About the game

In this game you set off to find Gargamel and rescue three Smurfs that have disappeared from the village. This game is very adventurous and has a lot of variety. It features 12 levels in total and 3 boss fights.

About the run

  • Aims for fastest time
  • Plays on hardest difficulty
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Genre: Platform
Emulator: VisualBoyAdvance v21-interim
This is an improvement of 10 seconds over my published movie. The published movie was the first TAS I ever made and it's nostalgic for me to look at my old submission text and see how I improved (my English and TASing skill). This improvement was achieved by better optimization, better strategies and lag-reduction.

Level comments

Level 1

I didn't jump on a caterpillar enemy this time around, since it saves a frame of lag. I bounce off of a black Smurf instead of taking damage.
There is a warp glitch in this level which was pointed out by oudepatattezak on Youtube. When entering a bonus room and holding "up", you will be sent to the level end immediately. This would have saved about 10 seconds but sadly VBA doesn't emulate it. I found making this improvement pointless for a long time due to this since I didn't want to leave out an improvement which an upcoming emulator version would be able to emulate properly. But I still made this improvement anyway.

Level 2

Same as the previous movie. This took me a while to do, since I couldn't get used to the physics again and I hate to TAS auto-scrollers.

Level 4

I avoided some vines and navigated through the level in a more clever way. This saved enough time so that I didn't have to wait for a frog to reappear from below.
The spot where the Snake boss appears seems to depend on what enemies I killed. I tried avoiding the mosquito at this level's end and it resulted in a different, yet undesirable outcome. When I avoided a mosquito in Level 1 I got a favorable outcome, however. It was a good thing that this game is very hex-friendly.

Level 5

I needed to slow down a bit since one of the hedgehogs had bad positioning.

Level 6

My favourite level to TAS since it is very platform-based. I saved some time by skipping the bonus room and by better optimization.

Level 8

I noticed that slopes don't affect you when you move on them but when you somehow are near them (within the "block" the slope is located in). So you can be slowed down or boosted even if you are not directly connected to the ground. I used a lot of trial-and-error for the uphills sections.

Level 9

No time saved here, but I took a more interesting route.
Time was saved at the dragon boss by using a better strategy with minimal lag.

Level 10

Nothing much to say here. I used a lot of trial-and-error here too. I wasn't able to bypass that bear at the level end though, like in the previous movie...

Level 12

Reduced some lag and used the present boxes for fun.

Possible improvements

- Manipulate the Snake boss to appear on the middle left spot. I couldn't manipulate it in this run.
- Use the warp glitch in Level 1 (with VBA-M, not yet available for TASing).

Closing words

Have fun watching this run.

FractalFusion: Good work, MUGG. Accepting as an improvement to the previous movie.


TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #2761: MUGG's GB The Smurfs in 08:52.27
Skilled player (1542)
Joined: 5/31/2009
Posts: 86
Location: Japan
Nice improvement! I like when you followed some fishes in act 2. Voting yes.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
This game has a surprisingly good soundtrack. Yes vote and encoding. YouTube Dailymotion Archive collection Download
mklip2001
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Joined: 6/23/2009
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Location: Georgia, USA
Nice job, especially with the autoscrollers. (With the flying bird one, it was funny to see how far away you could be from enemies and still kill them.) Level 8 inside the volcano looked less clean than Level 6, but I figure the game forces you to jump too high on a lot of these. Also, Level 12 looks ugly going up the stairs for the same reason (furthermore, I don't know why you jumped in the pot).
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Editor, Expert player (2327)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3927
Location: Germany
mklip2001 wrote:
Level 8 inside the volcano looked less clean than Level 6, but I figure the game forces you to jump too high on a lot of these. Also, Level 12 looks ugly going up the stairs for the same reason (furthermore, I don't know why you jumped in the pot).
Inside the volcano is level 9. You can only make a small or a high jump in this game, depending on how long you hold the "A"-button. I jumped onto the pot at the fireplace, because this was the fastest way to get past it. You can't jump across it and setting up a spring board would have taken far too long.
Editor, Expert player (2327)
Joined: 5/15/2007
Posts: 3927
Location: Germany
I just stumbled across this video which is a part of a playthrough of The Smurfs on Sega Mastersystem / Game Gear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w2RHYNwSBU It has colors and its level design seems to be the same compared to the GB version (unlike the NES version which is completely different). However, its music is inferior to the GB version in my opinion and there is sprite-flickering and it seems laggy. I think this is suited for a future TAS, but I don't think TASes of the GB version should be removed from the site for now. People are more familiar with the GB version. Maybe I will make a TAS of the Sega Mastersystem as my next project (since I don't know what to TAS right now).
mklip2001
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Thanks for the replies, MUGG! You got a Yes vote. As for the SMS version of the Smurfs, if the level design is the same, I don't really see a reason to TAS it as well as have a Gameboy TAS. The Gameboy version actually looks pretty good. If you want an idea of something to TAS, especially for medium-length platformers, the current Gargoyle's Quest run is pretty old. The game seems laggy, but it could be a good challenge in terms of optimizing jumps based on the limited flight meter. (Someday, when I have more free time, I want to try TASing its sequel.)
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
Warepire
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That was more entertaining than I thought it could be. Good job! Also this game has a really nice soundtrack for a GB game. Yes vote.
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Good game, good music, good run, good night.
Skilled player (1325)
Joined: 9/7/2007
Posts: 1354
Location: U.S.
Great run! I especially like the autoscrollers.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1581] GB The Smurfs by MUGG in 08:52.27
Joined: 7/8/2009
Posts: 43
Location: Catalonia
well done!