How Speedrunning Revived SpongeBob: Battle for Bikini Bottom [Any% World Record History] Part 2

[Music] from 2012 through 2015 we followed a small group of friends as they built a community surrounding one of their favorite games but after several years of revolutionising their passion project battle for bikini bottom was once again left behind but little did they know it wouldn't be for long [Music] [Applause] [Music] ladies and gentlemen I'm a sim loader and this is part 2 of how speedrunning revived battle for bikini bottom with the growth of speedrunning from 2012 through 2016 came a new sense of competitiveness in the hobby the advent of open broadcaster software and a high abundance of products used for retro Game Capture made recording and streaming runs more accessible than ever before many personalities in the speedrunning community built themselves up on Twitch during this period as the rising popularity of streaming only complemented the rising motivation for grinding runs the fast and flashy movement showcased in many of these games grabbed the attention of thousands platformers especially became the leading titles in the charge to make speedrunning but today we'll be focusing on a 3d platformer that was off the radar battle for bikini bottom had gone through a complete transformation from 2010 through 2015 abandoning its grindy tedious collectathon elements in favour of creative routing and a variety of advanced and technical strategies crews boosting especially transformed VF VB into a true platforming game that centralized its new and unique movement system thanks to Cole hazel and their small group of friends the potential of the game had been unlocked so with all these bells and whistles it was only a matter of time before someone rediscovered battle for bikini bottom in its revamped form right well there was no telling how long it would take since the community had died down harshly since the summer of 2014 unfortunately there were many team motivators holding the game back from reaching its potential the few tutorials in existence were extremely shallow runners weren't motivated to pick up the games obscure yet optimal Xbox version and the community hadn't received any significant exposure in a very long time this was in stark contrast to most of the popular speedruns of this era they offered in abundance of learning resources were optimized on more popular speedrunning consoles and were supported by streamers popular enough to be partnered which the more established communities attracted entry-level speedrunners by the Dozen and due to the amount of effort being put into them they evolved and optimized crazy fast though bf VB had its few visionaries and creatives it had never been developed on a scale nearly that large so even after its complete transformation battle for bikini bottom surely had at least one more hidden layer of potential just practically begging to be explored but it would take the fresh ambition of new competitive runners to decipher the mechanics of Cole's arcane tricks and use them in full runs of their own and still if the game were to survive and thrive they would also have to address the community's fans holding back its potential battle for bikini bottom would eventually need someone with motivation to not only make the game faster but also to solve these issues outside of the game as well but as a community so small and so unmotivated it seemed like it would never regain life like it once saw ever again that is until December 5th 2015 when in any percent speedrun in one 1925 offered a glimmer of hope this speedrun was uploaded by user fuff 1:18 why is this significant well it was his first upload ever and an immediate second place spot it wasn't known until later that fuff had spent the previous month learning and practicing the speedrun on his own through referencing past runs of the game farid been one of the few players up until now who took the initiative to dissect Cole's runs and figure out exactly what the man had done to go so fast for such a small community his motivation to grind was impressive not to mention the fact that he was actually able to finish learning the game a feat far too intimidating for many to tackle Fox sudden appearance caught the interest of many torment runners in the community his appearance from the shadows and his lightning fast learning showed the retirees that their passion project still had life left to live back in the old days : hazel rarely attempted runs outside of races coal sights that there wasn't much motive to grind due to the community's small size and low interactivity but fuff was a solo grinder and by the end of January in 2016 he'd improved his time to one 1606 on GameCube and at the beginning of February he had already acquired an Xbox 360 to keep pushing for sub 110 he was on track to become the next world record holder tough speedrun grind garnered a steady following while he streamed the game on twitch the premiere livestream platform for gaming and speedrunning with new activity in the game's directory on twitch viewers who had previously lost interest in bfb B began checking out fuff stream with a humble average of 10 viewers he'd streamed silent attempts with intent to improve the anypercent world record though a mysterious character at first Huff started to communicate with his viewers by typing in chat and expressed interest in helping them learn the strategies that he'd come to figure out on his own one of his viewers Jared's Giants had gained interest in bfv B during the cold days but never went through with learning due to the runs inaccessibility now with help from fathan the small community forming in his stream jared was able to finish learning the game yet another glimmer of hope for those who thought the community had reached its expiration date buffs effort to single-handedly learn the speedrun and help his viewers understand the game did not go unnoticed many started gathering into his streams with the hopes of witnessing something spectacular and though he only communicated through chat on some occasions his passion radiated through his gameplay on March 5th 2016 he'd finally get his first big break [Music] [Music] for the first time in nearly two years battle for bikini bottom 80% had a new world record holder who'd improved on Cole's personal best by four seconds with an active world record holder fresh and motivated to grind for improvement the original PSV B community would soon witness their foundations experience of revival buff brought to the table greater interest in optimising movement and seeing what else bf Phoebe had to offer he'd soon create the first substantial route for the 100% speed-run and pick up Cole's unfinished 100% within game codes project with experience collecting every spatula in the game in a variety of scenarios buffs movement would quickly evolve to the best the game had seen up until this point fluff would soon achieve the first 108 in battle for bikini bottom 80% on March 15th 2016 though Fox World Records still used the route sent forward by Cole in the former community there were still some small optimizations that stood out fluffs runs showcased early attempts to manipulate Robo Sandy's clothesline move by luring her to the edge of the stage which would cause it to initiate earlier than normal and in the Robo Patrick boss fight he tried manipulating the spins from a different position than those who came before him still however this strategy gave inconsistent results falso made better use of the note cycle in Squidward's dream to make the segment much more consistent his understanding of Cruz boost movement mechanics was also impressive for how recently he'd started running the new world record holder was making an effort to polish the game he'd inherited allowing for more consistent paces and faster improvement buff again improved his world record to a 108 24 on March 28th by now his stream community was far more established and supported his efforts to optimize the game some members of the older community even returned to watch fluffs improvement and they were eager to ignite the chat whenever he entered the final boss on world-record pace it was reminiscent of the good old days buff stream was slowly uniting battle for bikini bottom fans have passed and present yet still many could not get over the hurdle of learning to speedrun fuff had continued some of Cole's previous projects but not his tutorial series unlike Jarrod most people were more than reluctant to ask a stranger to teach them a full speedrun however there still existed possibility of another brave soul taking the fluff approach and learning entirely on their own a stream titled ruining your childhood began appearing more and more frequently in the battle for bikini bottom directory alongside fluffs where he'd recently achieved the first 107 on April 8th after this run he decided to take a break from the category to focus on 100 percent speedruns during his leave this other channel became the hot spot for re interested community members to watch any percent speedruns and this channel was run by another up-and-comer shift HD and shift was already in the low 120 range on the gamecube version when others started to take notice another runner motivated by his own will to learn and grind the game during an era of void of resources and much like fuff he'd seemingly come out of nowhere with a mysterious background but within several streams Schiff started opening up to viewers and began talking about picking up the Xbox version of the game to further his improvement and once it arrived he kicked into high gear which attracted the attention of other speedrunners interested in the fpb at this point shift wasn't really involved in the community surrounding the game though he was only aware of Hazel's anypercent tasks which piqued his interest in crews boosting and Cole's former world record from which he'd learned the rest of the game he was kind of on his own Island just doing his thing day after day it wasn't until shift met Kona Sumi from a twitch raid that he'd finally began getting to know some of the people surrounding battle for bikini bottom Kona had expressed interest in learning to run battle for bikini bottom in the past and had notice shift due to the frequency of his streams the two chatted for a bit and shift eventually decided to try creating the first full bfv be any % tutorial after he'd achieved sub 110 with a time this competitive it would assure the explanations in the video were at least decent enough to help his new friend learn to run Kona would patiently wait for the creation of the guide as would some other lurking prospective runners setting a goal time of 109 caused some community members to wonder which shift eventually attempt to beat fuss world record but shifts didn't know the answer to that question his primary motivation behind achieving this goal was allowing himself to create the tutorial video for Kona and the rest of the small community beginning to form around his channel and at this point shift probably wasn't even aware of what time's fluff was achieving it seemed he was oblivious to anything outside of his own community and the same could be said for the other small communities on their own islands as well that is until an elder member of the mainland invited both shift and fluff to the new battle for bikini bottom discord server of 2016 this server was the replacement for the former skype group of 2015 and earlier most of the older runners had joined the server but they were all inactive with foie fand shift being the only ones actively running and streaming the game the rest of the reawakened community was anticipating and hoping that shift would rise to the occasion and create world record competition something the community had not experienced in over two years and with fuff returning to any percent to defend his time seeing his shifts improvement was not stopping anytime soon they all knew it was only a matter of time while 50 rusted his any percent runs shift finally achieved his 109 on May 25th 2016 that same stream he recorded the full 80 percent tutorial he'd promised Kona Sumi and the viewers he'd garnered from streaming runs of bfv be within the coming months several new runners would finish learning with shifts tutorial and submit full runs to the leaderboard a phenomenon shift sites as being more fulfilling and motivating than even improving his own personal bests the first complete battle for bikini bottom any percent tutorial is linked in the description if you would like to check it out though bf BB was both fuff and shifts first attempt to speedrun their community included other players with prior experience in speedrunning Jerez Giants was a former top runner in Luigi's Mansion and he just rejoined the community with help from the new anypercent tutorial Kona Sumi who'd also developed a small twitch following through speed running a variety of games would eventually learn through the tutorial as well the new battle for bikini bottom discord server helped to kick-start their friendships especially Jared's and shifts who'd form a much closer friendship with their passion for the game as the backbone the community was proving its resilience even long after many thought it was curtains ii revival was imminent and a grand occasion was needed to set it all in motion fuff would finally improve his own world record from 107 53 to 107 40 on May 28th 2016 meanwhile shifts improvement continued even more dramatically leading into June a few days after his second 109 he landed a low 108 on June 3rd and only two days later shift finished battle for bikini bottom in 107 39 which would have been a world record if had not achieved 107 31 only two days earlier by now the view count between their streams had doubled in anticipation for the coming competition but later that same day the wait was finally over yet another new world record holder in the same year the games competition had been revived yet both runners knew there was still lots of room for improvement buff would demonstrate this four days later in response to shifts first world record with both runners so close to the next minute mark the race to 106 was on shift and buffs competition would mirror that of coals and Hazel's from years ago even to the extent of representing the respective countries with USA and Canada chants flooding twitch chat the second Renaissance was in full force on June 11th 2016 viewers checked in to fuff stream to find him on insane pace nearly 50 minutes into the run he was already on the perfect line for a 1:06 over half a minute ahead of his 107 oh three but this run could even skip straight to the 105 if the stars aligned [Music] buf was unable to clutch a 105 but did close out the first 106 and this run set the stakes way higher the main focus of both world-record contenders became achieving 105 before the other shift returned to running the next day and claimed at 106 of his own missing fluffs new world record from the day before by 9 seconds shift and fluff would continue getting on runs on great paces throughout the next several days but couldn't close any out on June 17th 2016 shift finally got a promising run out of the Dutchman's graveyard heading into the final fight viewers anticipated the next world record trade [Music] [Music] despite choking Schiff did manage to get a new personal best of 106 48 missing fluffs world record by just five seconds fuff would need to improve his time soon if he wanted to defend the title but just two days later shift got another run into the chumbucket lab this time he was on even pace with the run he choked only two days earlier this was his chance robot better change tactics shift reclaimed the world record by a margin of eight seconds bringing it back to the USA with both runners actively grinding the community wondered who would achieve the first 105 puffs best paces were faster by far but shifts consistency with major tricks allowed him to compete against his full runs their differing strengths and weaknesses made the competition all that much more exciting the two would continue grinding for the remainder of June with many great paces bleeding out under pressure then finally on June 27th 2016 the first 105 in battle for bikini bottom 80% was achieved at last shift achieved a minute break of zone and split really really early but it had been done the Run was retimed to 105 52 and now it was fuss turned to answer back but shift wouldn't go down without a fight though world record competition was fun for everyone to rally behind buff and shift were ultimately working together to optimize strategies during the races for the 106 and the 105 they had worked together to optimize the C needle bungees where fluff rediscovered a consistent strategy for the first two dives and shift built off of these dives to find the third shift found an implemented new tech and Robo Patrick called swing stalling which allowed for safe suspension above the arena while still dropping boxes to jump on as the fight progressed fuff finished developing the modern method of robos sandy manipulations that is still used in runs to this day their teamwork helped battle for bikini bottom reached the minute threshold even Cole himself believed would be the end of the line but battle for bikini Bob's progression was far from over meanwhile amidst the competition for world record the community realized that 104 would not be realistically achievable with their current knowledge at the game having been speedrunning VF VB for the past few months shift had become knowledgeable enough to start making major changes to Cole's foundational route with such scarce documentation open-mindedness would be needed to complement his research so shift began spending most of his time raking through old playlists and forum posts familiarizing himself with the games buried yet surprisingly deep history he had to make sure that everything ever found was accounted for after digging through Cole's old videos to learn about some of the strategies forgotten between the first and second revivals shift believed that he had come up with a way to save half a minute in the 80% speedrun by repurposing an old trick with new ideas he had rediscovered dilemma skip through watching Cole's full runs uploaded in 2014 which had apparently been dropped and replaced by the Cruz boost method found later that same year though the Cruz boost method was far easier to perform it wasn't that much faster than the old school damage boost by returning this Bachelet at the beginning of the run shift could now push one spatula before Industrial Park to the end of the run if you recall our routing discussion from part one forty spatulas must be obtained to enter industrial park to obtain the crews bubble which is used for crews boosting and 34 must be obtained afterward to finish the game so now by sacrificing a bit of time and bringing Patrick's dilemma back to the beginning of the run he knew he could push back a spatula that would be much faster with crews boosting to the end and shift knew just the one for the job hey Vsauce Josh yeh the prom in the cases of the Flying Dutchman and Robo sponge touching an invisible debug trigger above the zone spawn point plays the finishing cutscene and awards a spatula allowing the player to completely skip the boss fight initially the prawns debug trigger wasn't even known about based on the location of the debug trigger in the Robo sponge boss fight the community theorized in 2015 that this would mean the prawns debug trigger would be located directly above the player spawn point unfortunately that meant that the prawn Deebo trigger would be low-key completely out of bounds assuming it even existed in the first place guess the runners were just out of luck then right wrong way back during Cole's days of glitch hunting the spongebob movie game in 2013 he discovered a clipping method that involved repeatedly activating the sonic wave guitar in a tight space noticing the similarities between game engines a glitch hunter named for decided to try this in BF BB a year later with the Cruze bub after all the movie game was built on VF bb's existing engine and assets and as it turned out it worked for coined the strategy L clipping as you achieve the trick by mashing the [ __ ] out of the L trigger with the advent of L clipping the potential prawn trigger was reachable hazal and the gang ventured out into the void and lo and behold the prawn was skipped oh wow in battle for bikini bottoms 2nd revival shift started using prawn skip in his anypercent rooms when compared to the slow early game method of defeating prawn this bad boy saved a hefty chunk of time this prawn skip reroute the first of many reroutes in 2016 would save nearly half a minute in the anypercent speedrun outweighing the comparatively negligible time loss from completing patrick's dilemma without crews boosting so the next time you encounter something that's just out of reach maybe you just start mashing hard enough and as always thanks for watching and randy runs with the prawn while fuff would continue using the route he'd used to achieve 1:06 and nearly a 1:05 he'd been getting some wild paces lately and didn't see the need to update strats just yet shift on the other hand spent most of his attempts resetting in Jellyfish Fields after updating to the new route he wasn't really getting anywhere despite running with faster strats if fuff wanted to reclaim the world record now would be the time to strike [Music] buf missed the world record by five seconds after failing the notorious Robo sponge skip but still managed to clutch his own 105 after finishing this run fuff decided to take an extended break from any percent and would focus on 100 percent until the end of the summer world record competition paused indefinitely as shift and fuff worked on optimizing their own focuses solo though the competition for first place had come to a close the 80% speedrun and the battle for bikini bottom community both continued to thrive on July 7th shift finally achieved a personal best with the new prawn skipper out improving his world record by one second since his first 1:05 shift that started using his microphone throughout the entire run rather than just in specific moments to communicate it was a change of pace for what viewers came to expect at this point and it allowed them to share all of the greatest moments and the not so fortunate ones no no [ __ ] stop okay even cruise boost what am I gonna do some admired shifts display of passion while others just couldn't hang members of the community question how shifts behavior would impact the image of their community while others became hooked on his intense personality but shift claimed that venting allowed him to cool down after tragic time loss to avoid tilting and his frequent personal bests seemed to back this up this runs a good showcase though the one thing that went wrong that I attempted was the [ __ ] this controversy would stay relevant for the remainder of the summer especially as other runners grew more passionate as well as summer progressed the shared endeavor to revive battle for bikini bottom formed a small friend group which seemed to be a first in the game's history in the old era the runners were merely just friendly acquaintances with a shared pastime but in this new age the community would break its ice and become something more than just a group friendly acquaintances they'd become says shift NHD the only thing quicker than his movement on the sticks is his lightning-fast weights you can't be a pro-gamer Master Assassin if you have [ __ ] to pay for what talking about Jared's Giants with a lifetime of experience in casino gambling he's bound to erupt if things take a turn no jelly swagger Cole's young Ward trained from birth by the wise sage he's genetically engineered to put up with everyone else's [ __ ] 118th makes the sponge run smooth like maple syrup or some other Canadian thing here one day gone the next the international circle jerk of super acquaintances and although Kol lurked in the shadows he'd eventually debuted the Mermaid Man profile picture to match the other runners he'd always been there just watching silently as the next generation continued what he started the super acquaintances Cohn assuming and some of the other runners that were soon to enter the ring would become the group that revived battle for bikini bottom a second time dedicating himself to the grind shift needed to address an ongoing issue with his xbox 360 to further optimize the anypercent world record up until this point shifts Xbox 360 had some emulation bugs forcing him to do workarounds for some of the strategies : fluff had used while they grinded anypercent unable to find another Xbox 360 for sale locally he ended up buying an original Xbox from a friend in his town just to give it a try it was believed at this point that the original Xbox was slower than the 360 since the only completed run with it on the leaderboards appeared to have slowed loads between zones little did they know that with a more updated model such as the one that shift had just unknowingly acquired a small bit of time can be saved from each loading screen in bfv B it was later realized that the switch to OG xbox saves nearly 1 min it throughout the 80% speedrun and with an Xbox in good health these fast loads were also 100% consistent shift began using the original Xbox on July 10th and quickly got a run that finished in one hour four minutes and 28 seconds as of this world record real time runs had finally eclipsed their tool-assisted counterparts shifts 104 cut Hazel's tasks from 2014 by 9 seconds well that may be but the task was done on a GameCube emulator which actually loses minutes and loading times compared to Xbox so I'd say it isn't even comparable yeah it's shut the [ __ ] up he was pretty happy with this performance despite not knowing that its level of optimization was likely about the same as his 105 10 but with faster load times from the OG xbox which so suddenly out of nowhere 103 was looking possible and many believed it would be the final minute achieved in battle for bikini bottom any % for over a week shift would get runs on paces barely capable of 103 but they always seemed to crumble deep in the run at this point battle for bikini bottom was a lot more optimized than it was back in the old era now 20 second time losses were much more noticeable many runs died to the infamous Texas sponge glide found during the sudden boom of strategies immediately following the discovery of crews boosting many years ago shift eventually got a run that finished with a 104 21 a world record yet the exact date is unknown and the vaad no longer exists but when Schiff finally got another run past the nut glide he'd be sure to preserve that one [Music] it's over boys it's finally over Paul faster than 106 105 and 104 left 103 was now here the community paraded about how the game had finally reached its limits but deep down they knew there was still a lot more work to be done out there two days later shift broke the 80% world record again with a 103 36 this time using the forbidden skip to save 9 seconds it was forbidden because it's perceived inconsistency forbade runners from using it if not to recover runs that were already bad but as runners started using it more often it seemed to get a bit better this trick saved 9 more seconds off the run by landing a precise Bowl off of a spiked block to launch toward the bouncing ball spatula despite its learning curve shift was willing to shoehorn it into the run just to have those extra 9 seconds it seemed at this point time saves that seemed previously pretty small we're still glucose affinity with a new world record 2 days after the first 103 it was clear that the game wasn't getting fully optimized anytime soon but shift was running out of time save again he brushed through the archives once more searching for potentially useful strategies the once phased out or just never implemented but nothing stood out as useful something entirely new was needed and perhaps the key wasn't as far into the past as he initially thought when approached by shift for his routing endeavors fuff recalled the wild running on the gamecube version he used to collect the Save the Children spatula during his anypercent runs this spatula is awarded to spongebob after popping the five sets of balloons floating around the beach which the children are clinging to for their dear lives mrs. puff Awards you a spatula for saving all of them well most of them but fafa topped using this strategy after switching to Xbox and opted for cold spatula selection instead the reason why was due to the balloon cycle being impossible to meet the Xbox version of the game but to truly understand why we'll first have to talk about parallel universes I mean version differences battle for bikini bottoms Xbox release made some notable alterations and improvements compared to the gamecube version its aspect ratio was slightly wider and the audio is not compressed or absurdly loud in some areas and yes on the Xbox version of kelp forests due to improved lighting effects you can actually see what you're doing the textures are also full sized unlike on the gamecube version where they're down scaled to half the original size and of course the loading times are faster but you already knew that the difference we're focused on for collecting the save the children's spatula however is the increased draw distance on the Xbox version with this increased range for NPCs and other assets to spawn and when nearing them the balloon kids would render and begin floating on their set paths much earlier than they would on the GameCube version due to the shorter draw distance on GameCube Thoth could pop all the balloons reliably as he could get much closer to them before they would spawn on the Xbox version taking the same path would leave the balloons scrambled and in terrible locations due to them starting to float around far earlier but if a cycle that accommodated the Xbox draw distance could be solved this could be a lightning fast spatula and a potential replacement for the extremely slow and casual ballroom puzzle so the next day after the 103 36 shift spent a day at the beach to figure out where to start shift had to first acknowledge that starting by Larry's lifeguard tower was not working this was the start Fudd used on GameCube but as mentioned before the kids end up in awful locations with the Xbox's draw distance affecting the cycles and because we're being pushed by a cruise boost and some pillars sink when you stand on them anyway waiting around for the cycle is not an option so instead shift tried starting from a different area the sand castle it made sense to start here because it is also the respawn point after drowning from collecting the over the moat spatula upon respawn the balloon cycles are reset and the nearby box provides the perfect surface to cruise boost and as it turns out the kid closest to the Sandcastle island ends up in a favorable position even with the Xbox's increased draw distance shift would therefore make this one the first in the new sequence however after respawning shift only got one shot at hitting the Cruz boost inputs if he failed shift had to purposely drown in the moat to reset the cycle and try again after numerous attempts shift got a segment going where he popped the first set of balloons and approached the next nearest set which seemed like the obvious option and as it turns out it was also on cycle 2 down three to go but the order of the three kids on the beach would be less obvious the nearby kid on the shore seemed like the next in the sequence but as it turns out skipping it and going directly to the kid after it meets it on a cycle that floats by one of the beach pillars in the perfect position for the bash going straight to the next beach pillar kid from here seemed to work out as well finally returning to save the kid we skipped earlier which is also conveniently floating right by mrs. puff allows us to complete the sequence of five and immediately collect the golden spatula this seamless sequence also allowed collecting the sock on top of the muscle bar for the low price of zero seconds it had been the most satisfying segment that shifted pulled off up until that point especially with the added difficulty of even initiating it so the first set of balloons as we've mentioned before requires the first try cruise boost to reach it in time for the cycle but the added difficulty of hitting the cruise bubble in bubble bowl on the same frame twice under that kind of pressure was just the surface of this strategy the movement required to nail this trick was far more advanced than any other cruise boost segment up until this point especially with the added struggle of hitting these moving targets many of which needed to be bashed while falling off the pillars to even hit them this led to many failures and worse yet the first kid had two different cycles it could take seemingly at random the kid could either turn sharply into the pillar or continue on in a straight line both of these patterns require different timings and positionings for the cruise boosted bubble bash to pop the balloons so on top of having to succeed in the single attempt at the cruise boost shift also had to react to a 50/50 almost immediately after and then he had to complete the rest of the cycle with the most advanced cruise boost movement of its time the rest of the community called him insane for even attempting this in his runs but after shift finished developing the strategy and timed it to save half a minute over completing the rolling ballroom there was just no turning back he'd begin collecting the Chum Bucket wall jump spatula at the beginning of the run to make up for removing the ballroom then add the balloon popping madness after cruise boosting was acquired adhering to the routing balance of BF VB it seemed by now the main focus of the 2016 community was ironing out cruise boost movement and pushing it to its limits now world record attempts passed industrial park had way more to offer than just crossing big gaps and running faster in straight lines and the fans were loving it on July 28th shift achieved three World Records with the kids route a better 103 36 a 103 24 which shift apparently never highlighted because it was and a 103 19 though he lost nearly half a minute to saving the kids in his 103 24 the other two World Records had exemplary displays of this sick new strategy at this point the already existing community surrounding bfv be in shifts stream was becoming more and more passionate about the run beyond simply indulging in nostalgia other members of the general speedrunning community noticed shifts daily attempts to lower the world record throughout the summer of 2016 and he began to build a significant following solely through speedrunning BF VB though many of these new viewers either hadn't grown up with bf VB or were skeptical of how good the game could possibly be they'd grow to appreciate the new and exciting techniques constantly being developed the game was now continually evolving and an organized effort to optimize what many saw as a random cartoon game drew a lot of attention it seemed the amount of effort going into this speedrun was something that anyone could come to appreciate later that same month both Jared and shift started averaging well over 100 viewers streaming attempts an all-time high for battle for bikini bottom on Twitch across both distinct eras of the community battle for bikini bottom was attracting mainstream speedrunning attention and the numbers showed it with the sponge moving fast being all the buzz many were eager to weigh in on the topic and with constant incoming criticism pridefulness would develop among our community leaders but with pride came a sense of commitment as they began to realize the potential their passion project truly had shift especially began preaching about earning the game the respect it deserved pledging to regain battle for bikini bottoms acclaim after years of it being pushed aside or forgotten by the world this attitude was never before seen in this community surrounding the obscure title and naturally stirred controversy now that all eyes were on them even within the community things weren't all so great a witness to this era perilous p-nut recounts excessive memeing attitude problems and desire for community growth at the expense of its grassroots environment a culture he couldn't take seriously and found quite unpleasant of course jarred and shift found peanuts attitude toward them unpleasant as well especially as he became more vocal on these disagreements drawing some of his friends from other communities into the mix though these tensions started small they would eventually evolve into a larger problem our community leaders would be forced to deal with far down the road but that's why we're covering this story in four parts between the controversies surrounding the players personalities and skepticism of a spongebob speedrun it seemed like most people in the speedrunning community at large had an opinion on the phenomenon but opinions aside a battle for bikini bottom was making waves the communities leaders believed that to earn the game the acclaim they felt it deserved they'd have to push the run to its absolute limits and cram in as many exciting and risky strategies as possible each new world-record advance strategy or competitively driven runner on the leaderboard felt like a solid step in the right direction they had a mission to accomplish and the grind had only just begun in July of 2016 Kona had finally tied up his loose ends and finished learning to speedrun bf BB through shifts tutorial video he kept the game as one of his side focuses while preparing for his showcase of Eden and Eddie the misadventures in the mainstream speedrunning earth on summer games done quick during this showcase he put on an outstanding display for over 100,000 viewers to see and gained quite a following from it after gdq kona decided to make battle for bikini bottom his main focus for a while yeah man i want to bob jelly once and for all well until he like he until he returns but still i want to bump him and then he'll probably bought me right back bonus streams of bfb be averaged over 200 viewers throughout his grind for sub 110 during which some of the summer's most iconic memories were made okay let's go this one 10 oh no Dean I messed up the success of Kona stream rubbed off on shifts and Jared's as well as they both began averaging 150 to 180 viewers on their daily grinds with three different options to watch the run all catering to different preferences be FB be continued to gain that hot attraction Kona and shift eventually began applying for twitch partnerships toward the end of the summer for which they were declined each time despite averaging as many viewers as they were I got an email back from partner let's see if it got if I got accepted or declined yeah it looks like a Disick line at this time partnership requirements were extremely vague and it took a lot of persistence to attract the attention of the bigwigs but with such a huge burst in growth and motivation to grinds not going anywhere anytime soon the community knew it was only a matter of time before they get their very own to which partner the partnership program could help attract even more fans to rediscover the game forgotten and twice revived with this conviction the battle for bikini bottom speedrunners became dead set on making it happen having established himself as the fastest bfv b speedrunner by far shift knew he'd have to continue pushing his own limits to keep the game's progression interesting the expectations were now higher than ever before during this era of non-stop world records fans piled in as they knew one could happen at any time and just before dawn on July 31st shift achieved the first 102 only three days after his 103 19 with constant world record uploads shifts YouTube channels started to gain more traction and by association the rest of the B fvv community continued moving further into the limelight even the comments sections started to get their own regulars bruh you're insane these runs included gradual optimizations nearly every time anyone checking in could clearly see the work invested in it too these runs by shift and the rest of the community but these tiny optimizations were going to become far more important if 101 was ever going to happen the games available time saves were far smaller at this point with the community's current understanding of the game mechanics some routing changes were only made just to save menu Scrolls now shift would need to dig deep to push the current route further he disappeared for a few days and returned with new motivation to push the time past yet another minute threshold amidst the grind for 101 and the hype surrounding battle for bikini bottom August introduced several new community members they'd become friendly with some of the original super acquaintances and some others who'd been around during the old air every joined as well red moss soon to complete his first run of bf PB and Crist the fast soon to complete his second bo3 emerged after having been absent for years in due time Ringo tango and red moss would become better friends with jarred jelly and shift the five would form a larger friend circle based around enjoying their new favorite pastime viewers could tune into any of their streams and find the others in the same call grinding away at those crews boosts at this point the community had become closer and more intertwined than ever before and with so many streams occurring simultaneously there was almost always a place to watch battle for bikini bottom throughout each day with so many outlets to watch the game prospective runners continued to gain interest the group made sure to keep the full 80 percent tutorial along with the portal to their friends streams readily available for anyone tuning in it was a tight network dedicated to improving their game while making memories along the way by now it was also clear that all of the top runners were more than happy to pick up the Xbox version of vfp B to further their improvement and new runners felt encouraged to try the game with which I version they already owned afterall they could just upgrade to xbox later in pursuit of more competitive times this culture was forwarded to prospective runners by the five friends and the tutorial series they'd used to rebuild their games player base unmotivated and off the radar were no longer terms that could be used to describe the battle for bikini bottom community as summer faded out battle for bikini bottoms presents continued spreading further even some bigger names on Twitch would take interest in battle for bikini bottom during this time streaming first-time playthroughs to get a taste of what all the hype was about and of course they took interest in the passionate community surrounding the game as well at this point speedrunning and battle for bikini bottom had become inseparable and with so many new faces rallying behind the community they needed one main event to tie together the happenings of that fateful summer on August 11th 2016 shipped improved the anypercent world record again this time by two seconds a six second improvement happened the next day two days later he pulled off a huge world record shaving off nearly half a minute if you think that's crazy just wait till you hear this this front is still had plenty of opportunities for improvement that just seemed to come out of well no place conspicuous without any major and with very few minor changes that the strategy said shift was saving huge chunks of time just from optimizing his own movement and adding more crews boost to the run in the past crews boosting was only used sparingly in areas where the speed boost was needed to make spatulas viable for the run but now seeing his battle for bikini bottom's route was far more optimized saving a couple of seconds for crews boost was actually significant if the player could hit them on the first attempt consistently around this time fluff also discovered that Larry's collision box is actually a huge rectangular prism though invisible it was the perfect surface for crews boosting and marked the start of runners crews boosting off of certain flat NPCs to avoid walking to the nearest wall ships began referencing Hazel's 2014 tasks in hopes of implementing some of the more difficult and obscure movement strategies into his run and began skipping the rotating shipwreck walljumps with the use of cruise boosting fluffs 100% endeavors also led to more strat discoveries in the 80% run such as the new route for Squidward's dream that awards a sock for the low low price of zero seconds these creative uses of cruise boosting marked an era when battle for bikini bottom became a farm war movement centric speedrun versus just simply nailing setups for difficult tricks this particular run was looking like a lost cause but shift ended up finishing with a time of 102 18 after coming back from a 24 second deficit closing out a new world record by 3 seconds with big comeback runs and the nearing of 101 the summer of 2016 was destined to go out with a bang run space for 101 would nearly reach 200 live viewers as they knew something big would happen soon nearly a week later on August 25th 2016 shift was on his best pace ever half a minute ahead of the 102 18 out of jellyfish - and still within a minute of some of best leaving the graveyard at this point the fans were on the edges of their seats shift entered Sandy's dream to perform the Texas sponge glide nearly an hour into the run only this and the Robo sponge stood between him and the coveted 101 [Music] [ __ ] now the fans would wait for shifts response to said [ __ ] his reaction to such a heartbreaking loss was in stark contrast to those of similar misfortunes at the start of the summer and he was even able to keep his head straight enough to close out a new world record with that same run it was clear by now that shift was improving at managing stress in front of live audiences and with that his attempts became astronomically better later that same day shift tied the summer's resurgence of battle for bikini bottom the resilience of the community and his ownself growth into one speedrun [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] drop the mic the 101 46 became one of shifts most iconic runs gaining significant traction on YouTube and causing him to reach the 1000 subscriber mark on the platform and over on twitch the movement was growing stronger than ever with the game's popularity skyrocketing the 2016 community knew they had what it took to avenge Cole and the other retired runners from the previous era they began discussing the possibility of battle for bikini bottom being accepted to games done quick the game was rejected unconditionally in the past when : hazel tried submitting to gdq events even dating back to 2013 hazel even went as far to plan out her talking points for commentary had the game actually been accepted staying hopeful each and every time it was something that meant the world to them a chance to display their years of ingenuity on a stage for thousands to enjoy and now the next generation of runners believed that they could make that dream a reality shift submitted battle for bikini bottom 80% to awesome games done quick 2017 the winter marathon was poised to be the largest ever and bfv B had its best shot at finally getting in before the summer's revival of battle for bikini bottom Kona consulted gdq committee member bulletin regarding the possibility of bf V's from here in the marathon who claimed there just wasn't enough evidence that spongebob and speedrunning had enough crossover audience to make it work well just four months later battle for bikini bottom had taken the speedrunning community by storm the evidence was laid out for everyone to see and shift just had to write a pitch to convince the committee to finally lay the sixth time rejection curse to rest and needless to say Cole was watching silently from the shadows shift published his agdq 2017 submission video for BF PB 80% on September 3rd 2016 you may have already guessed by the splits but just four days earlier ships broke the world record again with a 101 38 he just could not stop between the 1st and the 2nd 101 shift found a 5 second time save for collecting the spelunking spatula jellyfish caves naming it rock skip because you you jump on the rocks to get the spatula art are these even rocks okay the new risky maneuver and potential run ruiner would be showcased in the 101 38 and again in the 101 14 achieved on September 9th 2016 then on the attempt immediately following the 101 14 shift finished with a time of 101 o for small movement improvements and increased hours of grinding had pushed the current route further than anyone believed possible with very few major changes allowing the next minute mark to nearly be cleared following this PB however shift finally hit an improvement wall but exactly two weeks later shift would complete a run that would shock everyone one flat 32 and the aftermath of this run eyewitness account state that shift uttered something that few could comprehend but that sounded something like this to this day this is regarded as one of the most optimized world records in the game's history and it marked the end of an era in the anypercent world record progression shift had completed a run with so few mistakes it would go on to initiate the first world record drought caused solely by optimization of the run as opposed to long hiatuses despite grinding for multiple hours each day this time would stand untouched for a while in comparison to the veritable grab bag of summer records chat and community reactions to this run were in stark contrast to those of the first 101 ringo sites that there was a level of sadness watching this run finish off realizing that the game's progression might have actually reached a dead end and things certainly did start to slow down for the next month for their knowledge at the time the run had been shredded down to its core revealing what everyone believed would be the final crowning achievement in battle for bikini bottom speedrunning the 59 for titles of past present and future taking a full digit off the run was viewed as the holy grail for communities optimizing games clocking in at just above the 60 minute mark and what the world record now wedged right between the hour and the 101 marks debates sprang up over whether or not it was even possible to give you some perspective Hazel's and old schools unfinished tool-assisted speedrun from 2015 was only attempting to cut the hour mark but shift believed that there was still room to push the game further he felt an intense grind could eventually make the sub-1 dream a reality he and the rest of the community acknowledged that any time saves coming solely from better movement would be extremely gradual at this point the game would need new strategies added with the sole intention of barely achieving a 59 thereby finishing off the progression of battle for bikini bottom any % if these wicked stress happened to work in just one run while everything else was near perfect it would be just enough for shift to become the first to beat the game in under one hour and in support of these endeavors the community rallied close behind with their own resilience having thrust their beloved title into the limelight 13 years after its initial release they knew that anything was possible yeah it's been a ride groaning Bob losing runs I guess I had to lose those runs to get to this one now some of you might still be trying to get that pace if you're trying to get out just remember you could be doing this [ __ ] ships had foreseen the hard stop for the game's progress in the one hour range and had already been working on a plan to achieve the 59 he referred to it as plan her route Z which truly encompassed the meaning of whatever it takes for the time it was implemented to achieve earlier that month shifted GaN digging into Cole's video archives once again in search of more forgotten strategies he rediscovered the older method for skipping jellyfish fields own one which lured a hammer to jump off of and activate the checkpoint at the end of the level rather than using jellyfish rock skip this method wouldn't save time enough on its own due to the significant time lost from needing a replacement for the sock on jellyfish rock he'd need to make it on September 17th shift uploaded a video called hammer skip which showcased a clean modernized hammer AI manipulation where he also jumped off the hammers head but this time set up a damage boost by inputting a frame perfect triple jump out of the boost the cliff could be cleared without waiting for spongebob to drown and respawn as a quick refresher the window to hit these types of jumps is only open for one sixtieth of a second after SpongeBob's damaged animation ends on top of that there are five different animations to react to each with different visual cues and muscle memory Cole made use of these jumps in a couple spots when he ran the game but the key difference with hammer skip was the risk factor missing the old-school fountain jump or the goo lagoon tower jump to the sock landed the player on safe ground to try again each miss only cost a few seconds with hammer skip however there was the added potential of drowning and having to reset the whole run if the one frame input was missed there was a checkpoint back up but relying on it saved such minimal time that in most cases it was the reset anyway factoring in the Sauk reroute the trick only saved eight seconds with the level of risk and execution required on top of the degree of optimization the game was already reaching the addition of this strategy would make it far more difficult to get runs going but shifts next implementation would truly test his limits so if you recall from part one the rock bottom Museum was riad to the anypercent route during the communities crying for sub 120 which was one of the many spatulas swaps in place of others throughout the run this was due to a new exploit hazal found during the summer of 2013 which allowed her to pass through the laser walls without deactivating them by grabbing the moving tire lamps she clipped right past the lasers without having to go through the museum's tedious puzzles and because of Sandy's gliding ability this character was definitely the one for the job but three years later with crews boosting having been discovered and its movement mechanics being pushed further than ever before it was time for a different approach this time shift would prove it's possible to save time clearing the museum as Sponge Bob on September 20th 2016 shift uploaded this segment and an improvement upon it later that same day that showcased the most advanced crews boost movement of its time by landing a precise bubble bounce on the rotating turret nodes it's possible to climb to the third level of the museum jump a huge gap and grab one of the moving tire lamps to clip through the wall unlike the sandy method which allowed for gliding across the gap at a nearly set altitude gravity was in full effect to make the stakes even higher any mistake between loading into the level and clipping through the laser wall would force a level reload and most of the time a run reset this is because missing a cruise boost grabbing a Ledge or even stepping out of place can cost enough time for Sponge Bob to miss the tire cycle even the window to ledge grab was tighter as the ledge get up animation automatically triggers upon grabbing and Sandy's getup animation is twice as long as SpongeBob's in order to properly clip through the lasers you must be in the ledge get up animation when colliding with them in other words SpongeBob's window to correctly grab the ledge for clipping is the size of Sandy's this along with the added difficulty of falling onto the moving ledge rather than hovering into it made this first section of the new museum strategy the most fearsome segment in the entire game thus far it had to be timed perfectly and after clipping shifts still had to go through the second part of the gauntlet having lost his crews boost from taking laser damage he now had to reach the balcony to activate another one by spacing a precise jump across the tires on the other side of the wall it's possible to skip the ledge grabbed by barely skimming the surface of them this was important to execute properly as grabbing a Ledge could cost a second and a half and outright failing would checkpoint shift on the bottom level of the museum forcing him to restart the level after making it to the balcony shift then had to nail the crews boost used for making it to the next tire which he would use to clip through the second laser wall this tyre was actually the same one used to clear the level as sandy but this time rather than just being able to slow the glide to it spongebob has to remove his crews boost drop below the tire turn 180 degrees and grab the ledge to secure the clip through the wall without a cruise boost active spongebob regains his standard turning speed which allows him to make that 180-degree turn to grab the ledge after doing so shift can grab the collectables on the other side of the second laser wall and finished the segment throughout 2016 7 of Cruze boosting segments this was the crowning jewel these jumps leaps and maneuvers allowed spongebob to meet the same cycle as sandy if done perfectly because the strategy made the same tire cycle that sandy could the only time saved came from not having to switch to sandy at the bus stop outside of the museum balloon kids were pretty scary but this was just absurd the full strategy was quickly named Sponge Bob Museum and saved merely 5 seconds off of the 80 percent run for all of that extra effort the additions of Sponge Bob Museum and hammer skip as part of route Z solidified the one flat 32 as the end of any percents on the optimized era and it marked the beginning of the runs degeneration into a showcase of desper maneuvers for barely any time save relative to what they'd expected before now world record improvements weren't expected to be greater than mere seconds and not nearly as frequent shift hoped to eventually achieve a low one our time with route Z acknowledging the many stressful weeks and months ahead on the road to the ultimate prize during this time when battled for bikini bottoms world record had finally found stability the inner circle of friends began organizing community events though Kona had announced his retirement from bfb be back in August and Jared had since gone on hiatus from streaming the community still had one of their three large channels to broadcast their next group endeavor the revival of speedrun races having been a huge motivator for completing runs during the old era the 2016 community rediscovered the fun in racing and decided to turn it up a notch instead of organizing group races for leisure like : hazel had done on SRL the new community went with a double elimination tournament format on yellow this seemed like a fitting adjustment for the community's own heightening competitive spirit in its second revival now the runners gameplay feeds were restreamed to ship's channel while friends outside the races commentated together oh my god like a frame away from death there and these streams were quite successful often peaking at over 300 viewers and creating many memorable moments and of course it introduced shifts viewers to some of the other community members that they weren't aware of while giving newer members a chance to get involved battle for bikini bottoms close-knit group of friends was evolving into an expansive community yeah I mean I was not focused by the third one I had a lot of fun though this is definitely the best set I've ever had dude you have like for almost 500 people at one point almost 500 people watching it yeah I played I played better than I ever had and how can you be upset about that and read loss deserves it anyway he's gotten a great friend with a community of runners grinding for improvement a respectably optimized world record and viewership still on the rise many were hoping the battle for bikini bottom would finally hit the big time on October 5th 2016 the community gathered in the battle for bikini bottom discord server to repeatedly refresh the games done quick submissions page after midnight the list of accepted games for hdq 2017 would finally become available having witnessed many years of cold submissions being rejected jelly especially hoped the bfv B's recent explosion in popularity would finally cause a miracle to happen and at midnight on October 6th anxiety would erupt into excitement battle for bikini bottom 80% was accepted to agdq 2017 this would be the first time bf BB or any spongebob game for that matter would be played at a game Sun quick event and though their reactions have unfortunately been lost to time legend has it the tears of joy were shed on this day after years of rejection bf BB was finally free one step closer to the dream shift would now select the commentary couch for the upcoming showcase where thousands would realize that one of their old favorites had not been left behind at this point : hazel had emerged from the shadows after hearing that their passion project had been accepted to the marathon so shifts absolute priority was to have them both by his side while showing the world how far their game had come but unfortunately due to travel complications hazel was unable to attend the event therefore the final couch for the battle for bikini bottom any percentage showcase would be jelly red moss and coal himself a union of runners across generations together for a last hurrah through hosting race marathons on ships channel the community was able to raise just enough money to crowdfund Coles trip to awesome games done quick 2017 with battle for bikini bottoms premiere in the mainstream spotlight upcoming shifts motivation to master route Z and achieve 59 was now stronger than ever his mind was now set on beating the game in under one hour before the grand showcase in January later that same month another huge step forward was made for the battle for bikini bottom community and shift stream on October 17th shifts persistence with applications had finally paid off ships come on down you're now a partnered streamers how does it feel buddy this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity shift became partnered on Twitch through streaming speedruns strat hunting and community events of exclusively battle for bikini bottom before 2016 this was an unthinkable feat but in the new era it seemed like the sky was the limit making its first appearance in April and now already partnered in October shifts dream became a symbol of battle for bikini bottoms popularity explosion throughout 2016 with the game having grown such a strong and passionate community thirteen years after its release who knew how much more was in store for it with a partnered twitch channel and a network of friends dedicated to streaming the game battle for bikini bottoms future was looking brighter than ever before ten days after the partnership announcement shift set a world record and be fbb any percent with the newly added strategies this run also showcased an exemplary spongebob museum and overall time save that proved sub one could happen within the coming months but it was clear with the execution and consistency required to save that time that it wouldn't be easy at this point battle for bikini bottoms most difficult strategies had shifted from set up based elaborate tricks into fast based movement intensive sections the museum's execution being so tight to save those 5 juicy seconds made holding paces far more difficult and the stakes were way higher after getting a run past this dreaded zone and after passing the museum shift still wasn't in the clear he still had to pass balloon kids rock skip Texas glide graveyard and Robo sponge to close out a personal best all of that combined with the added pressure of achieving the first 59 made stress levels higher than ever and that was especially clear to the viewers it took almost an entire month of grinding to improve this record as well on November 21st 2016 shipped completed in any percent run in one hour and 12 seconds a three-second personal best and also a run that no longer has video evidence this one flat 12 was never actually a world record earlier that same day shift achieved another one flat 12 that he never highlighted despite it being 1/10 of a second faster than the one you're seeing now the other one was just like this is just a better run I played better I played riskier it may not be the actual this one flat 12 is the one that's still watchable today the second one flat 12 lost 20 seconds to Robo Patrick's face three spins at this point in time the strategy for Phase three spin manipulations was still inconsistent and due to the runs new level of optimization the quality of spins in Industrial Park phase three became critical for holding fifty nine pace it seemed the game had gotten so much tighter that parts of the run previously not feared were becoming potential run ruiners due to less room for error but even so a one flat 12 of twenty seconds lost to Robo Patrick made it seem like 59 was just around the corner in the hype surrounding battle for bikini bottom continued to grow stronger not long after the one flat 12 was achieved the previous world record skyrocketed in popularity on YouTube breaking 100,000 views in just a matter of days during the Thanksgiving holiday of course many of these new eyes were curious to experience live runs of battle for bikini bottom and headed on over to twitch to watch shifts grind for the 59 among this huge influx of newcomers a good portion hadn't even seen or played the fbb before yet were enticed by its unique game play that they were now witnessing to this new passionate crowd this was how the game was meant to be played battle for bikini bottom had transcended the constraints of nostalgic reminiscence it had been reborn redefined by the gameplay and features its own community had molded upon it it had become something greater with unprecedented community growth complementing it newly updated anypercent tutorial the final months of 2016 brought battle for bikini bottom its greatest rush of new runners yet as more rallied behind the journey the grind for 59 continued with full vigour viewership rising pressure rising tension at its most palpable and it may have started getting two shifts head on December 9th he finished in one hour and four seconds unlike runs he was getting a month prior where one or two major mistakes struck the final blow this run appeared to have a lot of mistakes shifts movement was improving and some minor optimizations were added to enhance the runs potential but it seemed like he was hitting a mental wall at the 1 hour mark 59 was no longer a matter of being barely achieved with the near-perfect run has assumed months prior who was now looking extremely doable and shit's greatest adversary was himself well that and the floating wheel in the sky [Music] for all of 2016 this was the ultimate point of contention for all the fbb speedrunners yeah I had sex with some girls after I told them my new taxes fathers glide it was pretty meaningless sex Texas sponge glide had been found during the explosion of new strategies following Cruz boosting discovery in 2014 and nearly three years later it was still an enigma the runners just could not figure out what caused the glide to stick or send spongebob skydiving feet first the added pressure of having to perform after finally landing the Texas glide caused mini graveyard chokes as well as seen in the record of one flat o4 but on December 22nd shift finally got a run out of the Dutchman's graveyard entering Robo SpongeBob's slightly behind a lucky robot's bond was needed to make an early damage boost for skipping the final gauntlet inside of robust spongebob at a 50% spawn rate the alternative damage boost saves two seconds over the standard explosion boost method the potential for a new world record was at the mercy of a coin toss and by now shift had implemented a personal best playback camera to compare his current best times to his live attempts just look at how close the end of this run truly was shift P beat by one second 59 barely out of reach once again at this point shift was getting some paces with potential to improve his time by over half a minute a big PB was overdue and 59 could happen on any run but still one hour and three seconds would become the final bfv be any % world record achieved in that year battle for bikini bottom's 2016 began with hopeful retirees waiting for a miracle and finished with an expansive lively community having experienced several more than nine minutes of world-record improvement ascent showcase and games done quick a partnered stream on Twitch prospects of a sub hour run and most importantly a close group of friends whose shared love for the game would inspire runners for generations to come and although the historic year had finally reached a close the era was yet to be concluded one day after the new year shift realized that while practicing he may have found a solution for the dreaded Texas sponge glide I think I discovered the trick to making this consistent you see how the wheel moves up and down and you run out to here that's the same every time so depending on who you are and this is the reason why like you have like phases when you get it or phases when you don't get it is because as you get faster at the game you're you're approaching the wheel at a different time Sandy's dream I got a 52 I think it's highly likely to miss this on a 51 and then you got a 52 it's because you missed a cruise boost or you're standing next to the bus stop for too long I remember in my PB I stood next to the bus stuff like a half a second before I jump I think it if you slam into the wheel as it's moving up you get it every time therefore the new strategy was to jump toward the wheel the moment it started falling that way one spongebob reaches the wheel and slams it's perfectly timed to push up and against the slam and testing this theory gave evidence to its credit shift started doing runs with this new strategy and nailed the Texas sponge glide each and every time after losing countless 59s to this late-game monstrosity it appeared to have finally been solved not to mention another arcane field-based gatekeeper from the coal era had been slain without this major roadblock or fears of losing runs in Texas past the 50 minute mark shift was now fully confident in his ability to beat the game in under one hour two days later ship started his usual stream completely silent usually being so talkative it came as a surprise to the hundreds who gathered daily in hopes of witnessing the fabled 59 but shift had apparently lost his voice from illness and told everyone not to expect the run to define an era on this day and surely enough he was right they'd get both of them [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Wow can you do it again [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and okay so this is actually crazy I did not see this coming I think the only real mistake in the ron was hammer skip so this time is gonna sit for a really long time [Music] On January 4th 2017 the battle for bikini bottom community slept soundly knowing their game had finally been beaten in under one hour fifty nine before the long-awaited showcase of games done quick just as envisioned but later that same day they'd wake up to an exemplary run of route Z a sub 59:30 shift plowed through six minutes of improvement that even Cole believed was impossible at the start of the summer shift became the champion of the community's humble speedrun leaderboards but after six months 26 World Records and 4,000 attempts shift had championed battle for bikini bottom itself his crusade to uplift the game through the art of speedrunning proved that every hour minute and second of it could be cherished and that this unlikely cartoon game suddenly bestowed with so much affection still had so much more to give the battle for bikini bottom had only just begun ten days after the 59 s it would be the community's time to shine the battle for bikini bottom 80% in a gdq was scheduled for January 14th 2017 at 9 a.m. Eastern Time Cole's trip was fully funded and the other couch members were good to go things were looking good until the morning of when the run was pushed back half an hour earlier on the schedule and then half an hour earlier again with the hour long run now scheduled for 8 a.m. the community feared that many waking up to see the run at 9:00 a.m. would miss the whole thing that the turnout for the community's most coveted moment would flop but nonetheless at 8:00 a.m. shift stepped up to the plate coal red moss and jelly by his side no matter the outcome this would be historic coal and shift the phases of the game during the respective eras alongside two runners who had witnessed both revivals of the community would demonstrate how they'd elevated battle for bikini bottom beyond what anyone believes possible also you did in fact hear me say that correctly the next game is Sponge Bob Squarepants battle for bikini bottom every now and then a game inexplicably takes over the speedrun community and spongebob squarepants is one of those games suddenly found itself an entire community of players and they've really pushed the game so look forward to that coming up in just a moment all right here we are this is the day we play spongebob for the first time ever in gdq I'm shift on the couch you guys can't reduce yourselves okay I'm Cole I'm red moss I'm Joey alright and we're gonna start the run three two one go yes this is a licensed video game but you guys are gonna be entertained trust me at first try here we go really good and everyone has their own little setup for this trick too according to all known laws of aviation the sponge should not be able to fly and we got to first try we got first right oh you'd have to go through this whole process of waiting for him to slam thanks guys took a lot of practice for that one we're coming up to hate kit hey kit there it is and we're coming up and time 90-thousand watched live has shift disabled the hand on the jellyfish taxi pad curious to see with this spongebob game from 2003 had to offer and by the time shift hit the final fuse that number had doubled 180,000 watched live as shift performed the game's most iconic tricks even nailing hammer skip and spongebob museum through all to see [Applause] took us years to get this game in right cool yeah for five years we had to that's why we had to get coal out here we all raised money to bring him out coal was the original runner of this game i give us the baseline for what this game is today we probably wouldn't even none of us would be here without him right now so i like to give a shout out personal shout out the coal right here on the couch everybody give a round of applause for coal so i give a shout out to hazel she's a really talented tester and she actually was the original router for this game i also like to give shoutouts to Jerez Giants and Ringo Tongo they're both very talented runners and they care about the game a lot they really want to come here so I just like to shine out you guys were not forgotten josh is the entire community for making this possible supporting everybody and getting spongebob at a gdq who would have thought like this games really taking everybody by surprise you guys too for supporting the run was such an overwhelming success that shift was offered a personal interview an opportunity to answer tweets from viewers live immediately afterward and there were plenty of questions to be asked seeing as the gdq Twitter feed had been posting it nothing but spongebob over the past hour battle for bikini bottom had a sensation the showcase run even caught the attention of Jason Horner the lead software developer of battle for bikini bottom during his time working at heavy iron Studios back in 2003 Jason reached out to shift congratulating him on his run and expressing his happiness for his own passion project living on in the hands of its own community he was also more than willing to confirm many of the suspicions the community had about the inner workings of battle for bikini bottom even how it was developed not surprisingly Jason was the one responsible for the game smooth unique physics engine that they'd all come to love and it was no easy task getting it to that point in an effort to polish and perfect what he refers to as his favorite game he worked on throughout his career Jason went above and beyond heavy irons Call of Duty and took it upon himself to maintain 65 hour work weeks developing battle for bikini bottom Jason's extra hours served to combat the game's low budget and rush development and evidently those hours paid off it seems determination and resilience run deep in the bloodline of this unsuspecting videogame that thrived against all odds later that year even heavy iron itself acknowledged an article written about shift and the rest of the community surrounding their magnum opus but following the overwhelming success of the showcase and games done quick these wouldn't be the only developers gaining interest in battle for bikini bottom after six years of buildup battle for bikini bottom had reached heights surpassing anything its original runners could have ever dreamed of by the end of 2015 it was looking like it could only ever exist in a dream but having built a strong foundation of fascinating gameplay we now know it was only a matter of time before fresh motivation was enticed to relight the original community's torch in the end all it took to reshape their games future with sheer determination and true friendship the runners of 2016 created their own foundations for a passionate community that would thrive for years to come along the way they'd overcome many challenges and D motivators inhibiting the community from reaching its potential all while gracefully transitioning battle for bikini bottom into the and competitive era of speedrunning and needless to say they'd too made its gameplay even sicker but what felt like the natural satisfying conclusion to our story was just the midseason finale the remainder of the decade would truly test the limits of battle for bikini bottoms potential as well as the strength of its own community with their gazes aimed high they entrusted shift to lead the way but how much further could battle for bikini bottom be pushed past the sub our mark how would shift adapt to such a dramatic increase in influence and responsibilities with the communities foundations strong enough to withstand the masses of incoming exposure all of these questions and more will be answered but in due time our stories of camaraderie and personal growth will be covered in two parts to complete our saga but in the meantime we sincerely wish you the best experience with battle for bikini bottom rehydrated when we return we'll dive right into everything leading up to the announcement that made waves around the world once again ladies and gentlemen I'm SM loader see you all in the new era subscribe and ring that bell to know when parts 3 & 4 are available to watch [Music] hey b-sides the International circle-jerk of super acquaintances [ __ ] No [Laughter] [Music] some of you might be still trying to get that back hey 2024 he goes relax to last for album blue ass now now this new [ __ ] is the best effect now for coin the strategy l2p as you achieve as you achieve the trick by mashing the [ __ ] out of the ELCA do you achieve the trick by mashing the [ __ ] out of the [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] confidential sources tell me that there are 32 of a specific kind of Easter egg throughout this video if you find them all guess what you get not a goddamn thing and if you're not in the know about what I'm laying down well why should I talk to you thanks for

Channel: SHiFT

Views: 309,311

Rating: 4.9566445 out of 5

Keywords: bfbb ost, bfbb speedrun, bfbb review, bfbb rehydrated, spongebob speedrun, spongebob gdq, spongebob, bfbb speedrun tutorial, bfbb any% tutorial, cruise boost, spongebob bfbb rehydrated, world record history, shift bfbb, world record progression, bfbb speedrun 100, bfbb speedrun history, spongebob speedrun any, spongebob movie, speedrunning, speedrun, rehydrated news, rehydrated trailer, battle for bikini bottom, bfbb documentary

Id: nrOebFcXs0g

Length: 91min 55sec (5515 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 13 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/BatmanTheHorse]

good god, a 4-part series on speedrunning a spongebob game, and the first two parts are over 2.5 hours combined? I love speedrunning vids but I'm thinking this might be a stretch. Watching now :)

[u/DialgoPrima]

Alright, I was getting a little teary eyed toward the end.

[u/Meester_Tweester]

I think it's amazing how many people collaborated on this speedrun history video, and it was movie-length and high quality. It all covered just a little over a year, too! Can't wait for the next parts, might even watch some Rehydrated runs.

[u/electricmaze]

Yo, I've been waiting for this, thanks for the post.

[u/N64TEAM]

Nice thumbnail

[u/FloppyDysk]

Really proud of the bfbb community and its really cool to see friends ive developed over time have their hard work put on display.

[u/Sevatoxin]

For real I never knew why this game become popular and why there was a speedrun community around it until I watched the first 2 parts today. This is just such an awesome/wholesome story and I‘ll go to buy the Rehydrated game for my switch just to get the feeling! Awesome videos, that is all I want to say.

[u/Bratmon]

Part 1

[u/Imaproshaman]

Yay, I'm so excited!