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It's highly likely that I am going to implement a few small time-savers that people have mentioned, so don't anyone go crazy encoding yet ;]
Also, it should only take a day or so once I have a list of improvements to work on, so no worries there (the game is pretty hexable)
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That was awesome Bobmario!
A couple things I would love to see:
- Get to a high point in the level (like the floating island in the first level), fix the camera so it stays up there, and go and get one of the stars. Is it possible to do the BLJ backwards run up the mountain with the camera remaining up there on the island?
- On the star select screen, press left and right to go back and forth between the stars so the sound effect goes to the music.
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bkDJ wrote:
Floodlit Fish: around frame 121000 you were not dashing, and going to the left and you had to go up around something and then back down. couldn't you have done a dash there so that instead of having acceleration take care of Y speed, the dash give you a head start at 0 so it doesn't have to get less positive? Hope that makes sense.
Actually, I think the reason was that I had to stop dashing there, at least for a moment, since I wouldn't have made it up that little passage if I had continued. I probably should have started dashing immediately after I made it up though.
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FreshFeeling wrote:
Ah, this is beautiful. I once had an experience of this sort in regular play. I had just entered Stonehenge base and was expecting a pizza. I got the cancellation call and managed to walk through a wall. After a short distance of screwing around, the music from the traffic jam in Dusty Dunes started playing.
I was surprised when I looked at the linked map that Stonehenge and Dusty Dunes weren't closer together, but it looks like the monkey caves are there... I guess that could've been why.
Ah, so it works with any message! I wonder if it would be faster to call for a pizza than to catch a cold or get poisoned?
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blahmoomoo wrote:
The Starman Jr. talks to Buzz Buzz before the fight begins, so something tells me that the fight is started using a command code instead of the standard touch an enemy and fight, which means that where you are in relation to the Starman Jr. probably does not matter.
You may have misunderstood the nature of my question ;]
A couple posts back we were talking about dying after getting Picky to skip the fight entirely.
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Floogal wrote:
1) Start the game, luck-manipulate a random enemy (probably a crow) nearby the meteroite (the police barricades are sufficient) to death-warp back home afterwards. Probably need to manipulate SMAAAASH!es from the crow & Buzz Buzz to miss it. Thus we skip Starman Jr.
I'm assuming you could skip Buzz Buzz's shield if you simply turned around after touching the enemy (to get a red swirl) and died during the surprise round, which would save some time. But is it worth skipping the 16 exp from Starman Jr? My instincts say probably, but it might be a close call.
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eternaljwh wrote:
Snagging the door might be faster in a corner boosting manner, as a hypothesis.
I think it messes with Firebrand's hitbox, making it touch the hitbox of the door sooner...
eternaljwh wrote:
(T?)Water Gargoyle...
I think T. stands for Tidal
eternaljwh wrote:
Legendary(time) Gargoyle. Wouldn't Ground be faster? Or even Air to cut a quicker path?
I think the deal here is that the time saved with Ground Gargoyle would be canceled out by the fact that I would need to switch back to Buster or Legendary to break the blocks (both for the Vellum and the Life Extension).
eternaljwh wrote:
After the bell-ring, it looks to me like you'd have a faster time with air or ground, again.
The area that I use Claw shot? In that case, it's faster to be regular Firebrand, since he gets the wind speed bonus, and Aerial (for some reason) does not. If you're talking about the mummy area, I don't know, I had it in my notes to not switch to Ground, probably because of that large wall with spikes. I don't think he can dash jump over that. Aerial would be a waste of time in this section, causing me to make an unnecessary switcheroo.
eternaljwh wrote:
The back-upwards motion(frame ~71750 for one example) in Air Gargoyle form looks fast, faster than the forward flight. Is it sustainable? Did you test it as a form of general movement?
Gosh, I don't know... I'll have to look into this.
eternaljwh wrote:
Did you consider buying either the warp-to-map and warp-to-level beginning potions in any quantities? It does look like your route is quite good at not needing them/being able to use them, but it's something to think about.
I will consider this if I do another run... I can't remember where the Death spells are (OHK the Fliers) but I have a bad feeling they're not available in town. And the potions are in a separate shop than the spells, so I can't buy them all in one trip.
Derakon wrote:
I think it'd've been worthwhile to add the bonus boss onto the end of your movie; you've done everything required to access him at that point, and I'd so dearly love to see him die. Plus you'd get to show off the ultimate gargoyle.
Yeah, there's quite a demand for DD. I'll admit that I was surprised, but I promise to tackle him if / when I redo this run.
Anyway, I don't want to sound impatient, but I also wanted to bring to the attention of a publisher that I recommended a screenshot and submission text above. Not sure if that flew under the radar or not. I apologize if it's being worked on.
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Never has a video game scared the living hell out of me as much as Ecco the Dolphin. Voting yes for dolphins on speed and turtle rape.
Out of curiosity, was air management ever an issue? It doesn't look like he needs air in this game, though...
Does getting crushed into the walls in the later autoscrollers actually save time? Looks like it makes the screen move differently.
Wow. what a depressing ending. =[
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Who exactly is planning on working on the new run? I would be very very very interested to see it done... even the additions of the more tame "walk through certain walls" glitch (like the Paula Cabin shortcut and the Lilliput Steps cave) will make me enjoy it.
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I have a gripe with a lot of economics texts... a lot of them deal with economics as a static thing that is unchanging, and assume that things like people's emotions are predictable (or they don't even mention emotions and human fallibility) and that the environment is an infinite resource, and it ultimately won't affect anything no matter how much of it we use.
I'm not exactly an avid environmentalist, but I feel that these texts need to "go green," more so than many other things that we're focusing on.
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Hm, those prayer scenes cover a fairly large range of areas. We might need to do even more before the ending. Ouch.
At the worst, this glitch could probably be used in a few places to skip smaller segments of the game.
Humbly awaiting your results, Nitrodon!
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An SMV demonstration of the new glitch (also confirms that it works with SNES9x)
The next thing to confirm is if flag 0DC from entering the Lost Underworld really does make Dr. Andonuts and co. appear. Obviously, in the demo above, simply walking to Lost Underworld with the glitch and heading to Saturn Valley doesn't work, leading me to one of the following conclusions:
- I'm wrong about either the flag that makes Dr. A. appear, or wrong about when the flag is set.
- Perhaps the Phase Distorter flag (04A) needs to be set as well for all of the characters to appear (meaning you'd still need to kill Ness' Nightmare)
- I didn't check, but maybe the 0DC flag doesn't get turned on when you enter the Lost Underworld via the glitch method, and perhaps you'd need to enter a door there to be in the map proper. I don't think there's any stairs around to perform the glitch from the Lost Underworld though, so I'm thinking that one would have to save elsewhere and use a reset capable SNES9X if this last conclusion is the case.
I'll test more tomorrow.
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This looks like it would be an interesting game to TAS. I have never played it before, so most of what puts me off from doing it myself is planning routes.
Here's a short WIP of (almost) the first two levels.
Some time saving tricks:
- After sliding down a ledge, press the opposite direction for one frame to cancel the slow skid at the bottom. Be careful doing this since Tinhead can be "frozen" for a few frames if you do it too soon after the slide (an example of this "freezing" actually occurs in my WIP, just after I'm blown up by the fan in the second level; easiest seen with frame advance).
- When running up a slope, it's sometimes possible to press the opposite direction for one frame, which will put Tinhead into the sliding animation for a moment. This saves a frame.
- Taking damage would obviously be a huge part of the run, since jumping totally sucks in this game and should be avoided at all costs. Running through enemies and spikes with the somewhat generous invincibility time is a must.
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Nitrodon wrote:
By watching the appropriate addresses, I have determined that flags 0D1-0DC control which teleport destinations are available. In particular, flag 0DC is set when you enter the Lost Underworld.
So then, is it safe to assume one would need to defeat Ness' Nightmare and enter the Lost Underworld briefly to set up all you need to go to the Cave of the Past?
I'm also wondering something now... the ending of the game is triggered by talking to Ness' mother. If the flag that makes this conversation possible is triggered by simply entering the Cave of the Past (or Giygas Lair) or something, one would be able to skip Giygas. Entirely. I will look in to this later when I have a bit of time.
EDIT: Looks like the flag is set during the scene when the spirits are released from the robots. Oh well.
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It looks like the flag (00 4A) for the Mr. Saturn and the Phase distorter is turned on when you defeat Mani Mani (in the Sea of Eden) (or maybe even just talk to him before the battle).
[IFFLAGSET 04A C7C588]@(I'm the evil part of your brain.[PAUSE][LINE]@You can't beat me.[PAUSE][LINE]@Because you are the one who forced me into being...)[PAUSE][GOSUB C6857C][1B 03 C683DE][FLAGON 04A]
I'm having a very hard time finding when the Dr. Andonuts and Apple Kids flag (DC 00) is set though. I found the subroutine that handles the event flag ($C99CD8) but I can't figure out what points to the subroutine.
This may be of extreme help:
http://starmen.net/mother2/gameinfo/script/script.txt
I'll keep looking.
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The biggest obstacle is probably egg management. It's extremely difficult to find egg opportunities that don't waste time, and so you must consider all possible egg opportunities and carefully weigh your options: Do I need x number of eggs for the rest of the level? What about the next level? Should I lose x number of frames getting this egg? Will I save more than x frames by doing so? Etc.
Trajectory of eggs is up there too. Specifically, 1-1 comes to mind when you must shoot a shy guy off screen (in the current 100% route, at least). Not only is it tough to hit the guy, you must hit him a certain way on a certain frame so that you can get at least three stars from him without slowing down.
