Zone 1-1 Labyrinth of the Sky
One enemy holds a key and must be destroyed to collect the key. Avoiding the other 2 enemies that were destroyed would have been slower overall. The zone features conveyor belts, bumpers, and ice. Ice has the effect of giving Sonic an increased speed but only while Sonic is travelling across the ice.
Zone 1-2
This zone starts off with a 63-frame charge spindash which was very useful to steer the rolling direction up the ramp to avoid corners while preserving speed as much as possible. A few corners were barely avoided after the second key at the cost of some speed but this was still faster than bouncing on additional walls. The third key is collected while in the air so the animation for collecting all keys is skipped.
Zone 1-3
The first spindash uses 56 frames to charge and collects 2 keys while ahead of the camera, one in the top corner, and the second in a corner near the bottom of the map.
Zone 1-4
Rings cost time during the score tally and collecting them tends to generate lag so they are avoided. Some movement during the ramp segments of the game tend to create additional lag, which is also avoided. Lag generated before the boss fight does not delay the boss spawn. The boss takes 10 hits to destroy. The objects that detach from the boss are invulnerable and cause Sonic to bounce away while rolling. This rebound was abused at one point where Sonic would bounce off one of these every frame and set up getting the next hit on the boss without any delay.
Zone 2-1 Labyrinth of the Sea
This level features cannons. Some cannons alternate the direction they aim. Those cannons start at the same point in their cycle when loaded. They load when the camera is close enough and unload when the camera moves too far away, which makes it important to approach them in a way that the desired direction can be used as soon as possible. The approach to the cannons after collecting the second key made the most use out of this. A slower approach to the cannon forced the camera further left which allowed Sonic to get to the cannon while it was aiming toward the last key.
Zone 2-2
This zone features several doors which creates a maze. Additionally, some of the doors do not return Sonic to the same door that was entered to get there. The first enemy destroyed drops a key that is not retrieved until later. Keys that are dropped from enemies, or dropped from Sonic, will remain on the ground for a short period of time before returning to their original location. The red liquid in the zone cause the time remaining to drop at a rate of 1 second every 8 frames but only while Sonic is in the liquid and not rolling. The 16 frames required to reduce the speed bonus an increment of 10 km/h does not sufficiently compensate for the 10 frames saved in the score tally.
Zone 2-3
The trip immediately after the first key required a small amount of speed along the up-left axis as several walls make travelling all the way directly down-left not possible. The barrel can launch Sonic to one of two locations. The location used in this run requires the buttons RIGHT, 1, and 2 to be depressed during a check on a particular frame. This gives Sonic access to a switch that unlocks the BONUS area. In this run, the BONUS area is accessed shortly after collecting the last key. Typically, when a key is collected, the time remaining is rapidly incremented 30 seconds. However, when a door is entered, this process is paused until the next room is entered. The next room in this case is the BONUS area, which has its own timer. The remaining amount of time that the key awarded, 20 seconds, gets added to the BONUS area timer. Extra time earned there does not get transferred back to the Zone 2-3 timer which saves 100 frames on the score tally.
Sonic is awarded the emerald simply by entering the BONUS area and is not accompanied with any visual indication that it was collected. The BONUS area does not have an end goal. Rings can be collected with an extra life being awarded for every 4 rings that are collected. Sonic exits the BONUS area when time runs out or Sonic falls off, the latter being much faster.
Zone 2-4
The boss fight starts out with smaller enemies that spawn and attack down an alley, then the boss spawns on the left side of the zone and moves to one of three locations to launch a projectile down the associated alley. The length of time that passes before the boss spawns is influenced by the number of enemies destroyed. The greater the number of enemies destroyed, the earlier the boss spawns. The manipulation for the destination was not determined, however, trial and error showed that the boss moving to the middle alley was the fastest. Additionally, the length of time that the boss will remain vulnerable before moving also varies which was manipulated to be long enough to land all 5 hits during the first cycle.
Zone 3-1 Labyrinth of the Factory
The green sections with horizontal waves in this zone stop Sonic and traversing them is very slow. One exception is that Sonic will not be affected by them when skidding to a stop. This technique was not use for the first key collected as the green area is small and takes only a few spindashes to traverse. The star platform loads when the camera gets close to it. The green teleporters have a fixed location that Sonic is sent to when used.
Zone 3-2
This zone has several camera timed objects so loading them quickly is a significant part of fast completion time. A 48-frame charge is not used for spindashing from those platforms because going faster over the short travel distances does not compensate for the additional lag generated.
Zone 3-3
This zone also contains a key located on the green stopping field. This time, a skid is used to load the next star platform sooner. The second key is just far enough away to force that platform to unload and load again, which makes waiting for it to return unavoidable. The third key has a chance of disappearing after destroying the enemy.
Zone 3-4
One ring was collected during the downhill section to land the first few hits on the boss quickly. This requires occasionally standing inside the boss hitbox which would result in taking damage if Sonic was not already invulnerable from a previous incidence of damage. The fast rolling around that destroyed the enemies as they spawned was a few frames faster than standing still, waiting for the boss to spawn. The boss bounces Sonic away at a speed of 768 sp/f. This makes charging a high speed spindash not useful as the speed would not be conserved. The boss takes 10 hits to destroy.
Zone 4-1 Labyrinth of the Castle
Nothing gets in the way of high speed action.
Zone 4-2
This is another maze with one-way doors. The switch that was depressed removes a barrier that blocked access to the third key.
Zone 4-3
This is the largest maze in the game with 32 doors and 20 unique destinations. There were a lot of reasonable route options to check here.
Zone 4-4
The boss has two phases with each phase taking 10 hits to destroy. The boss spawns off to the left of the zone and homes in on Sonic. After each attack, the boss homes in to the new position of Sonic. For this reason, the boss is manipulated to stay in the left corner to minimize travel time. On each decent, the boss is low enough to take two hits with a few frames of leeway. The amount of lag that various movements from Sonic would generate varied between the two phases which resulted in a different sequence of inputs being used for each phase.
Memory Addresses
Address Set #109: Sonic Labyrinth
Suggested Screenshot: Frame 31401
ThunderAxe31: File replaced with a 113-frame improvement.
Memory: Claiming for judging
Memory: The game is supposedly very hard to control but despite that it looks very optimized.
The game has fast paced action, with Sonic frequently bouncing around the field like it's a pinball table, yet still feels well planned like any TAS should. I enjoyed it and so did the rest of the audience.
Accepting to Moons.
feos: Pub.