Ikachan is a game created by Pixel during the development of Cave Story. You control a squid and need to help the sea creatures who have been trapped in a cavern.
Fortunately, Ikachan befriends a magical Attack Star that allows him to just simply leave and abandon those losers.

Glitches

Enemy pushing - Usually an NPC is impossible to bypass. However, it is possible to clip through them via an enemy pushing you fowards. To do this you need to approach the NPC until their dialog box appears. Once this happens the game registers you as 'in' their hit box. Once this happens an enemy can then push you through.
Enemy clipping - Usually, it's impossible to bypass walls. However, it is possible for Ikachan to clip vertical walls thanks to badly programmed hitboxes. Basically, whenever Ikachan approaches an enemy hitbox the game automatically pushes him out. However, building up enough speed before this and using precise timing, it's possible for the game to push Ikachan through any vertical facing walls. This will not work with horizontal walls, as Ikachan has different physics moving left and right.

Run explanation

The goal of this run is to use an Attack Star to clip through a wall towards the beginning area, and reaching the top of the screen. Doing so automatically starts the ending.
-The Japanese version is used because the text is slightly faster. There are no other differences.
- In order to damage Attack Stars in the boss fight, Ikachan must be Level 2 or higher. Any lower and he won't do any damage.
- Due to an oversight, it's possible to end the battle with one Attack Star still alive. Even better, this Attack Star is able to follow you around.
-I use enemy pushing to get past the blob with glasses blocking the spacesuit, and enemy clipping to get past the one tile roof blocking the way to the exit. After that it's just a mad dash to the finish line.

feos: Judging...
feos: Updated the movie file per author's request.
feos: Accepting to Moons and publishing...

Editor, Expert player (2001)
Joined: 8/25/2013
Posts: 1199
amaurea wrote:
At the very beginning, at 0:15, wouldn't it be faster to slow down instead of hitting the wall, and then clear the obstacle at maximum velocity both upwards and to the left? Or is the problem that slowing down (by moving right) also moves you upwards, which is counterproductive?
Doing it the way I did allows Ikachan to fall much faster, since he didn't touch the block preceding the area.
amaurea wrote:
Around 0:40, the two first steps down are done differently than the last. Why?
Ikachan was falling at different angles at that point, for some reason.
amaurea wrote:
Also, I'm worried that the star shepherding is suboptimal. the star tries to follow you, so to avoid having it run into corners, can't one do better than just running ahead of it and waiting for it? For example, around 2:50 the star runs into the wall and loses its forward velocity because it is trying to move towards ikachan, and ikachan is ahead of it. Wouldn't it be faster to position ikachan above the star at that location, making it slow down a bit and accelerate upwards in order to clear the ledge, and only then run ahead with ikachan again? And around 3:04 it looks like you wait slightly longer than necessary for the star, as it clears the ledge with a good margin. And just after, at 3:05, wouldn't it be better to led ikachan fall along the left wall, so that the star ends up further left. That would give it room for a running start for entering the passage just after.
Some good ideas! I'll test them out.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
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arandomgameTASer wrote:
By the way, if I make a minor improvement before this is accepted should I just cancel the submission? Or can I just replace the current run?
If the improvments are minor, ask for replacement (you can't do it yourself). For quite major improvements, cancel&submit new.
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Also, why skip the first two fish in the very beginning? It seems that a number of times you have to double back quite a bit to grab some fish, when those two seem simple enough to grab. I like this little title a lot. I can understand that speedrunning it is quite difficult.
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Personman
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This run is really nice! And I'm glad to be introduced to this neat little game. I'm also glad that you seem to be taking people's criticisms of some of the movement well, and are willing to do the work required to test them out. Sometimes we come off as a little harsh, but it's all in the spirit of collaboratively destroying the game :)
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This game is essentially a clone of Thrust with a very limited moveset. The end result is entertaining mainly because of how peculiar and awkward it is compared to games of its type with less restrictive movement options.
Nach wrote:
I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.
Editor, Expert player (2001)
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http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/14261152466587404 Made a 320 frame improvement based on suggestions posted. Can the current file be replaced please?
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
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arandomgameTASer wrote:
http://tasvideos.org/userfiles/info/14261152466587404 Made a 320 frame improvement based on suggestions posted. Can the current file be replaced please?
Oh, very good. Just wanted to ask about improvements and now I see this :) BTW, what about this movie's branch? Seems it's some huge glitch finishing the game several minutes faster than expected. From the submission text, looks like a "game end glitch" to me.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Editor, Expert player (2001)
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I think it would just be any%. If someone were to make a run without glitches, like most RTAs of this game, it would probably be 'any% glitchless' I guess.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
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feos wrote:
BTW, what about this movie's branch? Seems it's some huge glitch finishing the game several minutes faster than expected. From the submission text, looks like a "game end glitch" to me.
What is the "proper" way to end this game? Is it reaching the top (after lots more wandering) or something else entierely (and the top also triggers credits for some odd reason)?
Editor, Expert player (2001)
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The way the game is supposed to end is doing a bunch of fetch quests to get Ikachan's buddy (The dude at the beginning of the game), getting the suit I pass by, collect every NPC, collect Ironhead, and then the game automatically sends Ikachan to the top of the screen and the game ends. A normal speedrun goes like this: Link to video So yeah the proper way is reaching the top of the screen. Dunno why it was coded that way, but it is.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
ALAKTORN
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encode of the improvement?
Joined: 4/26/2014
Posts: 4
firstly, shoutout to arandomegameTASer for bringing about the death of ikachan RTA - nah kidding, the 2 glitches are pretty cool and i've been able to pull it off RTA: http://www.twitch.tv/lurkchan/c/4125947 since you save no one, i ended up making this run "any%" and since you save everyone in the old route, that is defined as "100%" (not that it has a percentage counter, but you do save everyone so 100% of everyone saved vs any% none of them saved, it makes sense) there is an argument to be made for "getting all the fish" but that is really boring, and if you miss a fish you can still finish the game, whereas if you miss any of the NPCs you cannot finish i'd like to point out that the current movement is optimized quite a bit, but it can be improved. for example, the first crab you run into seems like it can be avoided in some way without losing many frames. the second crab you run into actually helps you clip through the fish above, even though you annotate it as "hating that crab." i'm sure you can find the most optimal ways through everything if you keep trying. it's certainly not easy to control ika precisely
Editor, Expert player (2001)
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Yeah, I can see that reasoning for categories. Fish are basically just like coins in Mario. The new version takes a slightly different route with the fish, so the crabs aren't even a thing anymore due to cycles and stuff.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
Patashu
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lurkchan wrote:
since you save no one, i ended up making this run "any%" and since you save everyone in the old route, that is defined as "100%" (not that it has a percentage counter, but you do save everyone so 100% of everyone saved vs any% none of them saved, it makes sense) there is an argument to be made for "getting all the fish" but that is really boring, and if you miss a fish you can still finish the game, whereas if you miss any of the NPCs you cannot finish
what about any% vs any% no OoB?
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arandomgameTASer wrote:
The new version takes a slightly different route with the fish, so the crabs aren't even a thing anymore due to cycles and stuff.
cool, i look forward to the finished video
Patashu wrote:
what about any% vs any% no OoB?
that assumes someone is going to run a all fish all items 100% category (i won't be, but we can deal with that when it comes up)
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Can "no OoB" not be 100%?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Editor, Expert player (2001)
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'No OoB' sounds the best to me, since playing the game normally isn't exactly like doing a 100% run. A 100% run would be doing something out of the way to beat the game fully and completely, which this game sort of lacks besides the fish.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
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i'll go along with it
Site Admin, Skilled player (1235)
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Since "any% no OoB" and "100%" would both be "no OoB", I'd leave that glitch for only 1 branch label - this one's.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Site Admin, Skilled player (1235)
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Are all improvements done? Also, what font do I need to install to see proper Japanese in the game? I installed SOME Japanese font and it doesn't help.
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Joined: 4/26/2014
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you need applocale to display the japanese fonts http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13209
Editor, Expert player (2001)
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Yes, all improvements are done. Hourglass should have a tab for forcing Japanese local under the Runtime tab.
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter - some loser
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. ---- [2590] Windows Ikachan "warp glitch" by arandomgameTASer in 03:31.56
ALAKTORN
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but… there’s not even an encode? why is this being published?
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Sweet, there's another Pixel game out there! And wow, you destroyed it...good work!
ALAKTORN wrote:
but… there’s not even an encode? why is this being published?
It looks to me like all of the regular encodes are included in the publication. Feos was the judge, got the movie to sync and display the text correctly, and did the publication encodes.