No Jumping World Record Rampage

The No Jumping World Record Rampage

Dushine, Matan, and I have talked over a community-wide World Record Rampage for levels done without jumping and we think it’s a good idea because it will encourage a community-wide discovery and exploration of creative and difficult paths.

I am accepting runs now.

Contents

1. General
2. Recording and submission
3. Players and levels
4. No Jumping videos
5. Additional information

General

Jumps

Definition. For the purposes of the NJWRR, a jump is the momentary interaction between the marble and a solid object that triggers one instance of the jump audio in a normally functioning game. The object involved must be angled less than 90º and the jump button must be pressed at the moment of interaction.

(Thanks to HiGuy!)

Definition. We say that a run of a level is a No Jumping run if the run does not contain any jumps. We say that a run of a level is an n jump run if the run contains n jumps.

Definition. We say that a level is possible without jumping if there exists a No Jumping run of the level. We say that a level is possible with n jumps if there exists an n jump run of the level.

The NJWRR contains MBG and MBP regular and Director’s Cut levels that are possible without jumping. Unlike other WR Rampages, the NJWRR does not require all levels that are theoretically possible under the constraints to be included. Not all No Jumping paths are feasible and it may not be known whether or not some levels are possible without jumping.

Play quality

The NJWRR is a World Record Rampage, so it has the appropriately high standards for path optimization and error minimization that any WR Rampage has. On the other hand, I recognize that some No Jumping paths can be very difficult and time-consuming compared to most normal paths, so I will be appropriately lenient on runs featuring those kinds of paths.

The screenshot and moving platform glitches are allowed.

Qualifying and Par Times

Qualifying and Par Times are not physically part of a level. Since those times are set for regular runs, a final time of a run for the NJWRR is allowed to be longer than the Qualifying or Par Time for that level.

Timeframes

I will start accepting runs on March 16th, 2015 (the time zone doesn’t matter). Marble skin choices can be made earlier; see the relevant section for details.

No precise due date exists as of this time, although I am looking at around April to July of 2016, possibly even later. Many paths are very difficult and I want to give you ample time to work on them. I will inform you ahead of time when I have decided on a due date by a post on this thread and a message at the top of this post.

Powerjohn is allowed to participate in the NJWRR.

Recording and submission

Recordings

Use Marble Blast Gold for Marble Blast Gold levels and Marble Blast Platinum 1.50 for Marble Blast Platinum levels. Both .rec and direct screen (video) recording are acceptable, but I strongly prefer .rec’s whenever possible. .rec’s can be from either the PC or Mac platform.

When recording video, set Marble Blast Gold to these settings:

• Resolution: 1280x720 [but see below]
• Screen Style: [See below]
• Color Depth: 32 bit
• Music Volume: “Low,” but see below
• Sound Volume: “High,” but see below

Set Marble Blast Platinum to these settings:

• Resolution: 1280x720 [but see below]
• Screen Style: [See below]
• Color Depth: 32 bit
• Live Replays: Disabled
• Music Volume: “Low,” but see below
• Sound Volume: “High,” but see below
• Field of View: 90 [that’s the default, right?]
• Particles: 100%
• Video Driver: [Doesn’t matter]
• Shadows: Disabled
• Frame Rate: Hidden
• Free-Look: [Doesn’t matter]
• Invert Mouse: [Doesn’t matter]
• Thousandths: Enabled
• Mouse Speed: [Doesn’t matter]
• Keyboard Speed: [Doesn’t matter]

My preferred resolution for videos is 1280x720. In Marble Blast Gold, open the console, type the following, and press Return/Enter to get this resolution. If your computer doesn’t support this resolution, any resolution with length less than or equal to 1280 pixels and width less than or equal to 720 pixels is also acceptable. I strongly recommend that the resolution has length greater than or equal to 800 pixels and greater than or equal to 600 pixels.

Screen recordings must also meet the following criteria:

• At least 30 FPS (more will not be advantageous)
• NO watermarks within the game window
• Contain no or minimal quality artifacts, especially lag
• The colors should be identical or nearly identical to those of the original game
• Contain audio, primarily to check for the jump sound
• Each pixel in the game should correspond to exactly one pixel in the video, and vice versa. So no scaling, stretching, or black bars (also use common sense… e.g. don’t rotate the video…). Note the absence of any requirement about the display’s physical resolution. You can run the game in fullscreen 1280x720 on a 1440x900 monitor as long as the screen recording gives the same image as if the game were in windowed 1280x720.
• If you have a high-DPI display, like a Retina Display, see the “Exceptions” section below for special considerations.

Sending .rec’s and screen recordings

Please mention on this thread, in an e-mail, or in a PM, each run that you are submitting, using this template.

Player: iMacmatician
Level: Pathways
Time: 35.972 [include the 3rd decimal place if possible, use “9” if unknown]
Date: 2014 12 24

Send all .rec’s to me at powermathg5 (at) gmail.com. .rec filenames must be of this form:

where game is “MBG” or “MBP,” platform is “Mac” or “PC,” ballnumber is the number of the marble that you used in your run, and time is the same format as the timestamp in the prefs.cs file, e.g. 13874 for 13.874 seconds and 79045 for 1:19.045.

Example. MBG_Mac_iMacmatician_34_pathways_35972.rec

Each person should try to keep to one ball number. If you don’t know the 3rd decimal place, use 9. Also, you must send the corresponding .inf for each .rec. I will record the Mac .rec’s and I have a friend who has agreed to record the PC .rec’s.

Upload direct video recordings to a file sharing site (I prefer Mediafire) and PM me the link. File names should follow the format for .rec’s, except for the file extension of course. My preferred file format is .mp4 but I can convert many other formats, including .avi, .flv, and .mov. If your screen recording software does not directly export to .mp4, export it to .avi or some other format and send it to me. I have a soft limit of 2.5 GB on file size. I prefer Mediafire but other hosts are acceptable. Please do not use hosts that require registration to download the files you have uploaded or have a low cap on download speeds. If your video is larger, you can send multiple files, each with a portion of the full video.

For the sound and music, I need to be able to easily check for the jump sounds, so it is very helpful if you have the music volume significantly lower than the sound volume. The optimal is of course music at 0 and sound at 100 but that’s not required.

I will notify you as soon as possible if there is an issue with your .rec or screen recording.

Exceptions

I may make exceptions for special cases. If you believe you have a special case, please let me know. The presence of this paragraph is intended to aid people with technical issues and is not a license to ignore the above rules.

If you have a high-DPI display, you may lower the display resolution such that 1280x720 doesn’t appear small, or scale up the game by a factor such as 2x. Your screen recorder may have options specifically dealing with these types of displays. Tell me if you have a high-DPI display and encounter any issues.

Players and levels

Levels and jump numbers

Not all levels are possible without jumping. A player may have a 3 jump path for a certain level and not be sure if it is possible in fewer jumps. After further exploration, he may find a path or tweak that makes that level possible in 2 jumps. This process of discovery motivates the following definitions.

Definition. A level has a jump number of n (or a jump number from above of n) if the level is possible in n jumps.

Definition. The jump constant (or the jump number) of a level is the minimum of all jump numbers for the level.

We may not know for certain what the jump constants of some levels are since the smallest known jump number might be larger than the jump constant. The NJWRR only includes levels that are known to have jump constant 0.

Exploration can occur in the other direction by locating places in a path or level where a jump is required. Thus even if a player does not have an upper bound for the jump constant of a level, she knows a lower bound for the jump constant.

Definition. A level has a jump requirement of m (or a jump number from below of m) if the level requires at least m jumps to complete.

Remark. We can modify the above three definitions by replacing “level” with “path.” For instance, a path has jump number n if the path can be done using n jumps.

When mentioning jump requirements, please try to be sure that the level absolutely does require that many jumps (although one can make mistakes…). More than once, I have thought that a level has required some number of jumps when I didn’t know of an ingenious path that uses fewer jumps. It may help if we locate points of a level that cannot be avoided regardless of the path (I call them bottlenecks), although finding such points can be difficult.

Here is a Google Sheets spreadsheet with the levels, jump requirements, jump numbers, stars, target times, NJWRR times, and other remarks.


To encourage collaboration, I have it set up so that anyone with this link can comment (but not edit). A cell with a comment will have a small triangle (yellow for me) on its upper-right-hand corner. Please do not spam or make inappropriate comments, or I will have to restrict access further. If you have a Google account then I suggest that you use it when commenting. If you comment as “anonymous,” it would be helpful to sign your comments with your name. Of course, you can discuss in this thread as well.

Player and skin list

Here I will list all players with at least one level in the NJWRR, and their marble skins. The “Marble #” is the skin number that appears in the .inf.

Default skins	Player	Marble #	Notes
Original group: Staff’s Original / 3D Marble
Mid P
Spade
GMD Logo
Textured Marble
Golden Marble
Rainbow Marble
Brown Swirls
Caution Stripes
Earth
Golf group: Golf Ball / Phil's Golf Ball
Jupiter
MB Gold Marble
MBP on the Marble!
Moshe
Strong Bad
Venus	Frostfire	18	Valid through April 16th
Water	Eguy	19	Valid through April 16th
Evil Eye
Desert and Sky
Dirt Marble
Friction Textured Marble
Grass	lachniet	25	Valid through April 16th
Mars
Molten	legenda1236	27	Valid through April 16th
Lightning
Phil's Empire
Matan’s Red Dragon
Metallic Marble
Sun
Underwater

Other public skins	Player	Marble #	Notes
iMacmatician’s 2013-2014 marble skin	eNetro314	N/A	Valid through April 16th

Private skins	Player	Marble #	Notes
[Skin]

Information on marble skins

You can use a built-in or custom marble skin, but you must send me any custom skins except for my skins or custom skins that come with MBP because I already have those. Only players who have runs in the NJWRR can reserve public skins. No skin may be shared between two or more players, and the first player to choose a skin takes that skin. Some skins are too similar to other skins, and so they are grouped together (the above groups are from the BWRR). If one skin in a group is taken, then all skins in the group are off limits to other players. It doesn’t matter which skin in a group a player chooses, but she must pick only one and stick to it. A custom skin cannot be used if it is too similar to a built-in skin or a custom skin in the above list that someone is already using.

If a player using a public skin no longer has a run in the NJWRR, he has a grace period of at least one week (from the day I update the list to reflect that change) to get back on before the skin he is using is up for grabs. Perhaps the easiest way to ensure that your skin will not get taken is to make your own private skin and not share it with anyone (except me or my friend if you are using .rec’s, but we won’t steal your skin).

Players can reserve skins before March 16th (i.e. before submission starts), but anyone who does so should plan to have a level in the NJWRR on April 16th if he wants to keep the skin.

If you send me a skin, I will assume that it is public unless you tell me otherwise.

No Jumping videos

No Jumping paths are generally not as well known as normal paths. So that people don't have to spend time rediscovering existing paths, here is a comprehensive (but non-exhaustive) collection of No Jumping videos which showcase various Marble Blast levels and their paths. Some videos contain MBU or custom levels, but they can still be sources of inspiration.

Matan and Pascal:

• Escher's Race (43.82 & 40.31s) (these runs are done Roll Only, so jumps and inventory Powerups are not allowed)
• Elevator, Fork in the Road & Jump Jump Jump... without jumping!
• Marble Blast Gold: No Jumping #2
• No Jumping: Convoluted Helix (10.76s)
• A Day at the Links - No Jumping (33:47.40s) (this video contains many useful tips, tricks, and techniques, as well as a lot of commentary!)
• Jump Jump Jump (No Jumping - 3.29s)

KidPlayer:

• No Jumping Challenge
• Just, Levels

Oakster:

• Oaky's No Jumping Runs

Rokoshu:

• No Jumping: A few advanced levels

DavidsKanal:

• Marble Blast Platinum - Hazard Loop (No Jumping)

Death Pony:

• No Jumping- Marble Blast Ultra

iMacmatician:

• The No Jumping Series: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8
• Roll Only: Ramps Reloaded (19.08, 18.08)
• [No Jumping] Fork in the Road (6.18)

Alexis:

• Random Levels 3 - No Jumping
• No Jumping: Sand Storm (01:04.84s)

Buzzmusic:

• Marble Blast Custom Levels Without Jumping
• High Hopes (1:00.25, 31.16, 20.84), Daedal Helix (No Jumping) (2:25.22)

Blasted Marble:

• The No Jumping Compilations: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 (this latest one consists of MBU in MBP levels)

eNetro314:

• No Jumping: 1

Regislian:

• No Jumping II 17.853

Additional information

The final videos will be posted on my YouTube channel ( www.youtube.com/c/iMacmatician ) and linked on this post. I plan to accept song requests for the final videos when the videos are close to being released.

Also this post is a reserve post for anything else that may come up.

I'm super excited for this major project, and I would like to participate regardless of my runs not making it there.
For the marble skin, I would like to choose iMac's 2013-2014 marble skin.
I hope everyone has a wonderful time putting work into this!

This is good. Anyways, I will sign up for NJWRR. My selected marble is Molten. (#27)
[Not On Record]
Name : legenda1236
Level : Arch Acropolis
Time : 16.71
Date : 2015 02 28

First of all, regarding the screenshot glitch, are all variations of it allowed?

secondly

When recording video, set Marble Blast Gold to these settings:
Resolution: 1280x720 [but see below]
Screen Style: [See below]
Color Depth: 32 bit
Music Volume: [Maximum]
Sound Volume: [Maximum]
Set Marble Blast Platinum to these settings:
Resolution: 1280x720 [but see below]
Screen Style: [See below]
Color Depth: 32 bit
Live Replays: Disabled
Music Volume: 100
Sound Volume: 100
Field of View: 90 [that’s the default, right?]
Particles: 100%
Video Driver: [Doesn’t matter]
Shadows: Disabled
Frame Rate: Hidden
Free-Look: [Doesn’t matter]
Invert Mouse: [Doesn’t matter]
Thousandths: Enabled
Mouse Speed: [Doesn’t matter]
Keyboard Speed: [Doesn’t matter]

There is no real justification as to why we need to have a weird resolution instead of the standard one, I'd prefer to use the standard one.
Music and sound volume shouldn't matter at all since there will be music in the video anyway. Having the max volume is pretty annoying to play with.

also, I want the golden marble, but I have no idea what this "Marble #" thing you're talking about is.

The “Marble #” is the skin number that appears in the .inf file that comes along with the .rec file created by MBP.

Ah, ok, I'll have to look up that later.

And I say we should allow Powerjohn in the rampage, unless he misbehaves again.

Kalle29 wrote: First of all, regarding the screenshot glitch, are all variations of it allowed?

Anything that is allowed for the regular WRRs is allowed here.

Kalle29 wrote: There is no real justification as to why we need to have a weird resolution instead of the standard one, I'd prefer to use the standard one.

iMovie prefers widescreen over 4:3, and 1280x720 has been the standard resolution for MBP-based WRRs. If people want 1024x768 for MBG then I may change the resolution requirement. It takes a few more steps on my end but 4:3 is doable.

Kalle29 wrote: Music and sound volume shouldn't matter at all since there will be music in the video anyway. Having the max volume is pretty annoying to play with.

Technically the sound volume doesn't need to be at maximum, just loud enough so that I would be able to check for jump noises (25%?). You can also lower the main volume on your computer.

I will read the post thoroughly later - I have a math class in just a couple minutes so can't atm. Thanks a ton for running this, iMac! I'll definitely try to submit some runs, if you and the rest of the community don't destroy my paths

Name: Frostfire
Marble: Venus (#18)

Then shouldn't the music be at 0 volume? So you can hear the jump sound better

My runs may be beaten, but I'll try my best to participate in this rampage! I may do some runs early on, but mostly I'll try to beat already finished runs.
Few things: Can I make song suggestions now? I know you said when the video is almost complete but I have some ideas and I may forget them later
I agree with Kalle that Powerjohn should be let back in unless he misbehaves again, and also about music being at 0 volume.
Can I reserve my marble before getting runs? If so, I'll go with my usual Water marble (#19) of course.

I may change my marble when the rampage begins. More importantly...

iMac, will levels that require more than one jump be included in the rampage?

EDIT: I have no proof, but I'm certain Slowropes no jumps is possible.

[strike]also, how do you expect us to get third decimal in Gold? You can only get it through the prefs file and that thing only has your top 3 times, and there is no way I'm beating my normal records with no jump. IMO we just ignore the 3rd dec for gold levels.[/strike]

OK, HiGuy told me how to get third dec.

also, will existing videos be included?

EDIT: Can all of you guys try the levels where you just have to roll forward? I wanna see who has the best IC so I don't spend a lot of time on those levels only to get IC'd later.

Here are some more no jumping videos:
eNetro314
No Jumping: 1 which features 2 custom levels done without jumping

Buzzmusic
Marble Blast Custom Levels Without Jumping
Daedal Helix (No Jumping) (2:25.22)

Of course eguy HAD to take the water skin. I guess I'll take grass.

I'm going to record myself, I should be able get to get 40FPS. Maybe 25, worst case scenario.

Also, does anyone know if it is possible to beat money tree, no jumping?

No one has beat Money Tree yet, but it might be possible with a traplaunch. iMac tried that but jumped during it, so that run doesn't count.

One question: Is there any way to determine whether someone, for example, jumped for a traplaunch? I've tried disabling jump, but that doesn't influence .recs.

And Kalle, I just tried Time Trial: on MBG I got 3.16, on MBP 3.152.

Thanks for the IC test, Regi.

The only way to determine if someone jumped during a trap is if you hear the jump sound, it is usually audible during normal circumstances, so if you play with no music and max volume it should be pretty easy to hear in most cases.

I'll edit some parts of the rules shortly following your feedback.

Eguy wrote: Few things: Can I make song suggestions now? I know you said when the video is almost complete but I have some ideas and I may forget them later

You can send them in now.

Eguy wrote: Can I reserve my marble before getting runs? If so, I'll go with my usual Water marble (#19) of course.

I'll let you reserve the marble skin now, but I'd like you to get some run within a month or so in order to not "hog" the skin.

Frostfire wrote: iMac, will levels that require more than one jump be included in the rampage?

No they won't as of now, and most likely won't for this WRR. I'd rather people focus on levels that don't require jumping at all. Note that levels with a jump requirement of (at least) 1 may be difficult to do well with a small number of jumps, for example, Uphill Racing requires tons of edge hits.

Powerjohn ban: I don't want to waste time dealing with any of his immaturity and misbehavior. However, if Matan chooses to allow him for the WRRs that Matan is (AFAIK) planning (or otherwise tells me that I should let him in), then I promise to let him in the NJWRR.

Music/sound volume: Yeah, music volume at 0 is the most optimal solution.

Kalle29 wrote: also, will existing videos be included?

If no one beats their times by the end of the NJWRR, then I will most likely include them for completeness. But those cases should be rare or nonexistent.

But those cases should be rare or nonexistent.

I hope you're ready to camp a lot of levels then, I hardly see myself doing those traplaunches again.

Also, third decimal is only used in MBG.

Kalle29 wrote: I hope you're ready to camp a lot of levels then, I hardly see myself doing those traplaunches again.

I'm not sure what you mean since there aren't many No Jumping runs with traplaunches.

Kalle29 wrote: Also, third decimal is only used in MBG.

With the third decimal place option available as a view option in MBP 1.50 I see little reason not to go for the higher accuracy.

I'm not sure what you mean since there aren't many No Jumping runs with traplaunches.

I was also referring to the high standard expected on runs. Any difficult path taks time, not just TLs.

As a reminder, I am now accepting runs for the NJWRR.

Umm, I think you should stop NJWRR, and until the BWRR is done, you can continue this WRR... (Remember a reminder )
How does that sound?

Lee Zi Xian wrote: Umm, I think you should stop NJWRR, and until the BWRR is done, you can continue this WRR... (Remember a reminder )
How does that sound?

But we need to have more time to work on difficult and long paths for any level.

Lee Zi Xian wrote: Umm, I think you should stop NJWRR, and until the BWRR is done, you can continue this WRR... (Remember a reminder )
How does that sound?

He and I both knew previously he would start this before the BWRR was done.

Frostfire wrote:

Lee Zi Xian wrote: Umm, I think you should stop NJWRR, and until the BWRR is done, you can continue this WRR... (Remember a reminder )
How does that sound?

He and I both knew previously he would start this before the BWRR was done.

Oh lol, sorry