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As I alluded to in my other neglected topic about the same game, I am going to be trying something monumental with this title shortly.

One of my new hobbies as of a few months ago is breaking world records on the SNES. I have 18 records right now with 6 more in the mail as I type this. Awhile ago, though, I recorded a 9-hour run of Super Castlevania IV, accumulating 202,837,170 points (304 times the current world record of 666,530), but that run was disqualified because I exploited a loophole in the rules and abused death to extreme amounts.

Cutting out the entire middle of my story, the refs thought that the fairest way to change the rules to accommodate my hax is to enforce a 5-man cap. That is, I can only die 5 times before my attempt is over, regardless of how many lives I have stored up. I agreed that this is the best rule modification so it stuck.

Now, I could easily just get a million points, set the record, and be done with it, but I'm not like that. Instead, I am going to be marathoning this game, playing for absurd amounts of time without dying (I hope!) and without a break. My goal is to play for 20 hours, but I will be more than happy with 12 hours of playtime. That isn't too unreasonable I don't think.

So who cares? Well, I am going to be playing at our LAN center in front of a webcam so anybody and everybody interested in watching the attempt can. Since it will be such a long attempt, it should accommodate everybody's schedules in all time zones.

I will be doing this on Friday July 17th, ideally beginning at 8:00 AM in whatever time zone New York is in. When I find out which site I will be using to stream, I will post the link here, in addition to some updates on my progress as I train for the marathon beginning on July. I encourage everybody to try to tune in at least for a few minutes and spread the word around to all your friends and whatever. If I succeed and play for longer than 17 hours, this will officially be the longest home console marathon ever (but not the longest video game marathon, since there are several arcade game marathons that lasted well over 30 hours, like Tim McVey's recent Nibbler run). Even if I don't play for 20 hours like I'm hoping, I will certainly beat the world record for this title which is something that might be fun to witness.

Anyways, feel free to post here with questions, concerns, etc about this. I'll update as more develops.

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Is PJ

I have a question, can you take breaks to do CoN work?

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? Or perhaps buying a really good looking shirt?

Haha. Just for you, Josh. I am allowed to "rest" during the end credits, but I must proceed as soon as I am allowed to. During the actual game when I have control of the character, I am permitted to "take a break" whenever I want, but I cannot pause the game. Since there is a time limit and a death cap, this would not be wise.

I get 15 minutes of a true break (pausing the game and walking away) per every 3 hours of gameplay, although I can only bank one hour at a time. I can't play for 24 hours, for instance, and then take a two-hour nap.

One hour is plenty of time to do some CoN work.

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Is PJ

You sir... are a madman. And I think that's awesome. I'll watch some of your stream. I've never played SC4, but I likes the sound of your jib. (Homestarrunner reference btw)

Keep us posted.

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If internal struggles were as enjoyable and glamorous as the self conflicted wars within video game characters, we would all be statues, reveling in perpetual self war. -Me

Play me on Rock Band 2, GH-WT, or any other Xbox GH!
Xbox Gamertag-MeanJerry

The next time someone calls me a "hardcore gamer" I'll punch them.

Wicked. That's the word for what you're doing and I will also take a look for some time if I can.

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"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

Aren't you from Rochester? I wasn't aware we had a LAN center in or around the city. In Gates maybe? Regardless, I'm actually close enough to come watch in person if that's the case.

I love Castlevania IV, it was one of my first games.

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If you've been mod-o-fied,
It's an illusion, and you're in-between.
Don't you be tarot-fied,
It's just alot of nothing, so what can it mean?
~Frank Zappa

Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way

Thanks for the support, guys. I appreciate it!

MogMaster, do we really live in the same city? If so, am I really just finding out about it now? The attempt will be in Arena51 in Henrietta unless they are not done being relocated to their new location. If that is the case, I may try it at the newly opened CyberStorm LAN center. It will be one of those. It would be a pleasure to have you watch it live at some point.

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Is PJ

Oh noes double post! I needed a bump though, and an edit doesn't do that. Sorry mods.

So today I officially began my training. I had to set aside Plok and start playing through this again. I have exactly three weeks before the marathon and I need to be in flawless condition, to the point of being mechanical.

I beat the game once through with no deaths. Granted this is on normal difficult and not the loop 2 "hard" difficulty that I'll be playing on for multiple hours. However, it is still a good sign since i haven't touched this game in several months.

Along the way I developed a new strategy to cut down my potential death spots to a lowly 1. That's right, one spot in the entire game that can kill me without me being able to do anything about it. There are a few other things like falling through platforms or freezing the game by killing an enemy too soon, but those have only happened a few times and can't be planned for.

So this is where I need some help. The 1 spot that can kill me is Slogra, the first of Dracula's minions. He's the skeleton knight with the trident. In his second form, his charge attack is, as far as I know, undodgeable. It is random if he does it immediately after landing or not. If he chooses to do it 8 times out of the 13 cycles he needs, I am dead.

Does anybody know of an alternate strategy that allows you to beat Slogra more consistently? I honestly should have figured it out by now but I am stumped. I would love any advice anybody has.

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Is PJ

I have two updates:

1. There is no longer anything in this game that can even potentially kill me. I have figured out everything I need to in order to avoid death 100% of the time.

2. The attempt will no longer happen on July 17th. There have been a few issues with the venue and, long story short, I have nowhere to do it on that Friday. It will definitely happen before the end of summer, though. I am waiting out one more potential location, but if that does not work out for early August then I will just be doing it at my own home, which is less than ideal. Sorry for the delay!

When I figure out the new date and time, I will post it here again.

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Is PJ

So I was searching for Castlevania-related threads and found this.

Caesar, what exactly did you figure out about dealing with Slogra? Is it something about (not) triggering something, or using the pillars, or a way to dodge it?

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )