Beyond the Board: Interview with Dignity

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Pikastroff: Hello, and thank you for participating in this interview. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Dignity: Hey, thanks for having me. I’m DignitySR and I’m one of the top runners of SM63.

Pikastroff: Could you very briefly introduce what SM63 is to those that aren’t familiar with it?

Dignity: SM63 stands for Super Mario 63, which is a flash fangame that takes aspects from Super Mario 64, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Sunshine and compiles them into a great few hours of flash gameplay.

Pikastroff: How have you gotten into SM63 speedrunning?

Dignity: At this point in my speedrunning career, I had just started running games and I wanted to find a game that I wanted to dedicate all of my time to. As I was scrolling through the Speedrun.com games section, my eye noticed SM63 and I remembered my childhood. It was all up from there.

Pikastroff: What is your favourite aspect of SM63? And why?

Dignity: In my opinion, it’s the movement. SM63 has a very wide variety of movement options excluding any glitched movement. Movement has a very high skill ceiling, with it mostly capping off at some unbelievably difficult custom levels.

Pikastroff: How did you get into SM63 bingos specifically?

Dignity: I had just started SM63 speedrunning and someone in the community pointed out that bingos exist. I decided to give it a shot and I thoroughly enjoyed it even if I was obliterated.

Pikastroff: What is it you think that makes SM63 bingos fun?

Dignity: The best quality of bingos, in my opinion, has to be the routing. SM63 is a perfect game in terms of routing. It has a very wide variety of collectibles to find and objectives to complete, along with a consistent beginning that has no goals so that the runners can analyze the board.

Pikastroff: In what do you think SM63 bingos are the most challenging and/or engaging – in routing, or in execution? Or anything else?

Dignity: Execution. Once you’ve memorized the route and understood everything, it’s simple to link stuff together. There is also quite a bit of time at the start to scan the board and figure out a suitable route. Execution, on the other hand, is very difficult. It requires a lot of time to get good at pulling off tricks can take many hours of practice. The beginning might be consistent, but it needs some focus and concentration since the RNG can make or break it.

Pikastroff: Are there any tricks or glitches that are not often seen in normal speedruns of SM63 that are useful in bingos? If so, which would they be, and why?

Dignity: Not really. Everything seen in the 100% or No Major Skips speedruns can be seen in bingos with no exceptions. I would say the Triple Rocket strategy, which allows the runner to use the rocket nozzle more than twice in quick succession, is the only one to be used more often in bingos, since it is only used once in the 100% speedrun and the No Major Skips one.

Pikastroff: What is it for you that constitutes a fun and engaging goal (in the context of SM63), versus one that you think may need some re-balancing?

Dignity: In my opinion, a singular goal isn’t that fun on its own. It’s the routing and connecting that really makes it fun. But there are a few goals that I enjoy, such as the Hover Fludd Only goals, which forces the player to rely much more on their platforming skill than their glitch execution skills. The ones that require modification could be the 8 red coin shines goal, which makes the player go to 8 seperate stages and find the red coin shine. It could use some decreasing to make it so that there is no need to visit more stages in the endgame and careful routing could result in getting the card early.

Pikastroff: On that note, do you have any particular favourite goals that you love having?

Dignity: The Rocket and Turbo rooms in Bowser 3, probably. They are purely movement and platforming and they’re incredibly fun to do. Part of why I love them is that they’re in the main section of the Any% speedrun, which I currently 4th place in.

Pikastroff: When it comes to routing, what are the aspects of it perhaps that most people usually do not think of? And if that is possible to answer, are there perhaps any mistakes in the thought process behind routing that one can do that can damage one’s potential, and what can be done to improve in that regard?

Dignity: The biggest mistake is probably separating shines and star coins and getting both of them at different times. In the bingo card, there must be at least 1 star coin goal that can range from 16 star coins to more; getting the star coins, while doing other goals that are in areas which contain star coins, using precise routing can completely turn the tides of the race in your favour. Just don’t wait until the endgame to collect the star coins. I did that during my most recent race against the top runner TheGaming100 which made me lose terribly.

Pikastroff: When looking at the goals on your card, what kind of factors make you think “ok, this is a row I want to go for” and which ones make you say “I am NOT going for that one”?

Dignity: Fun fact, I don’t route using rows. I just find the most suitable goals and link them together, so I’ll be answering this question more generally. A big factor in choosing a goal is how it links with the one you’re planning to do. If it’s very far off and would take a long time to get, then it’s much better to leave that goal for the endgame; or better yet, just don’t get it at all and hope that it doesn’t come down to that goal.

Pikastroff: What do you think is the most fun bingo type to play in the context of SM63? We’ve seen many lockout (such as 100% lockout) matches during previous Bingothons, so as such are there perhaps other categories that you like and/or categories you are curious to try one day?

Dignity: There are other categories like NMS Bingo, which lock the parts of the castle until you get the keys required to go to them like in normal progression. This one is fun because the routing is much more linear as you don’t have the entire castle to choose from, so speed and consistency could be used to snipe many goals from your opponent.

Pikastroff: What would you say is the ‘barrier for entry’ for people who are interested in picking up SM63 bingos? Do you have any advice for them in that regard?

Dignity: The biggest thing required is knowing exactly where everything is in the game. For that, I recommend you run 100% for a bit before doing bingo runs, since that’s the best way to learn where everything is.

Pikastroff: Do you think ‘normal speedrunners’ could benefit from doing bingos in some way, in the context of SM63? I am especially thinking of runners who usually run categories that may not necessarily explore the game to its fullest.

Dignity: Absolutely, not only does it help with the runners who don’t run other categories with learning the layout of the game, but it also helps improve the movement of the runners, causing them to do better in their main categories.

Pikastroff: How do you think the community can further support bingos?

Dignity: This BTB is a good way that the SM63 bingo scene can be supported, and I hope it causes some more people to check out the game, since SM63 is practically made for bingos with its layout and movement.

Pikastroff: What is the funniest thing that happened to you that happened in a bingo, that you think is unlikely to happen in a normal run? Or in general, any anecdotes you’d like to share?

Dignity: This one’s a good one. I was racing in the Any% finals with the world record holder, Vertic, and it was an incredibly tight race. In the fake bowser section, after beating him, I got hit by a goomba. Now, getting hit or bonking during a cutscene is a fatal error, as it causes Mario to die, restarting the entire fight again. And that’s the story of how I lost the Any% tournament to a bug!

Pikastroff: Do you have any final words you’d like to say to the community?

Dignity: Shoutouts to everyone in the SM63 speedrunning community, since they’re probably the best community I’ve ever been in. And thanks to the Bingothon team for having me on this channel. Goodbye everyone and have a nice day!

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And that is it for this month’s Beyond the Board! Do make sure to give a follow to Dignity if you haven’t already to see all the SM63 content! Likewise, you can check out their Speedrun.com page to see their runs and even join their Discord in order to get involved!

If you are interested in being featured on a future Beyond the Board, do be sure to contact either Pikastroff or Floha258 on our Discord server!

Thank you once again, and we will see you later on another Beyond the Board!