From the bizarre speedrunner tricks department. A problem with 100% speedruns of N64 Ocarina of Time is getting all the Heart Pieces. One of them, from the Graveyard, can only be obtained by being dug up during Dampé’s tour, which not only costs rupees for each try but is completely (pseudo-)random, and only has a 10% chance per play to be found.
One of those gimmicks that your really obsessive speedrunners will do is try to game pseudo-random number generation by observing the state of other random events, and using them to try to deduce when a desired outcome will occur. They’ve discovered how to do this by watching how often Dampé the gravekeeper blinks his eyes. (6 minutes)
Dampé blinks in sequences of three or four. By noting the order in which these sequences come and feeding them into a program, runners can narrow down the state of the RNG seed, and discover a moment when the Piece of Heart is certain to be dug up.
If you think that seems crazy… I thought I had posted about it before but I can’t find it, so may I introduce to the bizarre story of Splish-Kaboom in Wind Waker…. (25 minutes)
