Hopefully this explains everything that you may not understand during the course of the run.
Emulator information
Gens 9f was used to record this run. Settings used were:
- 6 button controller, though that shouldn't make a difference
- L+R on, though again that shouldn't matter
General notes
- Running is generally faster than jump-boosting. There are some exceptions, Shout and Twist being notable.
- Jump-boosting is FAR better than shooting for damage-dealing purposes. As a result, I use this whenever possible on bosses.
- The gun "refreshes" after a certain amount of frames. On the ground, this is 7, while in the air it's 9. However, on the ground at least, you can trick the game into letting you shoot quicker than usual by changing direction (ie. if I hold right, and shoot, then hold down for a couple of frames I can shoot again)
- Only three shots may be on screen at any one time, so shots need to be carefully managed.
- Alternating shooting buttons doesn't do anything notable. I use B almost exclusively throughout.
Run description
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes damage to save time
- Abuses programming errors in the game
- Manipulates luck
I didn't exactly have high hopes for this run to start off with, but having a legitimate speedrun to compare with I could tell that what I was doing was saving plenty of time, and that it would be entertaining to watch. I hope it turns out that way for everyone else.
Onto specific level descriptions:
Geronimo - This level is a fixed autoscroller, so you can't exactly do a great deal of saving time in it. Shooting downwards slows you, and holding C hovers, so neither are preferred, and indeed I chose not to do any shooting at all. I tried to just dodge enemies and collect photons on the last possible frame, but these two aims do not like each other.
Night in the Swamp - I spent a long time at the start of this level pondering over the best means of movement. I eventually worked it out and away I went.
Those turtles are evil. Really, they are. You have to duck to land a shot on it initially, then when it jumps you can shoot normally.
Bog Jam - Being able to make my boosts perfect was always going to help me. I never suspected just how much.
On one occasion I was only just unable to dodge an enemy, so I took a hit and picked up some health from the next enemy.
A little later, you'll notice that I dodged a powersack - to pick them up wastes a few frames in lag but it also contained an extra health piece. I thought it would be more impressive if I went on without it.
And one last thing from here, if you end the movie just before the level ends, you'll notice that Vectorman doesn't actually have to land on the platform for the level to be complete. In fact, he'll fall all the way down to the bottom! It will also show that I got a Pacifist bonus, which after I'd killed an enemy for health looks a bit odd.
In Blackest Night - I've always known this level as In Darkest Night. On the actual level, boosting is best, and shooting is used to manipulate either my position or the boss' shots. Nothing special here.
Fired - By sheer fluke, when playing through this in real time once, I discovered you could jump off the lava. As you can imagine, it became thoroughly abused here.
Magma P.I. - I reckon the finish to this level looks pretty cool, but the rest is standard fare.
Turn Up The Heat - much like the other bosses in that you simply attack with the booster as much as possible. Shooting it turns it around, this is used to keep it as close as possible so I don't have to move far.
Orbot Express - The first of Vectorman's transformations is into a rollerblader. This mode has a new set of conditions:
- Running is always faster than anything else, even if you have to take damage to continue. As you can imagine, you can't keep this up for very long with three health
- And another of my accidental findings. Shooting whilst in the air restores your horizontal velocity. However, you can only have three shots on screen at a time, so you have to space your shots for the best result (unless there's an enemy waiting for you to shoot it).
- You can shoot every other frame, which isn't as useful as it sounds because damage only seems to register every five or six frames.
That's basically levels 8, 10 and 12 in a nutshell.
Dirty Job - I love how I was able to negotiate the ascent through the bricks here, it's my second favourite part of the run. Managing shots here is hard, but I managed.
Vectorman 1 2 3 - See notes for Orbot Express.
I Can Dig It - Here I'm basically shooting every other frame, moving forward a bit and doing the same again. Gets boring after a while - thank goodness it's only 11 seconds long.
Rollerderby - See Orbot Express.
Mist Chances - Another of my favourites: instead of boosting those enemies at the start for damage I actually jumped off their heads! The rest is pretty standard fare.
Cave Fear - Nothing much here, except that the Rhino Charge is worth every frame I take to kill the enemy holding it.
Dreamsnake - A strategy I made up on the spot here. 15 shots a second! This allows me to ensure both snakes are in the same position later, though since one comes up after the other I need one more booster after the first one goes down.
Recycle or Die - This level is straightforward. The shot at the end was required to do just enough damage to pass through the wall without it stopping me in my tracks.
The Shadow Nose - I discovered something rather unusual here. For whatever reason, when you jump at the start of this level, then jump again to boost... you just jump again! By alternating frames I was able to make it just look like one big jump.
This ascent is much harder than the one in Dirty Job. The reason? The blocks residually destroy surrounding blocks, and which ones they are are determined by your actions, notably the use of A and B. Some nifty manipulation was used here.
And after all that, it makes the boss look simple.
Shout and Twist - Turns out the odd property I used in the previous level reared its head again here. This time I want distance so I use a few jumps, then jump on the last frame the game will allow me to and then hover over the entire wall of bricks!
But if you thought that was all... oh no, you're very mistaken. This is one of the most abusable levels in the game, for one reason: the tornado.
It moves faster than usual, but it can also ascend by tapping C. So surely I could clear the level and go straight to the end? It wasn't that easy, however. Towards the end of my time with the tornado, I had to ascend from near the bottom right up to the top of the level, and land on the wall of bricks. As it were, I couldn't quite get there, but I did manage to take out the top brick and land on the second one. Now it was a simple matter of jump-boosting to the end... but that also just fell short, until the same trick came into play again. In this case, while the shot slowed me down, it allowed me to hover for the split second I needed. This run cuts my best effort in real time in half!
Tank You - The tank levels have a different set of conditions again:
- Jumping is slightly faster than regular movement
- You can shoot every second frame, and damage always registers this time
- Most annoyingly, damage registers on you much quicker than usual. In short, you don't get the invincibility period you do in the other levels. Thankfully, this mostly isn't a problem here.
The first of the two levels was the easier, but also the longer. A couple of nice, efficient deaths thrown in for good measure.
Tank Patrol - Nasty piece of work, this level. At one stage I "bounced" off an enemy to get a smaller jump than what I normally would and landed safely in front of an enemy. Nothing else notable except as usual I'm missing enemies by mere pixels.
Bad Eggs - Easy. Nothing important here.
Queen For A Day - Now this was just evil. While boost-attacking is the best method you only get limited shots, so you have to use them effectively. Once the second phase is over, you can't boost-attack any more, because the platforms disappear. So I was left with no option but to shoot the boss, thankfully it didn't take too long, ensuring my total time went under ten minutes.
adelikat: The quality seems good. The game is good for a TAS, and the votes & responses were good. Accepting for publication.
Bisqwit: processing... Not processing, it desyncs at me (enters a long pause mode in level 2)
adelikat: Processing, attempt #2
adelikat: attempt #2 hath failed
Truncated: Judging from Maza's list of encoded AVIs, this movie is already encoded. Is there any reason why that movie cannot be used?
- Bisqwit: This movie is difficult to encode in a satisfying quality without insane bitrates. That's what has been causing a delay.
adelikat: One last shot. Publication or bust!