Cassie Gardner 
As expected, it didn’t take long for the Super Mario 64 120-Star speedrun category to get a new world record thanks to the newest trick carpetless.
Speedrunning has been in the news a lot lately and not just because of AGDQ 2024’s game announcements. Once again, the world record for the 120-star speedrun category in Super Mario 64 has been broken, this time by Twitch streamer Karin while making use of the carpetless maneuver. Completing the run at 1:37:32, Karin has taken two seconds off the previous world record set by puncayshun only five days ago.
Carpetless is the newest trick for Super Mario 64 speedrunners, allowing those doing the 120-star run to completely skip the last auto-scroller portion of the game. As speedrunners get better at accurately pulling off carpetless, more and more time will be shaved off the world record. There are hundreds of speedrunners working towards perfecting carpetless, meaning that even this newest record could be broken again in a short time.
Why is the Super Mario 64 120-star speedrun record being broken so much?
The Super Mario 64 120-star category world record is being broken so often due to the new carpetless maneuver.
Carpetless is a method to skip the last auto-scroller level in Super Mario 64, where the player rides a flying carpet to get the last star. Without needing to do the auto-scroller portion, speedrunners can save up to 45 seconds on their run. Since this trick is incredibly difficult and requires extremely precise inputs, it is still difficult to pull off. As speedrunners get better at carpetless, the world record time will continue to go down.
This has long been the “holy grail” trick for the 120-star run. It wasn’t until 2019 that a possible solution was found. In September 2023, a consistently achievable method for the trick was discovered and utilized.
As speedrunners learn to perform the frame-perfect carpetless move, more time will be taken off the resulting world records. There is a high likelihood that the record will continue to see small increments shaved off.
Just getting to the location to perform carpetless takes an incredible number of well-timed maneuvers, perfected after years of practice. Even if a speedrunner is able to get to the location of the carpetless trick, they must do so within the time frame to still make a world record possible.
What is the new world record?
Karin holds the Super Mario 64 120-star speedrun with a time of 1:37:32.
Twitch streamer Karin took two seconds off the previous world record that was set by puncayshun just five days prior. With so many speedrunners actively working on getting better at the game, it’s only a matter of time before Karin will be dethroned as well.
As the second most popular game to speedrun, Super Mario 64 doesn’t hurt for competition between the best of the best. As players get more comfortable with the mechanics of carpetless, there should be no doubt that the world record will be beaten again in short order.
