A speedrunner’s quest to (re)build the perfect N64 controller
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Welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of motion balls. I'm my friend David peers, and this is the first in a new series of episodes sponsored by visible wireless, all about gaming. For the next four sundays, we are going to tell you about all kinds of different stories in gaming.

We did a series last fall. We had a ton of fun. We're doing IT again, but this time were doing a slave differently. We're going to tell you stories about the five senses of the gaming world and for saying, David, there are five senses and you just said four sundays, that's true. You're going have to stick k around to see how we figured out our friends from pye gon.

Are you going to join us to help explain? We have some really fun, wild stories about how the five senses show up all over the video game world. First one doing is all about touch. And our touch story comes from a very specific corner of the gaming world, speed running. These are those like incredibly dedicated gamers who just try to beat games in as little time as possible.

They played over and over, faster and faster, always trying to get time down, either by exploiting glitches and shortcuts in the game, or just spending our hours and hours finding the exact optimal path through a game. If you've never watched a speed run, pick your favorite game and just poke around on youtube, you'll probably find someone playing IT in ways that you seriously didn't or possible. And people who are really good at to speed running can often do IT blind folded, which is just a whole other thing that I do not even understand. Our producer, wilbour, poked around the intendo sixty four speed running community, and he discovered that all is not well there and is very not well for one speed winner in particular, I know will take IT from here.

I am a big fan of nintendo to sixty four, and so I was delighted to discover just how popular my favorite games are for speed runners. I've been watching these incredible videos of people flying through mario sixty four seela mario card, finding all these shortcuts and hacks that I had no idea about what I was playing these games back in the day. But the more I learned about the end sixty four community, the more I heard about this problem that they've been dealing with for years, I found this really dramatic youtube video that lays .

IT all out back in two thousand three, then intendo sixty four was discontinued, never to be manufactured again. But what nobody understood at the time is that nintendo o hood just set off a ticking time bomb, something that years later would threaten the entire existence of speed running on the end sixty four.

The issue is, when you played lots of these games competitively, you end up beating the crap out your controller. You're playing for hours every day and you're going really hard. So you're wearing down in a bunch of little plastic parts that were just never built for IT in one hundred sixty four controller. It's the joysticks that eventually give out IT.

I actually .

remember this happening. My brothers and I used to fight over which controller we got to use because the joystick on one of them just kind of flopped around. So it's a super common thing. But if you're a speed runner, a bad controller can cost you a lot of time in precision. So everyone wants nice, pristine and hardware to play with. The problem is the intendo o hasn't made IT original and sixty four controllers for twenty years, and all that time speed runners have been burning through joyce ccs at a fast enough clip that the world is running out of them.

So under this major threat of happen to go outside, speed runs have been waging a desperate war, trying to hold this problem before time runs out.

And sixty four controllers are now real commodities on ebay. And unopened, genuine intendo controller can go for more than five hundred dollars. There are third party controllers out there, but there just not as good. So lots of speed runners end up playing what they called the ebay lottery. They buy a used nintendo mid controller and just hope the joystick is okay.

And this looks pretty good. Shape stick is actually pretty tight. Stick on this one is also it's a but it's not too bad.

There's even the cottage industry of people building new joysticks parts. Some are three d printed, really nice ones are made of steel. But those going in out of stock, there's a secondary market, is a whole thing.

Anyway, the story that i'm here to tell, it's set in the world of that controller shortage. But it's not that story. It's about this one very accomplished mario cart sixty four speed runner who has a very different, much lonely your problem just to start off how to get into a speed running when when .

I started playing mario car s sixty four and I get circulate twenty thirteen I D owned the game when I originally came out but I probably never touched IT again after the game he came out but I just Randy had the and sixty four around one day IT was just messing around with mario car on IT.

This is the humble beginning of bec abney or abney three one seven line today. He's a thirty year old software engineer and mario card legend. But back in two and thirteen, he was just a guy dusting off an old game system for fun.

Then I think I was looking up to something mine and accidentally found that the time for our rankings and a here, and this looks for the summer sometimes the site .

he found was mario carts, sixty four dot com, home of that game speed running community, basically a group of gamers dedicated to completing each of the game sixteen courses in as little time as possible. Mario cart sixty four was released back in one thousand nine hundred ninety six. So by the time back wandered in, they've been added for more than fifteen years.

The website has time from people who submitted, you know, right when the game came out. So the community has existed for a really long time. And when I joined and long after I joined, IT was just kind of you send an email and with what every year times are, you know, you may or may not provide proof. Before I joined, people are mAiling in the h his types and things like that and back .

thought I can get into this.

I'll drive sometimes today. See, see, IT ends up. I think I was maybe three hundred fifty year for three sixty summer in the ID, three hundred and when I first joint, which today would be maybe equivalent to five hundred something because we've had so many more people join the last ten years. Now, ten years later, I am still still like he .

didn't stay in the mid three hundreds for long, though he started playing for hours a day or grading his speed. Runners would call IT. And IT was showing, so what put you on the map in speed running? What were your first records?

When I first was playing, I went up the ranks really quickly, so I was really high rank, and non a of people don't really play both songs more, but I was kind of doing everything.

So some context here. It's pretty easy to cheat in mario card. On some tracks, you can hop over ver garrets and land way for the ahead in the course.

In other spots, you can glitch the game out by crashing into just the right out of bounds wall, and you get warped to the finish line. Over the years, discovering new shortcuts has become a sport onto itself. So today the community divides, records up into these two buckets, runs that use shortcuts and runs the down. Anyway, beck was making waves in both categories, but he really made a name .

for himself in shortcuts. My first record eventually was the new choko mountain shortcut was discovered in fourteen.

It's a pretty absurd hack. You launch yourself straight a wall right at the start of the race and then falls backwards, the finish lying, but somehow the game thinks you've driven a full lap.

I was the first version to hit IT about six months after IT was discovered to get like a five second lap. This just got a automatic world record just for heating. IT was like a ten second world record improvement. And then I would improve the the three lap record few months later as well. And that record kept going down again.

Being competitive in any game means grinding, playing for hours and hours and hours, shaving off a second here, a second there. I've watched back play. He live streams on twitch, and IT is .

oddly mesmerizing. And .

race.

lots of speed.

Runners go pretty big in their streams, especially when they hit records. Now, please.

yes, in the people, let's go. 哇。

by comparison, bec is pretty understated. Here he is hitting that choo mountain shortcut on all three laps, which meant finishing the whole race in less than eighteen seconds. The non shortcut record, for reference, is a minute fifty five.

Oh my god.

He just smiles, shakes his head and .

chokers to himself. And shortcuts .

are really weird to watch because the glitches are often very hard to trigger. So it's a lot of trying, fAiling, resetting and trying again and again. But there's something about back that is clearly tuned to that kind of then state, and it's worked for him.

So long sessions, lots of attempts. What is you're rising through the ranks here. What is your n goal? What what do you have your sites on?

I just kept trying to improve. There's a lot of good goals in this. They have that kind of keep people playing a lot. I think I got up the number two in non shore ka, and eventually I was grinding to become shaker chap. And i've became number one in shaker category.

His specialty was playing through all sixteen courses using all the known shortcuts. He was so dominant that a youtube r named summoning salt made an our long video just about the quest to beat him. And then there's aby making a joke of the competition. Nobody could catch up to him without new strategies, but the competition was heating up. Twenty years after the release of mario card sixty four, the game was more popular than ever to speed, run back, fell back to third place in non shortcut driving, but he fought to stay competitive and he kept improving.

I was Better at driving in twenty nineteen than I wasn't twenty sixteen, even though I dropped back to third place because I was doing doing a lot different categories improved until know twenty, twenty and then I had a lot of control. Water issues .

in everything changed for back and not for the Better. That's the year of the end sixty four controller crisis caught up with him, the joystick c failures, the part shortage, all of IT. But in a way that no one could have anticipated that after the break.

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Welcome back to rec APP. The year is twenty nineteen back. Bony is a mario courts speed running phenomenon. But the more he plays, the more he notices that something is off. How did you find yourself in your own very lonely predicament around controllers?

You know, that day when I just randomly decide to start playing IT, we had three controllers, and I just was a pick them all. And my old gray controller happened to be in the best condition. I was, I O, this ones good.

I'll just use this one hand. I just kept using that same controller for the next couple years. And as IT slowly wore down, I never really noticed IT.

I just kind of got used to IT and I kept improving my time. So I didn't think much of IT. I kept improving in the controller, just kept getting more and more destroyers d from meta mario ker. And then eventually that controller got worn down so much that I can turn properly with you anymore.

If speed running in general is stressful for controllers, mario card is torture. You're constantly reaching the joystick back and forth to get these little speed boosts. And if you're really grinding, a new controller can flake out in a matter of weeks. Yes, what is the what are the parts that are degrading and fAiling?

Yeah, there's like a little bow on the inside that kind pushes up against the bottom of the analog stick. And IT sort of is just like a little curved plastic ball. And the and log stick just will dig into this plastic is just plastic on plastic. And if you open up on these controllers, that's like all and use IT will just be full of plastic dust from the ball being just shaved down.

There are ways to extend the life of these parts. Some speed runners open up their controllers and lubricate all the places where plastic grains on plastic, but eventually those little sticks and bowls will be tossed. This is the crux of the joystick shortage. And IT was the backdrop as bc went looking for a new controller.

I like OK. I need a different controller now, I guess. And then when I try to know, use a perfect condition, one, I bought bunch on ebay, the real Better, easier to fine back then I was ago. I I can drive very well with who at this one.

The problem, bizarre was that the new controller was too nice. He gotten really good at playing with a half broken controller. What is the best language that you have to describe what IT is you're feeling for with the the perfect controller in the past .

i've described as and if people have used love in sixty four controllers are bad ones. What kind of know what I mean is like it's mushy, like the hana og stick as you're pushing IT like A A perfect one will feel like the same when you're pushing IT you know halfway verses all the way like IT feels like one flew ID motion. We're like the, I guess once that I am using will be kind of harder to push as you get closer to the edge IT like stops me before I even get there really. But it's like kind of a weird squshy going for IT .

back opened up his old controller, and he saw that, yeah, the little plastic ball was worn down. He realized that that was the source of the machines. So as a test, he put that old part into a new controller.

And IT worked. He had a new controller that felt like an old mushy one. So for a while, amy, three, one, seven, was back. But then that controller failed .

in that same process. Happened maybe two or three more times where I kind, I was, I go, well, I know the solution. Now i'll just, I just have to swap out everything except the ball, keep the super warn nam ball, and swap out all the other parts. And I was doing that, and I was getting world record. At that point.

the intensity was wrapped up. He was driving faster, grinding harder and destroying his controllers along the way.

I remember specifically getting a ramo o non choker world record. My controller broke, and literally the the analog stick actually snapped in half off the controller back. And his .

squshy bow were riding high. But IT was never going to last forever.

And eventually IT was born down too much.

He put the old ball in yet another new controller, but IT was too far on.

There is no going back at that point.

The perfect controller was well and truly dead. And IT was the worst possible time for this kind of setback. Back felt like he was this close to being at the top of his game, which would be the top of pretty much anyone's game. But now he was being held back.

I got to the point where I was reaching closer and closer, kind of to my top potential of driving maybe, and I was more and more picky over time. And every time I D have to swap controllers, I like, well, this one is not quite as good as the one I .

was just using. So IT feels like you are like with your own sort of aptitude for the game, hitting a ceiling where whatever tiny difference the controller makes is for you the difference between improving or not improving.

It's like I might be able to improve in the game more, but i'm not able to even get to where I was.

But beck wasn't finished. If there was one thing he knew how to do that was grant, after the break, the quest to rebuild the perfect controller.

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Welcome back. So beck edney was in a bind, his ideal controller no longer sted, and competitors were eating away at his hard one records. At this point, his options were, one, throw in the towel.

Two, spend years retraining himself on a good controller. Or three, somehow reverse engineer his old messed up joystick for back there is only one way forward. So talking me about what hopes you have jumped through to try to recreate this mythical controller.

I originally I was like, let me just buy one hundred controllers. Just go crazy and see if I get lucky. So I we just have like an absurd amount of controllers and it's possible I could mix and match something and that actually would work. I never really had any like with that.

So next, backtrack. Designing custom parts that misused t controller, he used a 3 printing service to build them。

Chat us to yasmin in my discord, who, who had modeled some of these for me, took some existing three models that other people have made, and basically artificially, like, shaved down the ball to make IT warn down as if someone, i'd actually use IT a bunch, but i'm just three d printing hit, you know, out of the box just in bad condition.

On purpose for the record modifying controllers is allowed in mario cart speed running. You just can't add new functionality to IT.

We did like a ton of different ones, so like a point one millimeters cut out, point two, and then like all the way to like one point five millimeters carved ed out. And I three bring a mall, and I test them all, and one or two of them as ago. This is kind of IT .

felt familiar. yeah. With that encouragement, he started iterating on other parts like the joystick in the springs.

Now let's pun IT in a bunch of different materials. Maybe the different materials will feel different and they do very different to actually.

beck showed me this spread sheet he's been using to keep track of all the permutations to date. He's testing thirty three distinct combinations of ball and stick and springs. He's got comments on all of them. Most are some variation, and but a couple feel promising. He even set a world record with one .

of them is basically just guess and check, just kind been about my three branning random iterations and hope something magically works for me.

Is this as frustrating as IT sounds? As you're telling, IT sounds incredibly frustrating.

Yeah, it's pretty annoying. I mean, i'm lucky that I have like a fairly popular stream and other stuff I can play. And it's still still but unfortunate, I guess, because it's like I probably could have competed more, I think.

But there were records that I was close to getting that I didn't have. I was one point really close. Some like the lui j race way, three lap non orka record.

And then I had controller problems, and they canna ran away. Far had to me after that. And it's like, I have no idea if I would be able to drive the time. Like their are weigh beyond what I was doing five years ago. So I have no idea if I could get there.

Now do you feel the irony of of everyone else hunting for pristine joysticks while you are hunting for yeah please have broken ones kind .

of yeah funny because I yeah and I have some of us like steel stick controllers and stuff that people want. I use them for some shortest. But yeah, so like hard for me to create my perfect garbage controller that I want to. I don't have that controller. I can't like 3d scan the parts and just replicate them .

or something。 The really ging part is that some other players prefer crappy controllers to one of his biggest rivals does. But beck says that somehow it's easier for them to get used to new parts of .

like I I can use this one anymore. And how do like a whole controller testing stream just testing other stuff? And well, I got this one is fine. Now where's .

try as he might, but just can't seem to warm up to anything else. It's such a bomb that as we talked, I started trying to work the problem myself. And like, what if you okay, have you tried getting controllers from other mario cards? Sixty four players?

That was the the genius idea was to take the person who likes the perfect controller. Now they're done with the passed IT on to the person who likes the the slightly worse controller and have like the big chain of people passing down controller. My god, that was a thought. I have had people send me controllers before and someone sent me one, uh, who was like, pretty, pretty high ranking plays a lot. Uh, they sent me one that was like, IT was kind of machine like I described but I like wasn't quite right and it's also, I admitted we probably play the game like way more so I would be waiting on controllers if they and my curry often wear down your controller so I can have could be kind of think.

So for now, that s where things stand. Beck has another batch of three d printed parts arriving in. The male soon will try those out and see if he gets lucky.

In the meantime, he is working on a few shortcut records on individual courses. One of his Frank and controllers work okay for that kind of race. So you're still you're still committed ah you're still with you're still here to defend your onor.

You haven't completely to given up because the controllers gotcha is due.

Do you have your dark moments where you're like .

this is not worth yeah if I didn't have like my stream and a lot of people watching and stuff, I probably like play. I I I would maybe do short at time trials to just keep my number one rank there. But it's just like ostsee a lot more troubling is worth all the time, like spending all the money trying to print random stuff for none of that to work is just know a lot. But to the being able to have something fun to stream or whatever, at least keeps me motivated to some degree, at least .

accepting your current situation and what you've got to work with, what you of your sites on.

Now the last few days i've been playing the shortcut three lap in time trials.

Oi valley is another one of those runs with a really weird glitch. You start the race and immediately vear off the course, leap over offence and go flying into a canyon. Perfecting that shortcut means grinding out a super precise set of button presses for hours on end joystick to the left break, plus gas to turn, accelerate, leap and sail into a oblivion.

just launching off the side of track and slammed into a wall. However, no.

which happens to be a pretty good metaphor for best situation right now. He's doggedly testing new parts in new combinations, attempt after attempt to rebuild the perfect controller, but more often than not, he hits a wall, the same wall, over and over and over again.

right. Thank you. Will that is that for the verge cast today, I am going to go hug my and sixty four controller tiger than ever. Thank you as always for listening. This is epo de one.

As I said of our gaming series, every sunday this month, we are going to have different stories from the world's of gaming, all about the five senses. There's also lots more on the gaming world to read at the verge dot com school website. We like you a lot, and actually there's a lot happening in the game now, so go check that out.

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