The Emulator
This run was made using this build, and here is the User/config folder. Also, be sure you don’t have any memory card in User/GC/.
Game’s md5 is B1E5D16E9D507727FFFF234F2382C0EA
The Game
Billy Hatcher is a colorful but hard platformer/puzzle game made by the Sonic Team. The gameplay is simple : when you have an egg, you can dash, bounce jump, roll and do many other stuff which can be useful for a good platformer. If you feed the egg with some fruits that you can find on the enemies or on the ground, it will grow, and when it reaches its maximal size, you will be able to hatch it and get a monster. There are 72 different eggs in this game, all of them possess a different monster which have a different power. This makes for an awesome multiplayer mode, too.
The Run
This run aims to complete all the levels and solve all the puzzles… Oh wait it’s a Sonic Team game… This run aims to break all the levels of this game in as little time as possible.
This goal can be justified by the fact that it’s different from:
Any%: An any% run would just require getting 26 emblems and then going to the final boss. It would just do the shortest levels, completely ignoring the longer ones (see below at “The Levels”).
100%: a 100% run would require getting all the golden coins (the coins are scattered through the levels in a way that doesn't allow for much level breaking), hatching all the eggs (Some levels must be visited multiple times since you need to get the golden coins from other levels to unlock the sonic eggs), getting Rank S everywhere (requires getting high scores with more combos on enemies instead of ignoring them).
This runs also uses death to go faster, and manipulates luck.
At the beginning, this run was only suppose to help me to learn to TAS this game, to try to discover some shortcuts and to make a final route for the any% run, but it turns out that, in my opinion, it’s actually quite optimized (way better that my other run) and entertaining. I will let you judge that of course.
What you may want to know to understand the run
Superjump > In this game, you can use many elements such as signs, chicken, trees… to bounce off at really high speed. The size of the egg changes the level of superjump. The best demonstration is the second level of Sand Ruin (6-2), where I only complete 40% of the level by skipping everything.
Luck Manipulation > The only thing I can be sure is that there are more than one RNG, so I tried to just manipulate Luck randomly (with my luck?), while not wasting time in the run of course. Luck manipulation includes: Fruit Manipulation (each egg type prefers one type of fruit and will grow faster if they eat it), tile manipulation (in the 5th world, the randomized tiles were manipulated to be completed as fast as possible), AI manipulation (enemies well placed, chickens not in my way, crows shadows in groups in the final world…)
Egg Damage > Some eggs deal less damage than others. For example, the bomb egg (the black one) will do one less damage than the normal egg (the white one with blue dots).
The Levels
There are 6 different types of levels:
- Save the Elder: These have to be done to complete the game. You need to find the Elder Egg (the gold one) and make it hatch to restore morning to the world. The strategy is simple, get the Elder egg and manipulate fruit to make it hatch as fast as possible.
- Kill the Boss: Those have to be done to complete the game. You just need to find the boss and kill him. Killing the boss unlocks another world.
- Go to a point: The emblem is in a point normally hard to reach, you just need to find your way to get to the emblem. This is where the game gets the most destroyed in this TAS.
- Minigame Man: You have 2 minutes to get 40 coins. If you take two coins in a row, you get one second added, which we really don’t want. Those levels aren’t in the any% because it’s minimum 2 minutes, which is too slow.
- Race: Each race has its own way to be optimized. For example, the opponent in Sand Ruin will slow down every time he meets an obstacle. If you break every obstacle in his path, you will finish this race sooner.
- Kill 100 enemies: There are around 120 enemies in these levels, and you need to kill 100. The route in those levels were studied to kill the 100 the fastest possible while being close to where the emblem appears at the end. These levels are too slow to be in an any%.
- Save a friend: Your friend is in danger! You have 5 minutes to save them… But these levels are really easy to break, none of them take more than 1 minute. There are three missions of this type in the game, and each of them unlock one mission in each world.
Other Stuff
Iongravirei is cited as a co-author of this run because he was the one who motivated me to TAS this game. He found many shortcuts and gave me many ideas. He also checked each of my levels to tell me where I could improve it and gave other ideas. So, even if he didn’t make any input in this movie, the run would have been way, way worse if he didn’t help me.
This run is improvable because I made some silly mistakes. You can improve it by 3 seconds easily just with optimization. I realized that near the end (at +2hours of run) and didn’t want to restart. Also, since a week ago, tons of people are arriving in the Billy Hatcher scene, so new shortcuts/glitches may hopefully be found. For example, Overpamper, who’s been practicing Billy for a long time, recently found a new shortcut which would saves about 13 seconds in one level over my TAS. Which is why I will still work on this game, I really like it and will one day be able to do high quality long run on this game… Next one will be an any%.
I hope you enjoyed this run as much as I enjoyed making it. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! :D
feos: Accepting for Moons.
natt: processing