This is the improved version of my previous warped Arkanoid submission. This movie was already accepted when I cancelled it, since I knew that I was able to make a faster movie. This movie is 268 frames faster than the previous submission, which is roughly 4.5 seconds.
The improvements:
- Round 4 (in this movie) is played very different. Instead of clearing all blocks, I now focus on getting as fast as possible to the block which can give me a warp. I manipulated the 'enemies' keep the ball at the top.
- Since I understood the randomness system a little better, I was able to get warps from some blocks, from which I was previously unable to get warps (note that powerups are still attached to certain blocks, this cannot be manipulated). This saved me a few frames on most of the levels, which added up.
- I still stop the boss fight at the frame the boss gets his final hit. I am using a slightly faster strategy at the end now, saving a few frames.
The rest of this submission text will be a copy of my previous submission text:
- FCEU 0.98.15 / 0.98.16
- Uses Warps and Cheats
- Abuses Programming Errors
- Uses Death
- Uses Game Over
- Aims for Fastest Time
Let me start of by stating this: This movie is not an attempt to obsolete Genisto's Arkanoid movie.
(I am planning to do a full movie of the game)
To playback this movie make sure:
- To set the second player input to 'Gamepad' instead of 'Arkanoid Paddle'
- To use the US version
- Probably FCEU 0.98.12 and higher will work, but 0.98.15 and 0.98.16 will work for sure
Note that the movie won't desync if this is done... not even when you think it desyncs. Let me explain what's going on:
There are two main cheats in this game:
- Pressing start+A will teleport you to the next level. (this only works for the first 16 levels)
- Holding A+B and pressing select 5 times, will allow you to continue from the level you died. This second trick is of importance.
If you wait long enough at the title screen, you will see the story of the game. If you wait a little longer a demo will start playing. The computer controls the arkanoid paddle, but the player is in control of the "A"-button. This allows you to launch the ball, and to shoot if the computer happens to pick up a power up like laser.
The demo will play 5 different levels if you wait long enough:
- demo 1 = level 14
- demo 2 = level 15
- demo 3 = level 23
- demo 4 = level 30
- demo 5 = level 5
Level 30 isn't influenceable with pressing A, because of the nature of the level. Level 23 (the third demo) however is influenceable! By pressing A at the right frame, the computer picks up the laser power up, which gives you even more influence on how the demo will end. The computer is programmed on staying underneath the ball, but if you change to laser, or from laser to something else, your arkanoid paddle will shrink for a short moment. With the right manipulation this enables you to die in the computer demo. The computer will go game over and you will be at the title screen again... pretty neat, but why would you want to do that?
As said before, there is a cheat (holding A+B and pressing select 5 times) to continue from a game over. This means you can continue from the place where the computer demo went game over! In this case level 23. Completing the levels this way is even faster than using the regular level skip cheat.
This glitch to gain access to level 23 very fast was discovered by FODA. Thanks again!
For the levels that follow (all numbered differently since level 23 is seen as level 1 now) I use warps most of the time. The blocks that give you powerups are determened by the game, and aren't manipulatable (certain blocks will always give you a power, others won't ever). However, which powerup a certain block gives you is manipulatable. Getting the warps all the time required a great deal of luck manipulation. This movie aims for the fastest possible time, using all possible means.
The movie stops at the last hit. Stopping the movie earlier would have been possible to complete the game, but you would be able to keep the movie from finishing by pressing start after input time, so I stop the movie after the point of which this is possible.
Hope you enjoy this weird movie :)
adelikat: Accepting for publication. The previous one was accepted, so naturally this faster one should be too :)
BoltR: This run has been giving some of us playback issues, but I finally got it to work properly. Encoding begins.