PangaeaPanga

Alex Tan (born: ),https://twitter.com/PangaeaPanga/status/1503247309794164746 better known online as PangaeaPanga (or simply Panga, formerly penangbenny) is an American Twitch streamer, ROM hacker and speedrunner. Alex is best known for his extremely difficult Super Mario World ROM hack, Super Dram World, and his Pit of Panga series in Super Mario Maker, including the P-Break and U-Break levels.
==Personal life==
Alex W. Tan was born on March 13, 1996 in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, and is a graduate of Rocky Hill High School, where he currently holds the 800-meter and 1,000-meter run records. His fastest mile run clocks in at 4:23.13. In 2018, he graduated the University of Connecticut School of Business with a degree in MI systems, and was an NCAA Division I runner for the UConn Huskies.
== ROM hacks ==
Through ROM hacking, Alex has been able to make some of the most difficult Super Mario World hacks ever created, the most famous of which being Item Abuse 3. Aside from this frame-perfect monstrosity, he has created 3 full games using SMW hacking. Inspired by the Kaizo Mario World series, these games are titled Super Dram World, Super Dram World 2, and Super Foss World.
== Super Mario World speedruns ==
In 2015, Alex was the world-record holder for Super Mario World, using arbitrary code execution to beat the game in 1 minute and 38 seconds. However, the record has since been beaten. In June of that same year, Alex began playing SMW while blindfolded, and completed a full run just eight days later. He stated that he had gotten the idea from DavisKongCountry, a small YouTuber who played portions of the same game that way. Alex stated that he was able to beat SMW blindfolded by memorizing an easy and consistent route and using in-game musical cues that let him know when to carry out certain actions. The run took about 23 minutes, despite some mistakes being made.
On July 20, 2016, Alex had his world record beaten with an astonishing 17:46. However, he took back the record on August 8 with a time of 15:59 on the Japanese release. Unfortunately, his record was once again beaten on May 24, 2017, with a time of 13:31. 
== Super Mario Maker ==
In 2015, Super Mario Maker was released for the Wii U, becoming a hotbed for some of the craziest hand-made Super Mario levels, with PangaeaPanga and many other YouTubers at the center.
=== Pit of Panga series ===
On September 21, 2015, 10 days after Super Mario Maker's US release, Alex created "Pit of Panga: P-Break". Due to course-uploading rules he had to beat the level to prove that it was possible. It took him 9 hours to clear-check his course, which he streamed on Twitch. Due to "P-Break's" extreme difficulty, it took a collective 11,000 attempts before the course was beaten by speedrunner Bananasaurus Rex.
By Halloween of the same year, "Pit of Panga: P-Break" had been beaten 41 times, leading Alex to create the even more difficult Pit of Panga: U-Break". His sequel to "P-Break" is currently one of the top 10 most difficult Super Mario Maker levels. Another one of his popular courses, titled "Cyber Security 101: Brute Force", gave players a 1 in 10 quadrillion chance of winning if the randomly entered two 8-digit numbers, which must be entered correctly to reach the goal.
=== Super Mario Maker 2 and the Pit of PePanga series ===
With the release of Super Mario Maker 2 on June 28, 2019, Alex moved over to the Nintendo Switch sequel, once again creating near-impossible levels. The first of which, "Pit of PePanga: DieVine Garden", was uploaded on July 5, 2020, and is one of, if not the most difficult SMM2 course in the Super Mario 3D World game style. Some of Alex's other courses in the series include "Thwomp Garden" and "Beyblade Blitz". During 2020 and 2021, he collaborated with fellow YouTubers and good friends RedFalcon and Raysfire to make a series of Multiplayer Versus levels in friend lobbies, with an occasional guest taking the last spot in the room. Since then, one of his main sources of content has been "Road to 69420 Expert Levels," where he tries to clear 69, 420 levels in Endless Expert.
==Trivia==
*Alex is a talented musician, able to play both the piano and trumpet.
*He studies written Japanese.
Category:Gaming YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2014