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SethBling (born April 3, 1987) is an American video game commentator and Twitch video game live streamer known for YouTube videos focused around the 1990 side-scrolling platform video game '' Super Mario World'' and the 2011
sandbox A sandbox is a sandpit, a wide, shallow playground construction to hold sand, often made of wood or plastic. Sandbox or Sand box may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Sandbox (band), a Canadian rock music group * Sandbox ( ...
video game '' Minecraft''. He created original and derivative video games, devices and phenomena in ''Minecraft'', without using ''Minecraft'' mods. He created an interpreter for the programming language
BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
and an emulator for the 1977 home video game console Atari 2600 in ''Minecraft''. In addition to ''Minecraft'' builds that run without mods, he created
plugins Plug-in, plug in or plugin may refer to: * Plug-in (computing) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. ** Audio plug-in, adds audio signal processing features ** Photoshop plugin, a piece of software t ...
for the game. SethBling wrote artificial intelligence programs that play ''Super Mario World'', '' Super Mario Bros.'' and ''
Super Mario Kart ''Super Mario Kart'' is a Kart racing game, kart racing video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The first game in the Mario Kart, ''Mario Kart'' series, it was released in Japan and North Ameri ...
''. He held a world record of 41.35 seconds for ''Super Mario World'' until June 2020, and a former world record for '' The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild''. He achieved the world record for ''Super Mario World'' by using a glitch that enabled him to execute arbitrary code and skip to the game's credits. In 2015, he was the first to do so on a home video game console. He injected code to play a ''
Flappy Bird ''Flappy Bird'' is a mobile game developed by the Vietnamese video game artist and programmer Dong Nguyen ( vi, Nguyễn Hà Đông), under his game development company .Gears. The game is a side-scroller where the player controls a bird, attemp ...
''-like game within ''Super Mario World'' on a stock
Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...
. He was the first to perform this kind of arbitrary code execution by hand. In 2017, Cooper Harasyn and SethBling created a
jailbreak A prison escape (referred as a bust out, breakout, jailbreak, or prison break) is the act of an inmate leaving prison through unofficial or illegal ways. Normally, when this occurs, an effort is made on the part of authorities to recapture the ...
by hand using exploits to save a hex editor onto a read-only memory cartridge, allowing for creation of mods.


Early life

SethBling was raised Jewish, but has since become an atheist. He decided that he was an atheist sometime around when he was in elementary school, but "played along" through high school. SethBling's nickname is derived from his AIM screen name in high school. SethBling started out programming his calculator in middle school and wrote "lots of" games throughout high school, including an
MUD A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...
. SethBling wrote in 2012 that C# was his favorite programming language. SethBling worked as a software engineer at Microsoft for three years, where he worked on Xbox, and for four months on Bing. SethBling said that his work at Xbox had not been related to video games, and that he had worked on the Xbox version of Internet Explorer, and on
Xbox SmartGlass The Xbox app is an app for Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows 11, Android, iOS and Tizen. It acts as a companion app for Xbox video game consoles, providing access to Xbox network community features, remote control, as well as second screen functi ...
, a mobile phone app for remotely controlling an Xbox console.


Video games

SethBling played ''
Super Mario Bros. 3 ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was released for home consoles in Japan on October 23, 1988, in North America on February 12, 1990 and in Europe on ...
'' when he was five or six. '' Super Mario World'' was "one of the hot games" of his childhood.:67 SethBling had the
Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...
home video game console, and played a lot of ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' on it.:68 SethBling started playing '' Minecraft'' around September 2010, after college, after his roommate told him about it. The sandbox aspect was "very appealing" to SethBling, as he played MUDs in middle school and high school. SethBling thought the game was "really cool" and played it for about a month, after which he was "done with this game". A few months later, he bought a new computer and decided to play ''Minecraft'' again. SethBling got into the technical community and was quick to discover redstone, a programmable resource in ''Minecraft'', and began uploading videos of his creations to YouTube weeks later. SethBling was inspired to use redstone in ''Minecraft'' because he wanted to build a minecart station. Inspired by other YouTube videos about ''Minecraft'', SethBling created his first few videos to "better get ismoney's worth" from the screen recording utility
Fraps Fraps (derived from frames per second) is a benchmarking, screen capture and screen recording utility for Windows developed by Beepa. It can capture from software that uses DirectX and OpenGL, such as PC games. Operation Fraps is proprietary and ...
he bought. SethBling initially uploaded videos on YouTube in order to share his creations on Reddit. He did not expect to gain subscribers as a small channel with only a few videos. SethBling's YouTube channel greatly increased in popularity when ''Minecraft'' creator Markus Persson shared one of SethBling's videos on Twitter. According to SethBling, he "almost never" played on consoles despite working at Xbox. Working at Microsoft, SethBling would spend almost all his free evenings and weekends playing ''Minecraft''. SethBling quit his job at Microsoft around April 2012 because of his YouTube channel's success and has been independent since.:65


''Minecraft'' career

Unless stated otherwise, all ''Minecraft'' builds mentioned in this section run on unmodded ''Minecraft'', except modified block textures.


2011–2012

In 2011, SethBling recreated '' Duck Hunt'' using freshly introduced bow-charging mechanics in ''Minecraft''. '' Engadget'' Jordan Mallory wrote that SethBling's replica " anagesto capture the innocence and nostalgia of our 8-bit youths". In February 2012, SethBling recreated the 1964 toy ''
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots ''Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots'' is a two-player action toy and game designed by Marvin Glass and Associates and was first manufactured by the Marx toy company in 1964. It features two dueling robot boxers, Red Rocker and Blue Bomber, mechanically ...
'', which consists of a red and a blue robot, within ''Minecraft''. Mike Fahey of ''
Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...
'' praised the mechanics and described the robots as "movable though somewhat janky". In March 2012, FVDisco and SethBling created Super Pirate Battle Royale, a ''Minecraft'' minigame for two teams where the goal is to sink the other team's ship using TNT. Also in 2012, SethBling created SkyGrid, a ''Minecraft'' map consisting of blocks only on every fourth coordinate in each axis. In September 2012, SethBling and survival map maker Hypixel, the creator of the popular server
Hypixel Hypixel, officially the Hypixel Network, is a ''Minecraft'' minigame server released on April 13, 2013, by Simon "Hypixel" Collins-Laflamme and Philippe Touchette, and is managed and run by Hypixel Inc. Hypixel is only available on the Java ...
, recreated gameplay, maps, and the eight player classes from the first-person shooter (FPS) '' Team Fortress 2'', within ''Minecraft''. Each player class has its own perks, and can be changed during the game. ''Minecraft'' creator Markus Persson called the recreations "the most fun and impressive" in a 2013 interview with
CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...
.


2013–2014

In February 2013, SethBling made a mechanical bull in ''Minecraft''. Also in February, SethBling recreated the 1981 arcade game '' Donkey Kong'' and its introductory cutscene in ''Minecraft''. In the original ''Donkey Kong'', players have to avoid falling barrels, but in SethBling's version, they have to avoid minecarts. Three months later, SethBling created an air hockey minigame for two players in ''Minecraft''. It consists of a rink and an endlessly sliding object made of many minecarts. SethBling's minigames have been featured on Minecraft Realms. One of them is Blocks vs. Zombies, a 2013 co-op tower defense minigame in which players shoot arrows to defeat incoming zombies in a trench. As players gain killstreaks, they may purchase upgraded weapons, arrow-shooting towers, barriers and traps for zombies. The game ends when a zombie pushes another zombie over the front edge of the field. Julian Benson of ''
PCGamesN ''PCGamesN'' is a British online video game magazine focusing on PC gaming and hardware. It has a full-time team of over a dozen writers and is the oldest owned-and-operated site within publishing group Network N. History Parent company Netw ...
'' said that the minigame takes the "stronghold mentality" of ''
Plants vs. Zombies ''Plants vs. Zombies'' is a video game franchise developed by PopCap Games, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts (EA). The series follows the affiliates of David "Crazy Dave" Blazing as they use his plants to defend against a zombie invasion, led b ...
'', the traps of ''
Orcs Must Die! ''Orcs Must Die!'' is an action-tower defense video game developed and published by Robot Entertainment and Mastertronic. It is a tower defense game that eschews the traditional top-down view of similar games, instead using a third-person action- ...
'', and the upgrade system of the FPS '' Killing Floor''. SethBling recreated the incremental game '' Cookie Clicker'', released earlier in 2013. In 2014, SethBling recreated the
sandbox A sandbox is a sandpit, a wide, shallow playground construction to hold sand, often made of wood or plastic. Sandbox or Sand box may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Sandbox (band), a Canadian rock music group * Sandbox ( ...
video game ''
Goat Simulator ''Goat Simulator'' is a third-person perspective action video game developed and published by Coffee Stain Studios. It was released for Microsoft Windows in April 2014, and ports for Linux and OS X were released in June 2014. Mobile versions fo ...
'' and the puzzle game '' Bejeweled'' in ''Minecraft''. SethBling also recreated a spinning
Stargate ''Stargate'' (often stylized in all caps) is a military science fiction media franchise based on the Stargate (film), film directed by Roland Emmerich, which he co-wrote with producer Dean Devlin. The franchise is based on the idea of an alien E ...
, a moving
sand wave A sand wave is a lower regime sedimentary structure that forms across from tidal currents. Formation Sand waves are formed through the action of the wind or water (through waves or tidal currents). Sand waves form also underwater. See also ...
and the Microsoft Office assistant Clippy. In early 2014, SethBling wrote a
pickpocketing Pickpocketing is a form of larceny that involves the stealing of money or other valuables from the person or a victim's pocket without them noticing the theft at the time. It may involve considerable dexterity and a knack for Misdirection (magic ...
plugin for Bukkit called BlingPickpocket. In May 2014, SethBling created a ''Minecraft'' portal which renders a portion of the other dimension behind it. In late 2014, SethBling and ''Minecraft'' YouTuber Cubehamster created a minigame called Missile Wars where players from two teams spawn missiles to break through the opposite team's wall. The idea came from having a fight between two Cubehamster's Mega Gargantuas, giant robots with cannons and "missile launchers". The robots could shoot flame arrows, launch TNT blocks and shoot down incoming missiles. After the Mega Gargantua fight, Cubehamster wanted them to "turn tinto a game which focuses on firing missiles at each other and trying to blow them up". In Missile Wars, players receive items which they can use to spawn missiles, and blow up, stop and defuse incoming missiles. Players can jump on missiles and ride them across the playfield. Cubehamster said that "subtle techniques" involving missile mechanics had made the game popular. According to Cubehamster, Missile Wars was built in two weeks and thoroughly tested afterwards. The game was featured on Minecraft Realms. As a nod to Microsoft's 2014 acquisition of Mojang, SethBling recreated basic functionality of ''Minecraft'' in Microsoft Excel, which included navigation and crafting.


2015–2016

In 2015, SethBling created a ''Minecraft'' version of '' Splatoon'' Turf Wars mode. The ''Splatoon'' minigame is similar to the Wii U game, in that two teams of up to four players compete to paint as much of the ground and walls as possible in three minutes. SethBling got help from PyroPuncher because he had never played ''Splatoon'' on console. The ''Minecraft'' version features three of ''Splatoon'' main weapons. In 2015, SethBling worked with Verizon to create a web browser and to introduce text messaging and video calling functionality to ''Minecraft''. In 2016, SethBling made an interpreter for the programming language
BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
in ''Minecraft''. Programming many ''Minecraft'' command blocks to run the interpreter took him two weeks. The interpreter is slow and its speed declines with continued use; that is because ''Minecraft'' has a clock rate of 20 ticks per second. For example, printing a single character with the interpreter takes 20 seconds. The build features a virtual keyboard; a whiteboard, which displays the code; and a programmable turtle, which can mine and place blocks. In late 2016, SethBling built an emulator for the 1977 home video game console, Atari 2600, in ''Minecraft''. The emulator has 64  kB of functional random-access memory (RAM) which can be edited on the fly, and a functional
8-bit In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) arc ...
microprocessor based on the MOS Technology 6502; it also has functional and importable read-only memory (ROM). SethBling had the emulator run the original Atari 2600 read-only memory cartridges for the games '' Space Invaders'', ''
Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...
'', and '' Donkey Kong''. The ROM cartridge contains four kilobytes of data; each bit of RAM and ROM is represented by a ''Minecraft'' block. More than two thousand command blocks comprise the emulator's processor. The emulator is slow: the
Assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
-based processor can complete only 20 instructions per second; in contrast, Atari's processor can execute 510,000 instructions per second (0.51  MIPS). While the Atari 2600 renders graphics at 60 frames , SethBling's emulator renders graphics at 60 frames on a virtual screen. The emulator does not have a controller, so games cannot be played on it. SethBling created a resource pack for ''Minecraft'' Pocket Edition Alpha, which was released in October 2016. The "Add-On" was titled Castle Siege Battle and was criticized by ''Kotaku'' Robert Gurthrie for causing glitches.


2018–present

In January 2019, SethBling sped up the Atari 2600 emulator to a rendering speed of one frame per second. It then took him around fifteen minutes to "technically" tie the world record of 5.57 seconds for the racing video game '' Dragster''.


''Super Mario'' career


Speedrunning

Until June 2020, SethBling held the world record of 41.35 seconds for the Credits Warp Any% speedrun category of ''Super Mario World''. Players can use glitches to modify the game's RAM values, allowing them to write
assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
code. When executed via arbitrary code execution, the code allows players to skip directly from the first level to the credits without having to defeat the game's
boss Boss may refer to: Occupations * Supervisor, often referred to as boss * Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier * Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization * Fire boss, a ...
. In 2015, SethBling was the first to execute the Credits Warp glitch on a home video game console, with a time of five minutes and 59 seconds, after Twitch streamer JeffW356 had successfully executed the glitch on an emulator. SethBling executed the glitch for the first time on console minutes after a ''Super Mario World'' world record was set without using arbitrary code execution. By successfully executing the glitch on a Super NES console, SethBling validated the faster, emulator run by JeffW356. SethBling used four controllers via two
Super Multitap The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...
devices to finish the game in under one minute. He left specific buttons on the controllers pushed down to manipulate memory bytes and write certain code. In the game, SethBling executed certain actions and pixel-precise moves like duplicating Yoshi blocks and launching a red shell at a specific pixel. SethBling holds a former world record for '' The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild'' without use of in-game unlockable bonuses enabled by
Amiibo (, ; officially stylized as amiibo; plural: ''Amiibo'') is a toys-to-life platform by Nintendo, which was launched in November 2014. It consists of a wireless communications and storage protocol for connecting figurines to the Wii U, Ninten ...
figurines, saying in 2017 that using the unlockables is "seen by casual audience members as 'cheating', but they also currently don't affect the run that much." In 2017, SethBling told ''Kotaku'', "When I touch a game, I want to understand it."


Neural networks

In June 2015, SethBling wrote an artificial intelligence (AI) program called MarI/O that plays '' Super Mario World''. The program is based on neuroevolution of augmenting topologies; thus, it generates
neural networks A neural network is a network or circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up of biological ...
using
genetic algorithm In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to gene ...
s. MarI/O is only given the
level Level or levels may refer to: Engineering *Level (instrument), a device used to measure true horizontal or relative heights *Spirit level, an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical *Canal pound or level *Regr ...
layout and the positions of obstacles, and is incentivized to emulate the fitness function moving as far to the right as possible, and as fast as possible. MarI/O tries 300 genomes per evolutionary generation, separated into species. Each genome produces a neural network, and only the most fit genomes are bred into the next generation. SethBling ran the program, and after 34 generations, which lasted 24 hours, MarI/O finished a level by spin-jumping through the entire level and avoiding all
power-up In video games, a power-up is an object that adds temporary benefits or extra abilities to the player character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a permanent benefit that can be used at any time chosen ...
s and enemies. MarI/O displays a graphical rendering of its underlying structure. A week later SethBling trained MarI/O to play '' Super Mario Bros.'' The program was not able to complete the first level of ''Super Mario Bros.'' because of complicated spatial movements required to jump over obstacles. MarI/O continuously played ''Super Mario Bros.'' for over 17 days. In November 2017, SethBling built a recurrent neural network to play ''
Super Mario Kart ''Super Mario Kart'' is a Kart racing game, kart racing video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The first game in the Mario Kart, ''Mario Kart'' series, it was released in Japan and North Ameri ...
''. He trained the program, MariFlow, with video footage in which he plays ''Super Mario Kart'' so that the program learns how to recover from dead-end situations. The video footage used for training MariFlow contains interactive sessions in which SethBling occasionally takes control of the character. MariFlow's goal is to emulate the video footage as closely as possible during gameplay.


Other ventures

In March 2016, SethBling injected ''
Flappy Bird ''Flappy Bird'' is a mobile game developed by the Vietnamese video game artist and programmer Dong Nguyen ( vi, Nguyễn Hà Đông), under his game development company .Gears. The game is a side-scroller where the player controls a bird, attemp ...
''-like code written by p4plus2 into unmodified ''Super Mario World'' RAM on a stock
Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...
with a stock cartridge, in under an hour. SethBling first extended the level timer and used a power-up incrementation glitch to allow external code to run. He added code to display Mario's x-coordinate which acted as memory locations in the code he was writing. SethBling then created a bootloader to be able to launch the ''Flappy Bird''-like code that he would later write into unused memory with precise Mario movements and spin-jumping. SethBling used two Super Multitap devices in order to use multiple controllers, which had several buttons pressed down. The arbitrary code execution setup that SethBling used was discovered by MrCheeze. ''Super Mario World'' had been modified to emulate other games before by automatically feeding pre-recorded controller input into the console via a computer, but SethBling was the first to do it exclusively by hand. SethBling and Cooper Harasyn placed a full hex editor and gameplay mods onto a stock ''Super Mario World'' cartridge in May 2017, only using standard controller inputs. Harasyn discovered an
exploit Exploit means to take advantage of something (a person, situation, etc.) for one's own end, especially unethically or unjustifiably. Exploit can mean: * Exploitation of natural resources *Exploit (computer security) * Video game exploit *Exploita ...
that lets a player write data to 256-byte save files that are permanently stored on a ''Super Mario World'' cartridge. The data can be arranged so that the game is jailbroken every time it starts up. Harasyn and SethBling used the exploit to create a compact, on-screen hex editor, loadable from a save file. A player can edit the system RAM through the hex editor to alter the game state. In-game mods, such as support for the
Super NES Mouse The Super NES Mouse, sold as the in Japan, is a peripheral created by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It was first released on July 14, 1992, in Japan, in August 1992 in North America, and on December 10, 1992, in Europe. O ...
and giving Mario telekinesis powers, can be written to a save file using the hex editor. On December 5, 2015, SethBling acted as a coach in "Clash of Karts:
Mario Kart 8 is a 2014 kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii U. It features the '' Mario Kart'' series' game mechanics, in which players drive go-karts using ''Mario'' franchise characters in various race formats. Items placed ...
", a one-hour
eSports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
special on Disney XD.


See also

* ROM hacking * Speedrunning * '' Minecraft''


Notes


References


External links


YouTube channel

Profile
on
Speedrun.com Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and can exploit glit ...

SethBling's Twitch.tv channel
{{good article American YouTubers People from Seattle Twitch (service) streamers Gaming YouTubers YouTube channels launched in 2006 Video game speedrunners Living people 1987 births Jewish American entertainers Microsoft employees American software engineers 21st-century atheists American atheists Mario players Minecraft YouTubers