File:Scuttlebug.png

Summary

Here, I'm using a trick called Scuttlebug Transportation. You see, like most enemies, scuttlebugs have a home, which is just a point in 3d space. And they'll patrol a certain radius around that point. So, if Mario enters that radius they will lunge at him to attack. But, unlike most other enemies, a scuttlebug's home can change positions. Because if a scuttlebug bumps into Mario, the scuttlebug's home will update to where the scuttlebug was when the collision occurred. So, by strategically luring the scuttlebug to the edge of its radius and bumping into it, we can effectively transport the scuttlebug and its home. So, that's what I'm doing here. Note that we can't actually transport a scuttlebug to outside of its native room. They actually get stuck at the door. So, if your dream was to bring all the scuttlebugs together for one big jamboree, I'm sorry but it's not gunna happen. Also worth noting is that scuttlebugs will actually disappear if they walk into a wall while too far below their current home. So, I do have to be careful to avoid that. It's pretty weird if you've never seen it before but I'm pretty sure they did it so that if a scuttlebug jumps into a hole, it wouldn't just walk around down there. Anyway, I'm transporting the scuttlebug to the corner right below the Watch For Rolling Rocks star. Because next, I do a trick called Scuttlebug Raising and here's how it works. On the left I show a bird's eye view of the scene and on the right, I show a view from the side. Now, when Mario leaves the Rolling Rocks room, the scuttlebug deactivates. That's because the room and everything in it are only active when Mario is in the room or standing in a small region right outside the door, indicated here in yellow. So, if Mario isn't in the Rolling Rocks room or in the yellow region, then the room will be completely black and everything in the room will be invisible and won't move. Conveniently, this allows us to raise the scuttlebug by preforming the following steps. First, Mario enters the scuttlebug's radius. Although the scuttlebug is invisible and can't move around, it can still turn towards Mario and activate a lunge. Then, Mario leaves the radius and the scuttlebug returns to facing its home. Next, Mario enters the yellow region to activate the scuttlebug. The scuttlebug will preform the lunge that it started but cleverly, we have Mario exit the yellow region right when the scuttlebug is at the peak of its trajectory. Thereby deactivating it so it won't fall down. And finally, since the scuttlebug moves past its home, it turns around to face its home once more. Now, we gotten all the height we could out of the scuttlebug's current lunge, but that's no problem because we could just activate another lunge by repeating this procedure. Activate a lunge while the scuttlebug is deactivated, reactivate the scuttlebug just for the upwards portion of its trajectory, and then repeat. As simple as that. So that's what I do here. And I have a second screen to show it from the scuttlebug's perspective. Fortunately, the scuttlebug's radius isn't a sphere but a cylinder that extends up and down infinitely. So really, no matter how high the scuttlebug gets, we can continue to enter its area to activate its lunges and move it upwards. There's no limit to how high we can raise it. Now, it's worth noting that I only activate the scuttlebug while I'm not inside its radius, so the scuttlebug will always lunge towards its home and not towards Mario. This causes the scuttlebug to effectively travel straight up above its home. But alternatively, I could've activated the scuttlebug while inside of its radius, and in that case the scuttlebug would always lunge towards Mario instead of towards its home. So it would actually make its way towards the door and then travel straight up from there. That means it's actually a little faster because we wouldn't have to wait for the scuttlebug to turn back towards its home before each activation. However, it wouldn't work for what we're doing because we need the scuttlebug to be right next to that corner.