Advanced Lawnmower Simulator, for those who want to take their lawn mowing simulation to the next level.
Machine comparison
1. Campari Grassmaster
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Campari Grassmaster is broken at the moment.
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Campari Grassmaster is broken at the moment.
2. Daf Turfomatic
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Daf Turfomatic is broken at the moment.
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Daf Turfomatic is broken at the moment.
3. Acme Mega-Cut 3000
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Acme Mega-Cut 3000 is broken at the moment.
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Acme Mega-Cut 3000 is broken at the moment.
4. Acme Lawn-Ace
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Acme Lawn-Ace is broken at the moment.
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Acme Lawn-Ace is broken at the moment.
5. Flymo Grasschum
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Flymo Grasschum is broken at the moment.
I'm sorry, I'm afraid that the Flymo Grasschum is broken at the moment.
6. Patio Sprintette
The Patio Sprintette is working well.
The Patio Sprintette is working well.
DrD2k9: Claiming for judging.
DrD2k9: Firstly, for anyone unaware, this game itself was written as part of a pseudo-elaborate practical joke starting with an April edition of Your Sinclair magazine and continuing through a few other subsequent issues. Thus this April Fool's submission is a bit of a Matryoshka doll of nested April Fools jokes. It is interestingly also not the first lawn mowing simulator.
While trivial, this run is acceptable as presented.
Given that this was both trivial and an April Fools submission, I did not expect it to present much of a challenge from a judging perspective.
However: I got stuck on how this run should be branched.
Arguably, beating this game and getting a "congratulations" type screen only requires completing one lawn. After the "congratulations" screen, any key press returns to the main menu (or at least it appears to do so). Playing the game multiple times in succession, however, results in an automatic death while mowing the 5th lawn (as is presented in this submission). The death occurs on a specific tile of the 5th lawn, not based on how much actual time has passed. I cannot confirm if the death is coded to always occur on the 5th playthrough or if it's somehow RNG based, but it appears to be a hard coded situation. I can, at minimum, confirm that it's not RNG based on system time as waiting to start the game doesn't affect when the death occurs. Unfortunately I can't easily find the RAM values that control/monitor progression to account for when the death occurs. I also am not good enough at reading Z80 assembly to be able to follow a tracelog well enough to deduce the death endpoint either.
Arguably, beating this game and getting a "congratulations" type screen only requires completing one lawn. After the "congratulations" screen, any key press returns to the main menu (or at least it appears to do so). Playing the game multiple times in succession, however, results in an automatic death while mowing the 5th lawn (as is presented in this submission). The death occurs on a specific tile of the 5th lawn, not based on how much actual time has passed. I cannot confirm if the death is coded to always occur on the 5th playthrough or if it's somehow RNG based, but it appears to be a hard coded situation. I can, at minimum, confirm that it's not RNG based on system time as waiting to start the game doesn't affect when the death occurs. Unfortunately I can't easily find the RAM values that control/monitor progression to account for when the death occurs. I also am not good enough at reading Z80 assembly to be able to follow a tracelog well enough to deduce the death endpoint either.
So the dilemma became a question of: Should this submission be considered a Full Completion run, where we would also accept completion of a single lawn as an any% version?
Or should we only consider reaching the kill screen as completing the game, as that was part of the joke in the first place?
After asking for other judges thoughts, I have settled on the conclusion that this qualifies as a Full Completion. My logic being: anyone with no prior knowledge of the kill screen that was booting this 'game' for the first time could rightfully assume they'd accomplished all there was to accomplish after playing through the first screen, because the game appears to go back to the main menu. Even if they completed a second lawn, there's no indicator that anything would change with subsequent playthroughs. So from a casual player's perspective, all that can be done is done after one lawn. Only those who wanted to play longer (for whatever reason) would reach the kill screen.
Thus, I'm accepting this run as having met Full Completion criteria by reaching a kill screen, and I'm adding the branch name to "mowed to death". If a single lawn version is submitted, I'll support its acceptance (if I don't judge it myself) as an any% run. That being said, I can't imagine anyone beating Randomno's time in completing the first lawn; so I'd encourage Randomno to be the one to submit the any% run. If someone else were to do so, I'd say that Randomno should get co-author credit.
Accepting.
Note to Publisher: This run syncs on ROM file named Advanced Lawnmower Simulator (1988)(Gardensoft).tap