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Conan: The Mysteries of Time is a side-scrolling action video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System released in 1991. It was actually a port of an unrelated title called Myth: History in the Making that was released for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Amiga CD32, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum.
This game may just look slopy. Objectives are obscure, animations stutter, enemies keep spawning and refuse to die unless their current animations finish. Nevertheless, this run still complete the game in timely 18016 frames.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.2
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Takes samage to save time
  • Abuses programming errors in the game
  • Manipulates luck

Pitchfork

The pitchfork is the most powerful weapon in the game, and required to destroy the Cerberus-like thingy in the first level. It's only dropped by the demon-like enmy in the first stage whilst only 1 pitchfork can be carried at any time.
I got and kept an second one on Stage 1 to use on the first castle guard in Stage 6.

Takes damage to interupt the current animation

A common trick found in many games. In this game it works very well as the damage-stun animation is shorter than the attack and landing anmations while enemies never stop coming. HP is never a problem in a TAS in this game.

Projectile Glitch

The game mixes all kinds of game objects together in the same pool but can fail to properly register and clear their attributes for collisions, leading to a glitch that Conan's projectiles can become "sticky" in a certain object slot turning every incoming object in it into a projectile that can damage enemies until it gets cleared. This finds certain usage eg. fighting the final boss with only one shot from Conan in the run.

Wall Glitches

Walls in this game have very imperfect collisions. Conan can stand-jump or run-jump through some.

Other Comments

Thanks to mtvf1 for the encode.
GoddessMaria: Judging...
GoddessMaria: Hmm... This game is quite low quality as it doesn't really provide anything truly interesting and game design itself is quite flawed. As for the run itself... While optimization is there, the entertainment factor is not. The audience reaction was either neutral or negative, which doesn't help either. Considering that entertainment value is too low for Moons, that leaves the Vault. Since this aims for fastest completion and doesn't utilize ACE, it does qualify to be there instead. Therefore...
Accepting this to Vault.
feos: Pub.

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Posted: 6/15/2018 9:55 AM
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TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6000: klmz's NES Conan: The Mysteries of Time in 04:59.77
Posted: 6/16/2018 3:15 AM
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HappyLee
Expert player (2444)
Joined: 12/23/2007
Posts: 822
NES TASer of 2012
Congratulations on Submission #6000. And NES TASer of the Year?
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Posted: 6/16/2018 3:11 PM
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klmz
Editor, Emulator Coder, Expert player (2104)
Joined: 5/22/2007
Posts: 1134
Location: Glitchvania
NES TASer of 2018 GBA TASer of 2018 GBA TAS of 2016 Lucky TAS of 2016 GBx TASer of 2008 NES TAS of 2007
HappyLee wrote:
Congratulations on Submission #6000. And NES TASer of the Year?
Thank you. There have to be some more entertaining NES TASes than this is for that.
<klmz> it reminds me of that people used to keep quoting adelikat's IRC statements in the old good days <adelikat> no doubt <adelikat> klmz, they still do
Posted: 6/21/2018 6:22 AM
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link_7777
Experienced player (852)
Joined: 11/15/2010
Posts: 267
Well done for sure. I looked into this game a little bit and controlling the spawns seemed pretty hard. If I recall it seemed like changing the spawns was easy, but as a result there were way too many possibilities. There also seemed to be a few cool glitches, nicely done
Posted: 7/22/2018 6:09 PM
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Memory
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GBA TASer of 2020 GBA TAS of 2020 GBA TASer of 2019 Exotic platforms TAS of 2018
The wall glitches were pretty cool and so was the glitch used to end input early, but ultimately, the game just feels slow and repetitive. The music doesn't really help either. Meh vote.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Posted: 7/30/2018 5:24 PM
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GoddessMaria
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GBA TASer of 2016 GBA TASer of 2014 Lucky TAS of 2014 GBA TAS of 2014
Any last statements for this submission? Please do so now.
Current projects: failing at life
Posted: 7/30/2018 10:08 PM
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feos
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NES TAS of 2011
This game is very unpleasant, and as a result, the movie was very hard to sit through. The only part that didn't feel annoying was the forest level, but overall, I wasn't entertained in the slightest. Wall clips and the final fight were nice to have, but they still couldn't make it enjoyable. Voted huge No.
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.
Posted: 8/11/2018 4:18 PM
Post subject: Movie published
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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. ---- [3765] NES Conan: The Mysteries of Time by klmz in 04:59.77