Super Glove Ball

You had just started repair work on the Allied Space Agency satellite when you were caught in a dimensional rip in space (according to your shuttle commander's log). Your only hope is to use your jet-powered robo-repair glove to try to find a way out of the drifting maze.
Super Glove Ball is probably best described as a 3D Arkanoid with a maze layout. The game is one of two games specifically designed for the Power Glove (the other being NES Bad Street Brawler), though you can play with the controller instead (and it is much easier to do so).

Emulator Used

Bizhawk 1.12.1

Game Objectives

  • Beat the game

Mechanics

  • Left/Right Move left and right.
  • Up/Down Move up and down.
  • "A" Hold to move in (Z direction) release to move out.
  • "B" Grab the ball (if near the ball), or make a fist. Note that the hit detection is different while making a fist.
  • "B" Hold to hold on to the ball, release to release the ball. Note that when you release there is a cool down on the next grab. Also there is a time out on holding the ball, it will release automatically if you try to hold it too long.
  • Select Fire robo-bullets. Move to the next room.
  • Start Pause the game.
  • You lose a ball if you let it come out the front of the screen or it goes into a hole.
  • You lose a life if you run out of balls or take too much damage.
  • Normally once you break all the blocks on the back wall or one of the four sides you can travel to another room in that direction.
  • Some rooms have warps triggered by breaking a specific block
  • Puzzle rooms have solid walls and each panel on the back wall will flip between square, circle, and triangle. You must make a row or column all one shape to move through. Note that grab is disabled in puzzle rooms.

Power-Ups

  • Row - Break a full row or column at a time
  • Robo-bullets - Ammunition
  • Bomb - Gives your ball explosive properties
  • Life - Extra life
  • Extra - Extra Ball
  • Super - The ball(s) fly around the screen quickly, but they bounce when they hit the front of the screen (you don't lose balls).
  • Triple - Three balls at once
  • Pinball - The tiles along the back wall flash one at a time (left to right, top to bottom). If you hit one as it flashes it will open a path to the next room.
  • Ice - Slows enemies down
  • Power - Refills your energy
  • Bonus - Bonus points

Route

  • Area 1 rooms: 1 right, 2 down, 43 warp, 24 in, 28 in, puzzle room
  • Area 2 rooms: 30 left, 29 left, 28 warp, 55 right, 56 up, 60 up, puzzle room
  • Area 3 rooms: 6 up, 11 up, 14 warp, 7 down, 3 left, puzzle room, 21 right, 22, right, 23, up, 27 warp, 31 down, 26 puzzle, 43 down, 38 down, 35 left, 34 left, 33 puzzle

Stage by Stage Commentary

Area 1

01: right
  • Destroy the wall with bullets
02: down
  • Destroy the floor with bullets, pick up ammunition
43: warp (left top)
  • Shoot the warp tile
24: in
  • Get the row power-up and destroy the back wall one column at a time
28: in
  • Get the pinball power-up (only avaliable in this room or the previous one) and shoot the lit up tile
  • First boss Wizard. Ignore.
Puzzle Room 01: in
  • Make a column of circles

Area 2

B30: left
  • I hit one block with the ball, but the rest was destroyed with bullets, but taking a break to get more ammunition
B29: left
  • Same strategy as the previous room
B28: warp (left middle)
  • Shoot the warp tile
B55: right
  • Destroy most of the wall with bullets, but finish off the last few columns with a row power-up
B56: up
  • Started by breaking columns with the row power-up, but did grab some more ammunition to help finish up
B60: up
  • Use the row power-up
  • Second boss Stone Shark. Ignore
Puzzle Room 02: in
  • Make a column of triangles

Area 3

06: up
  • Use the row power-up
11: up
  • Use the row power-up
14: warp (top right corner)
  • Shoot the warp tile
07: down
  • Use the row power-up
03: left
  • Destroy most of the wall with bullets, but finish off the last few columns with a row power-up
Puzzle Room 02: in
  • Make a column of triangles
21: right
  • Use the row power-up
22: right
  • Use the row power-up
23: up
  • Use the row power-up
27: warp (bottom right)
  • Shoot the warp tile
31: down
  • Use the row power-up
26: in
  • Make a column of circles
43: down
  • Use the row power-up
38: down
  • Use the row power-up
35: left
  • Use the row power-up
34: left
  • Use the row power-up
33: in
  • Make a column of squares
  • Final boss Iron Lion. Ignore

Improvements

  • The power-ups are random and seem to be event based. The RNG is not reset on each screen so changes early in the run would desync later portions of the run. I imagine a more complete planning of power-up would yield some small improvements probably.
  • My strategy in later puzzle rooms was an improvement over my strategy in the first one. Based on the luck getting power-ups later in the run a few frames of improvement early may or may not be an overall benefit, but you'd have to redo most of the run to find out.
  • I doubt there are improvements in the route, I mapped all of the rooms and created a route a little better than the one in Adam's faq.

Thanks to:

  • Adam Lamontagne for his faq
  • My Twitch chat for the ideas and encouragement
  • The TASMania team

Screenshots:

300, 447, 3554, 7657, 8625

Masterjun: Judging.
Masterjun: Great run! The game is fast-paced and short, making this run entertaining to watch. The viewer feedback is great as well.
Accepting to Moons.
feos: Pub.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15527
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5614: link_7777's NES Super Glove Ball in 02:08.24
Skilled player (1670)
Joined: 7/1/2013
Posts: 446
FAR OUT! Yes vote!
Editor, Player (54)
Joined: 12/25/2004
Posts: 634
Location: Aguascalientes, Mexico
I had thoughts on maybe some day create a TAS for this game (had some addresses mapped but never finished tracing the map routes), but there's no need anymore, well done link_7777. Obviously, yes vote!
I'm the best in the Universe! Remember that!
Active player (377)
Joined: 9/25/2011
Posts: 652
What? No high score?? Yes vote anyway, I never imagined this would get TASsed. P.S. Since my vote was only the second yes vote, someone above is fibbing.
Active player (328)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
Short and weird. Voting yes!
Experienced player (875)
Joined: 11/15/2010
Posts: 267
c-square wrote:
What? No high score?? Yes vote anyway, I never imagined this would get TASsed. P.S. Since my vote was only the second yes vote, someone above is fibbing.
I was actually a little worried about the high score and if I should end input after the last room or enter a name. As it turns out I didn't even make the high score list. Problem solved.
Editor, Player (44)
Joined: 7/11/2010
Posts: 1029
Just to explain my no vote: this run is really hard to follow and I couldn't tell what was going on and whether it was impressive or not. So I didn't find it particularly entertaining to watch.
Experienced player (875)
Joined: 11/15/2010
Posts: 267
ais523 wrote:
Just to explain my no vote: this run is really hard to follow and I couldn't tell what was going on and whether it was impressive or not. So I didn't find it particularly entertaining to watch.
I imagine it is hard to follow since it blazes by so fast. It may help to read the beginning of the submission text, I tried to at least describe the basics. Playing the game yourself may be the best way to get a feeling for how fast this run is. If you'd rather not go through the trouble you might get some idea from my RTA run on speedrun.com (pb of 12:42 as of this post).
CJ
Joined: 9/16/2013
Posts: 15
Location: Las Vegas, NV
This is an easy yes vote. This is even better than if the Power Glove would have actually worked as intended. Using the glove, the hand potentially goes faster, but it's so unreliable that you may as well just use the controller.
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15527
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3489] NES Super Glove Ball by link_7777 in 02:08.24