In this video, I will be explaining exactly what I do to collect Watch for Rolling Rocks in 0.5x A Presses. But first, we need to clear something up. Because every time I post a half A press video, I get the same comments over and over asking what it means, even though I always have a whole paragraph in the description explaining it, which even starts with "If you're wondering what a half A press is, read this before commenting to ask." But maybe what you guys need isn't a paragraph, maybe you guys need an example. So, consider Wing Mario Over The Rainbow, not even the whole star. Just consider getting to that cannon platform, which is a necessary part of getting the star. So, how many A presses does it take to get there? Well, If you say zero, that's wrong. Because then Mario can't go far enough. If you say one, Well it's true that Mario can get there with one but we can do a little better. We can do it in half an A press. To do that, we start the level already holding A and then we use that A press to reach the platform. Now hold on, I know what you're thinking, "an a press is an a press. You can't say its only a half". Well TJ "Henry" Yoshi, hear me out. An A press actually has three parts to it. When A is pressed, when A is held, and when A is released. And together, this forms one complete A press. Now, usually, it's the pressing that's useful. Because that's the only part that makes Mario jump. However, sometimes it's sufficient to just use the holding part, which allows Mario to do little kicks, to swim in water, to fall slowly while twirling, and to fall slowly with the wing cap. And as for the release, well, there's currently no cases where that's useful or important, so don't worry about that part. Now, if we map out the required A presses for Wing Mario Over The Rainbow, it would look like this. We merely need to hold A to reach the canon platform, we need to press A to launch from the first canon, and we need to press A again to launch from the second canon. So, how many A presses is that total? Well, it appears to be three, and if we were doing this star in isolation, then yeah, it would be three. But, in a full game A button challenge run, there are other A presses that occur earlier in the run, such as this A press needed to get into the course. So, if we take that A press into consideration as well, then how many A presses would it take? The naive answer would be four. One to enter the course and the three within the course that we established earlier. However, we can do better. We can actually do it in three by simply holding out the first A press to be used for the half A press. Because the half A press only required A to be held, not actually pressed. So in this fashion, Wing Mario Over The Rainbow only adds on an additional two A presses to the run since the first A press just leeches off of a previous A press. So, to capture this phenomenon, we call it 2.5x A presses. On a single star basis, you'd round that up to three. But in a full game run, you'd round it down to two. So, in conclusion, since that first A press counts in some context but adds no additional A presses in other contexts, we refer to it as a half A press. So, going back to the video, you can see that I start the level with the A button already held, as indicated in the bottom left corner. And so in the full game run, this A press will just leech off of a previous one. And so it won't incur an additional A press. Okay, glad that's explained. Now, what am I doing in the video? Here, I'm using a trick called Scuttlebug Transportation. You see, like most enemies, scuttlebugs have a home, which is just a point in 3d space. And they'll patrol a certain radius around that point. So, if Mario enters that radius they will lunge at him to attack. But, unlike most other enemies, a scuttlebug's home can change positions. Because if a scuttlebug bumps into Mario, the scuttlebug's home will update to where the scuttlebug was when the collision occurred. So, by strategically luring the scuttlebug to the edge of its radius and bumping into it, we can effectively transport the scuttlebug and its home. So, that's what I'm doing here. Note that we can't actually transport a scuttlebug to outside of its native room. They actually get stuck at the door. So, if your dream was to bring all the scuttlebugs together for one big jamboree, I'm sorry but it's not gunna happen. Also worth noting is that scuttlebugs will actually disappear if they walk into a wall while too far below their current home. So, I do have to be careful to avoid that. It's pretty weird if you've never seen it before but I'm pretty sure they did it so that if a scuttlebug jumps into a hole, it wouldn't just walk around down there. Anyway, I'm transporting the scuttlebug to the corner right below the Watch For Rolling Rocks star. Because next, I do a trick called Scuttlebug Raising and here's how it works. We give credit to .
