Clock Face (2in1)

## Clock Face

Stage Overview

**Clock Face** is a reconstruction of the level of the same name in vanilla Super Monkey Ball 2. It is the 5th and final Advanced Extra stage.

## Description

This stage is loosely based on Polar from the first game. There are eight layers of flat platforms in this stage which have all been color coded. From the outermost layer to the inner most:

* The first platform, dark grey, is a static ring that goes around the stage.
* The second platform, blue, is half of a smaller (but equally thick) ring that fits inside of the first one. This platform is rotating counter clockwise and completes a spin every 10.41667 seconds.
* The third set of platforms, magenta, are two quarters of a ring that are evenly spaced out. These platforms rotate clockwise and complete a spin every 12.5 seconds. The outer edge of only one of these platforms is lined with bumpers.
* The fourth set of platforms, red, are three 1/8th chunks of a ring that are evenly spaced out. These platforms rotate counter clockwise and complete a spin every 15.625 seconds.
* The fifth set of platforms, yellow, are four evenly-spaced 1/16th chunks of a ring. These platforms rotate clockwise and complete a spin roughly every 20.2 seconds.
* The sixth set of platforms, green, are five evenly-spaced 1/32nd chunks of a ring. These platforms rotate counter clockwise and complete a spin every 31.25 seconds.
* The seventh set of platforms, aqua, are six evenly-spaced 1/64th chunks of a ring. These platforms rotate counter clockwise and complete a spin every 1000 seconds (this is not accurate to the game, see the errors for more info). This is the final rotating ring and has the skinnest platforms, going from what is basically a 1.2 wire to a 0.6 wire.
* The eighth platform, white, is a static circle to fill in the space between the seventh set of platforms. There is a banana bunch to collect on this platform.

In order to stop the stage from being too easy, twelve large grey barriers have been placed on the stage, evenly-spaced. These barriers block off sections of not only the large grey ring, but also the blue half-ring. They are more than half of the ball's diameter tall and cannot be climbed, with one exception. The barrier located in the twelve o'clock position is slightly shorter and has a ramp to climb up it. The goal is located on this barrier. Meanwhile, the player starts on the barrier located in the six o'clock position. Finally, there are two clock hands that start at twelve o'clock and rotate across the stage in a logical manner. The ball can be pushed off by these hands. The hour hand sweeps the white, cyan, and green platforms, while the minute hand sweeps past all platforms except for the large grey ring, the blue platform, and a tiny fraction of the pink platforms. The minute hand has a hill in it, located under the outer section of the small circle platform in the middle of the stage, that allows the ball to pass through it.

## Goal tutorial

The intended way to beat the stage is to navigate to the middle of the stage and then back out to the goal. Board the first magenta platform that comes to you, being careful not to touch the bumpers, and then make your way through each set of platforms in rainbow order, from red, yellow, green, and then cyan. Be careful as while the platforms move slower the closer to the center you get, the platforms also get thinner. Head towards the left of the hour hand, collecting the banana bunch if you desite, and then slowly cross the platforms in reverse order to the upper section of the stage. Something important to note is that by this point, there will probably be around 40 seconds left on the timer, and by the 31 second mark, the minute hand will sweep through the upper section of the stage and knock you off if you haven't made it to the blue platform, so you'll need to be quick. Getting onto the goal ramp is tricky because the ramp is supposed to be entered from the front, but because the only way to reach it is with the blue platform, the inertia will consistently be pushing you to the left, so much like Spiral Bridge, you have to fight against the inertia to line yourself up with the goal ramp and not slip off.

Now then, it's entirely possible that you might slip off of the goal ramp or miss it entirely and into the surrounding two sections of the outer grey ring. If you end up in the section to the right of the goal, wait for the blue platform to come by again and then very carefully try to clip onto the goal ramp from the side. If you end up in the one to left of the goal, rest against the barrier between you and the next section that's left of the goal, wait for the blue platform to pass, and then roll as fast as you can in an east direction. After half a second, switch to the blue platform. You should have just enough speed to get to the goal ramp, turn left, and then get into the goal.

An easier way to beat the stage is to wait ten seconds for the magenta platform WITHOUT bumpers to come to you, and then ride it all the way to the goal ramp, keeping in mind you will still have to cross the blue platform for a bit. This will usually net you a time of 40 seconds.

A faster way to beat the stage is to board the first magenta platform that comes to you again, but this time, carefully rest against the minute hand, staying about half a ball width away from the outer edge of it, and count the number of bumpers that pass by you. As soon as the twelth bumper enters your view, charge towards the goal ramp. This will net you a time of 47 seconds.

For a tough but even faster way to beat the stage, wait 1.25 seconds, then hold up. Then another second and a half later (around 57.25), hold up right. The idea is to bounce off of the minute hand and catch the red platform that is otherwise impossible to get onto on the first cycle. Try to remain in the "bottom right" of this platform, and then at 55.5, roll towards the "top" edge of this platform and then at around 54.00, try to quickly cut across the magenta platform and get inside of the section between the goal ramp and the next barrier to the right. The window to board the blue platform from this angle is tiny, as you have to very delicately cut across without accidentally bumping into the one o'clock barrier and losing time, if not a life. It helps to get an edge hit off of the magenta platform and then slow down a bit. Then try to clip off of the slanted right edge bounce into the goal. If this strat is done correctly, this can get you a time of more than 50 seconds. Should you miss the ramp though, it'll cost 8 seconds but you'll still be able to live with the backups mentioned above.

## Differences from vanilla

All existing RTA and IL strats for the level are shaken up because the starting position is on the 6 o'clock barrier instead of being on a starting bridge that's in the air. All of the parts except for the cyan platforms (see the section below) are identical to how they function in vanilla.

This stage was brought down from Master 10 all the way down to Advanced Extra 5 as a compliment to Polar Large from the first game. This decision was determined because Clock Face is generally considered one of the easier Master stages and certainly easier than Polar Large in question.

This stage, as a challenge mode-exclusive in vanilla SMB2, only ever appears in Dr. Bad-Boon's Base, which is vaguely similar to Space. One of the biggest traits of this reconstruction is the new color scheme based on the RGB color model that isn't found on any of the other Space stages. Also, since all of the checkered surfaces are perfectly co-planar, they have been made into mirror surfaces that successfully reflect everything above them, including the barriers, clock hands, and goal (see this for more info on how this works). Also, another visual flair was added: There are faint holographic numbers that were sprinkled onto to the stage. These numbers are in Helvetica Black, which is loosely the same font that various in-game graphics such as "READY", "GO", "FALL OUT", and so on appear in. Their color scheme is based on a real clock that toothy7564 has in his household.

This particular reconstruction is generally considered one of the highest points of SMB2in1, receiving praise from a large amount of the modding community for how graphically vibrant it looks. Likewise, because ILs for this stage are completely different than in vanilla, it has become fairly popular with ILers and it even made it into Jcool114's Unstoppable compilation, a video that was primarily focused on stages in Community Level Pack v2.0.

## Errors

The cyan set of platforms is supposed to rotate clockwise and complete a full rotation every 62.5 seconds. This was an oversight that occurred while remaking the stage in Blender all the way back in March and despite the stage being updated many times since, the animation for this set of platforms was never fixed, in fact this goof was only noticed by the creator more than a month after the romhack was released.

## Trivia

* Clock Face is one of only four stages in Super Monkey Ball 2 to use bumpers. This is in stark contrast with Super Monkey Ball 1, where fourteen stages use bumpers. The only other three stages to use bumpers in Super Monkey Ball 2 are Pachinko, Amida Lot, and Warp, all of which are present in 2in1 for this reason.
* It is impossible to collect all of the bananas and get the goal in Clock Face as the single bananas are all on the sections of the grey platform that are separated by barriers, and it takes approximately 10 seconds to collect each of these bananas.