Ocarina of Time Running Man Time Paradox

[Peace Of Heart]

You know the running man right? The one with the unbecoming short pants?

Yeah, him.

Anyway I just saw a Youtube video showing someone beating the Running man in OoT to the bridge in the Lost Woods. As many of you know, it was before thought impossible to beat him because right when you entered the lost woods you always just caught a glimpse of him sitting down. No matter how fast you were, he was always there first.

Apparently this individual discovered a way to beat the running man without cheating because Nintendo programmed this into the game.

To be honest, this creeps me out a little. Because in order to beat the running man, you have to start the timer as Adult Link and turn back into Young Link while the timer was still going. Then you have to go to the unfinished Gerudo Valley bridge and wait there for 7 in-game years. Which would be around 2556 days in the game and about a week in real life! After the seven years is up, Young link automatically transforms into Adult Link, and when you go to the bridge the running man will say that your time is "-00"01"" saying that it's a time paradox.

The creepiness comes in from the possible fact that Nintendo programmed this, waiting for someone to leave their N64 running for a full week to find this. Never before have I seen a gaming company leave a piece of code in such an isolated space in a game.

Finding these kinds of stuff is amazingly fun, but I don't want to spend a week watching time pass slowly by in the game.

I mean, given Nintendo's limitation for OoT(64-bits) I would completely dismiss the possibility of Nintendo coding something that resembles real life time passing.

Please discuss your thoughts, this is truly a remarkable thing to think about.

Here is the Youtube video I watched:

 

[Crono]

Dude this is soooo fake lol. It was simply a hacked copy of OoT. Nintendo themselves has stated there is no way of beating the running man. And come on now, leave the game on for a week and Link will become Adult Link? Don't think so.

 

[Hylian Knight]

'Twas definitely a hacked copy because Guess what I've actually done what ur saying in your thread to do yeah I actually left the game on for a week and YL didn't turn into AL becuase I figured like you said how long 7 In-game years would be. Also this is when I was 11 and didn't know Zd existed becasue I jioned Sept this year.

 

[Peace Of Heart]

Dude this is soooo fake lol. It was simply a hacked copy of OoT. Nintendo themselves has stated there is no way of beating the running man. And come on now, leave the game on for a week and Link will become Adult Link? Don't think so.

Thank goodness! I'm actually relieved to find out that it's fake. Thanks for informing me . I'm a very gullible person believe it or not....

'Twas definitely a hacked copy because Guess what I've actually done what ur saying in your thread to do yeah I actually left the game on for a week and YL didn't turn into AL becuase I figured like you said how long 7 In-game years would be. Also this is when I was 11 and didn't know Zd existed becasue I jioned Sept this year.

Hahaha! lol! There is no way that I would try this, even if it was real lol.

By the way, what do you guys mean he had a hacked "copy"? Did someone hack the cartridge itself and sell it or what? O_O

 

[Hylian Knight]

I've done that yeah left the game for a week not touching nor did it freeze and YL didn't turn into AL and I was 11 when I did this so I didn't know ZD even existed if it did when I was that young. (Yes I that much of geek to figure out how long 7 Years was in actual in game time and still that much of geek just ask 1 of these Users: Hylian Hero, Oranguin, Mikau Incarnate though Incarnate is your best bet cuz he comes on more than the rest)

 

[ConsoleGamesFTW]

don't understand how you could have a hacked copy of the game...knew it was fake as soon as I saw the young link transforming into adult link thing (lol)

 

[the_gamer]

Hey, it is possible. Last week I got it. You have to get younger and stay on the bridge in Kokiri Forest for 7years in real life. When the running man comes he is so astonished that you're first, he gives you the triforce! I wished to win in the lottery in real life and it worked without me taking part! Really worth it!

 

[insanity76]

Something interesting about the video is that if you look in the comments, there's nobody calling him out saying it doesn't work after they tried it, and multiple comments saying they tried it and it worked.

Possibly it really is real, or possibly (likely) the creator had multiple youtube friends "verify" that it works then deletes the comments of other people who call it out to be fake.

At any rate, I definitely call BS on this.
1) Why didn't he include video footage of Link transforming from child to adult? Surely that happens right before the Running Man arrives, so video length wouldn't be an issue.
2) So you go back in time, then wait on the Kokiri Forest bridge for 2556 days to pass, and Link transforms from Child to Adult. He said he did this without using the Sun's Song to advance the days faster. Well, time doesn't pass on its own on the bridge.
3) He admitted in a comment using the infinite bomb/arrow cheat on the emulator when someone brought that up (they noticed he has 9 arrows), but we're supposed to believe he didn't use a hack for this? Seriously ...

Adding a 4th .. he's got consistency issues with his story.

In one comment he says: I'm not sure. I did this entire thing without turning the game off once from start to finish. I set the race up, went back in time, stood outside the entrance to the Lost Woods in Hyrule Field, left the game on, and went and had a life for the rest of the week as I waited for seven game years to pass.

Then in a later comment he says: Not quite. This was on an emulator. I turned "Limit FPS" off, which made the game run about 10 times faster than usual. I waited less than a day in real time, and then captured what you see in the second half of my video. If you were to do this on an N64, you would have to wait the full 7 days due to a lack of a Limit FPS feature.

So yeah he's clearly full of it.

 

[@lex MM]

Nah, this isn't real.
To beat the running man, you have to beat the game three times(without any deaths), go to Hyrule Field, warp to Temple of Time, change to Young and Adult Link twice, then go to the Market, kill two Re-deads, warp to Death Mountain, burn your self, die, go to Gerudo Valley, jump to the lake, do three circles around Hyrule Field and only then the running man will tell you you beat him.

See, it's that easy.

 

[Austin]

@Peace of Heart

First thing, don't diss the N64. It had a 64 bit processor, which is impressive to see in a video game console. Especially, for a console almost 10 years old. Most computers now day have a 32 bit processor. For a video game console to have 64 bit, it's a lot. That being said, to simulate real time passing, its not impossible for the N64. It only requires some minor math equation to feed the processor, and a timer.

Timers in computers work relatively simple. When you look a computer processors, you'll always see something like ### ghz or mhz, where ### is some number. For example N64's processor ran 93.75 mhz. This means that for every second, the processor will had ran 93.75 ticks/cylces million or 93, 750, 000 ticks/cycles. The N64 will just increment a number every 93.75 millionth tick/cylce. This would seem pretty heavy on the processor to do real time. we know how many ticks it takes for one second to be incremented, let a lone for 7 years to be incremented. Nintendo, having smart programmers (who know math), they did a conversion of seconds to days or years.

You claim that for 7 years to pass in the video game, it takes 7 days (without the use of the MS). There is roughly a conversion of 1 day to 1 year. This is roughly 236.71 seconds per day. They have 93.75 million ticks/cycles per second to work with, thus its not too difficult to simulate a decimal value of seconds for a day. However, they most likely don't have this precision to set up because its not needed to simulate what they wanted. I'm pretty sure its not, because it takes more then 3.93 minutes for the night time to come in Hyrule field, but then again I may be wrong. On a side note, for Nintendo to program that secret wasn't as hard as you may think. If you're curious why, you can pm me, and I'll try and explain.

My final point is, when you have a 64 bit machine and 93.75 million cylces a second to work with, you can use a time conversion to simulate real time. It may not be super precise, but it can be close enough to work. I'm impressed that the guy actually let his game run for 7 days. I, personally, would run an emulation and edit the memory value of the timer, but that takes more work. Nice work finding this cool secret.

 

[Crono]

Also the fact that this same Youtube users claimed to have found the Sky Temple or whatever. It isnt the Sky or Light Temple, but it does exist in the game as an beta area found in the Sacred Forest Meadow, not in Zora's Domain.

 

[TheHeroOfLime]

Also the fact that this same Youtube users claimed to have found the Sky Temple or whatever. It isnt the Sky or Light Temple, but it does exist in the game as an beta area found in the Sacred Forest Meadow, not in Zora's Domain.

Yeah, I watched both of these videos. The running man was just a text hack (much like many Super Mario 64 text hacks you see nowadays,) and his "Light Temple" is, as you said, a grotto found in the actual game. I wouldn't trust this dude.

 

[butterbiscuit]

In my opinion, this has to be fake. Insanity76 pretty much pointed everything out. But also, another reason why this can't be is that if you really could let your game sit there for a week and you'd be an adult, it would completely mess up the game. Why?

Well, mainly because if this was true people could do it before they are supposed to get the Master Sword and would have skipped over the earlier portion of the game with the three dungeons to get the Goron Ruby, Kokiri's Emerald, (Well, maybe not the emerald as time doesn't really pass in the Lost Woods) and the Zora's Sapphire. As I said, this would really mess with the game as you would not have met Ruto or Big Brother (I think that's his name?...), making it so Ruto would not appear to you in the Water Temple and such.

They could have just blocked off the ability to do it before you got the Master Sword entirely, but I don't think the programmers would take the time to do it.

All in all, I have to believe this is fake.

 

[Ice6661]

unless they had footage of link running to the bridge and the time and everything then i'd believe it
until that is shown i say that its fake.

 

[butterbiscuit]

You are mistaken, video games don't work that way, atleast old ones dont./

For example, if I open an emulator and make up a code for Oot to be warped to the Water Temple while I still haven't beat the first boss, Ruto would still meet me there, as if I did everything accordingly.

True, but this would still cause a lot of glitches in the game such as with the "Master Sword Early Glitch" on TP. i just think that the programmers of the game would notice this and ultimately take out the possibility for a natural passing of seven years.