the game prevents players from uploading levels before clearing them in order to minimize the number of impossible levels in the game. PangaeaPanga beat the level in nine hours, all of which he streamed on Twitch.[16][17] "P-Break" was a sequel to "Bomb Voyage", another difficult level PangaeaPanga created. It took the Super Mario Maker community a collective total of 11,000 tries before speedrunner Bananasaurus Rex beat this level.[18][19][20]

By the end of October 2015, "P-Break" was beaten 41 times. After stating that "in an ideal world, no more than ten clears would satisfy me", PangaeaPanga went on to create the even more difficult "Pit of Panga: U-Break", which was later awarded the world record for the "Most difficult level created in Super Mario Maker" by Guinness World Records.[21] PangaeaPanga influenced several other people to create unusually difficult Super Mario Maker levels.[22] In an interview, PangaeaPanga has stated that he never really tried to build easy levels, as he enjoys to "force players to take a single specific route", in contrast to the autonomy video games usually offer players. Furthermore, PangaeaPanga has noted that he aims to make levels "both fair and fun, without being too aggravating or difficult", which he achieves by playtesting his levels extensively.[18]

One of his Super Mario Maker 2 levels, "Cyber Security 101: Brute Force", required players to enter two random eight-digit numbers, giving a player a 1 in 10 quadrillion chance of winning on a random attempt.[23] Another level of his creation, "#SkipThis - Are We There Yet?", is the longest level in Super Mario Maker 2 when considering the real elapsed time from start to completion. This level takes 19 hours and 36 minutes to complete by combining several in-game mechanics together to pass as much real-time as possible while incrementing the in-game counter as little as possible.[24]

On June 1, 2021, Canadian speedrunner Warspyking became the first player to consecutively beat all 47 levels created by PangaeaPanga in Super Mario Maker 1, setting the world record at 8 hours, 55 minutes, and 7 seconds.[25]

He is also known for his "Clearing 69420 Expert Levels" series in Super Mario Maker 2.

References

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  1. ^ a b Landau, Joel (2015-06-29). "New England YouTuber explains how he beat Nintendo's Super Mario World video game while blindfolded". Daily News. Archived from the original on 2015-11-22. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  2. ^ a b Reilly, Luke (2015-06-24). "Blindfolded Gamer Beats Super Mario World in 23 Minutes". IGN. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  3. ^ "PangaeaPanga". Speedrunning. Archived from the original on November 22, 2015. Retrieved November 22, 2015.
  4. ^ a b "Men's Cross Country". UConn Huskies. Archived from the original on November 22, 2015. Retrieved November 22, 2015.
  5. ^ "Twitch". Twitch. Archived from the original on 2015-10-26. Retrieved 2015-10-28.
  6. ^ Conyers, Matthew (February 6, 2014). "Rocky Hill Runner Tan All Tuned Up For Big Meet". Hartford Courant. Archived from the original on November 23, 2015. Retrieved November 22, 2015.
  7. ^ "0 Exit in 1m 38s 700ms". Speedrun.com. 2015-03-22. Archived from the original on 2015-12-26. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  8. ^ Henne, B.G. (2015-06-26). "A Super Mario World speedrunner beat the whole game while blindfolded". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on 2015-10-06. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  9. ^ "Super Mario World Blindfold Speed Run【17:46】目隠しマリオワールドRTA旧世界記録". YouTube. 2016-07-20. Archived from the original on 2016-08-23. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
  10. ^ "Super Mario World Blindfolded in 15:59 (World Record)". YouTube. 2016-08-08. Archived from the original on 2016-08-09. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
  11. ^ Hernandez, Patricia (2015-09-09). "Creator of 'Hardest Super Mario World Level Ever' Says Copyright Crackdown Gutted His YouTube Channel". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2015-11-01. Retrieved 2015-11-01.
  12. ^ Parlock, Joe (2015-09-10). "Nintendo's cracking down on speedrunning and ROM hacking videos". Destructoid. Archived from the original on 2015-10-21. Retrieved 2015-11-01.
  13. ^ a b Hernandez, Patricia (2015-02-23). "It Took Three Years To Beat The 'Hardest Super Mario World Level Ever'". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2015-10-29. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  14. ^ Wenz, John (2015-02-24). "Watch 8 Anxiety-Inducing Minutes of the Hardest Super Mario World Level Ever". Popular Mechanics. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  15. ^ "Speedrunners Race Their Own Hellish Creations With Super Dram World". Kotaku. 14 January 2017. Archived from the original on 2019-03-27. Retrieved 2018-11-06.
  16. ^ Tassi, Paul (2015-09-23). "Witness The Hardest 'Super Mario Maker' Level Ever Made". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2018-05-23. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
  17. ^ Grant, Stacey (2015-09-23). "Only One Person In The Whole World Has Beaten This 'Super Mario Maker' Level — Its Creator". MTV News. Archived from the original on 2015-09-28. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  18. ^ a b Hernandez, Patricia (2015-09-22). "The Creator Of The 'Hardest Super Mario World Level Ever' Is At It Again". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2015-10-22. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  19. ^ Grubb, Jeff (2015-09-21). "The 'a-hole' version of Super Mario World that's inspiring Mario Maker's hardest stages". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on 2018-05-12. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
  20. ^ Plante, Chris (2015-09-21). "You could play the most difficult Super Mario Maker level, or you could just watch this video". The Verge. Archived from the original on 2021-10-04. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
  21. ^ "Most difficult level created in Super Mario Maker". Guinness World Records. February 22, 2018. Archived from the original on November 7, 2018. Retrieved November 6, 2018.
  22. ^ Hernandez, Patricia (2015-10-29). "Mario Maker Players Are In An Arms Race To Make The Hardest Level Ever". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2015-11-13. Retrieved 2015-11-12.
  23. ^ Good, Owen S. (August 16, 2019). "Beating this Super Mario Maker 2 level is harder than winning the lottery (Update)". Polygon. Archived from the original on August 16, 2019. Retrieved August 17, 2019.
  24. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozliNRSs2pE [bare URL]
  25. ^ "Super Mario Level Packs". Speedrunning. Archived from the original on June 2, 2021. Retrieved June 3, 2021.

Further reading

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