Cool Spot, for those of you lucky enough not to have experienced the "cola-wars" of the 80s and 90s, is the mascot of 7-up, the response to cola drinks (they referred to lemon-lime flavored sodas as "uncola"). The definition of "cool" in the 90s was subject to interpretation, despite no one actually BEING cool back then. Someone decided that this little red guy named Spot would attract the kids to the soda. I never drank it but I actually liked this game a lot. And hey, Spot is at least cooler than Bubsy.
Anyway, I've done about four revisions of the first level, each time improving and realizing that this game might actually be a good candidate for TASing. This happened when I figured out how to preserve Spot's speed, which is actually fairly fast.
HERE is the WIP of the first level, still improvable (especially after the death).
I
did go for 100% cool, which isn't actually necessary. There's three possible runs:
A) 100% cool on each level + "Best" ending
B) any% cool on each level + "Best" ending
C) Just save the spots and beat the game
The "Best" ending comes when you collect all the bonus letters (U-N-C-O-L-A) which are obtained from the bonus game. To get into the bonus game, I need to attain at least 99% "cool" on any given level, meaning I would choose the six fastest levels to do this on, one for each letter. Getting 100% cool on each level doesn't give you anything extra, I don't think, other than the satisfaction. To get the normal ending, I just have to meet the "cool" quota in each level and then rescue my buddy at the end.
A vast number of the game's levels are actually quite different from each other, especially from a TASing point of view. This first level kinda sucked, due to the somewhat slower balloon parts. Some of the later levels will most likely be done faster, and some slower (there are many vertical levels with ropes and such, and there's even a level where Spot is sliding down rails very fast and the player doesn't have too much control).
Anyway, what do people think?
