Submission Text Full Submission Page
FCEU Blip version used
  • (Ab)uses warps
  • Abuses hit detection
  • Abuses programming glitches (i.e. fall faster)
  • Manipulates luck
  • No damage/death
  • As fast as possible
As discussed in the forum, I learned everything I needed to know about New Zealand as a young child; namely, that they use a strage semi-permeable architecture and have a walrus problem.
Kiwi Kraze brings these native quirks to light with a fun little romp of a platformer. Kiwi must resuce his main squeeze and other trapped comrades from an evil walrus. Never mind that by warping he leaves fully half of his comrades behind...no, NES games have always been about the fine tail waiting at game's end.
This is version 4 of the movie, a synthesis of my and josh l.'s different routes. It improves just about every area from previous versions and ends up under fourteen minutes. This game was great to attack because of all the possibilities for cutting through ceilings and walls and skipping entire corridors. I even stumbled onto an actual glitch along the way.
It's been a week since version 4 went live. Nobody chimed in with improvements and I can't spot any myself, so: submission. Thrill to the wall-penetrating powers of my humble yellow bird!
Note: I can skip the ending "movie" with one more button press, but this adds another ~450 frames for no real benefit. I was unsure if this had to be included or not.

Truncated: Rejected because a faster version has been submitted.

TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 14860
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #659: Monthenor's NES Kiwi Kraze in 13:50.28
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 185
Location: Denmark
If I find the guy who made only one music piece for that game, I'll give him a lesson in variety. With heavy objects. Good movie, doesn't seem to be much room for improvement, as I expect the 2-3 frame pauses at times are intentional? Yes vote.
"We observe the behaviour of simple folk, and derive pleasure from their defects." -Aristotle - Book of Humour
Player (24)
Joined: 4/23/2005
Posts: 435
Location: Germany
MahaTmA wrote:
... Yes vote.
I vote too yes. But I see as result only 1 Yes. Have you already vote? Or is the counter wrong. One from my favourite Games in the past. And the Run looks great and fast as possible.
Last TAS finished: Final Fantasy Adventure (4.0 Warp Glitch Run) WIP in the moment: Tail Gator (GB) Matty
Joined: 3/7/2005
Posts: 41
MahaTmA wrote:
If I find the guy who made only one music piece for that game, I'll give him a lesson in variety. With heavy objects.
Yeah, but if you could only have one piece of music, wouldn't it be this one?
Founding member of GerbilMechs
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Yes it would. For me, yes it would.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Player (36)
Joined: 9/11/2004
Posts: 2623
I'm sorry, it's just so boring. Well played, (but I think some of the water parts you could have cut a bit closer) but still mind-boggingly boring.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day, Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
Post subject: Some questions
Former player
Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 155
I have some questions for watching your submission. Frame 2800: Why do you walk over, then jump? Shouldn't you jump earlier and move to the left as you jump? Frame 4200: Why do you wait so long to go into the water? Frame 17000: Why do you swim all of the way around? That takes a very long time. Here's how I would do it: http://lingcog.iit.edu/~scubed/kiwikraz_1.zip (I'm not sure if you can trigger the upper cloud guy to appear so you can just directly jump on his cloud.) Frame 25000: Couldn't you dive earlier? Frame 30000: Could shoot out water while at the top to save time breathing later (31337) Frame 42000: There is some slowdown around here. Maybe you should kill more enemies to avoid it? It looks like many jumps could be a bit shorter to avoid losing time with the horizontal movement. Nice job going close to the spikes.
Post subject: Re: Some questions
Joined: 3/7/2005
Posts: 41
scubed wrote:
Frame 2800: Why do you walk over, then jump? Shouldn't you jump earlier and move to the left as you jump?
Your horizontal movement is impeded by the blocks as you jump through them + the jumps aren't a "perfect" height + it would spawn more enemies in the right side of the top corridor.
scubed wrote:
Frame 4200: Why do you wait so long to go into the water? ... Frame 25000: Couldn't you dive earlier?
Water is so slow that I eke out the horizontal distance as much as possible. Floating or bouncing across water is much faster than swimming through it.
scubed wrote:
Frame 17000: Why do you swim all of the way around? That takes a very long time. Here's how I would do it: http://lingcog.iit.edu/~scubed/kiwikraz_1.zip (I'm not sure if you can trigger the upper cloud guy to appear so you can just directly jump on his cloud.)
I had a long explanation here about how there's always hidden improvements in this level and I found all I could and that I didn't think blah blah blah. Then I watched your movie. You are a golden god. I didn't think jumping up there could avoid the water current...this throws my entire run into question.
scubed wrote:
Frame 30000: Could shoot out water while at the top to save time breathing later (31337)
Noted.
scubed wrote:
Frame 42000: There is some slowdown around here. Maybe you should kill more enemies to avoid it?
I still don't notice any slowdown, is it just a couple frames that my eyes can't catch? Awesome catch on that frame 17000 thing. That's why I like this game: with all the walls so un-wall-like there's room for improvement for a long while.
Founding member of GerbilMechs
Former player
Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 155
Yes, being a Taito game, it has Bubble Bobble like walls. I'm not sure about the slowdown. I could easily be mistaken.
Joined: 1/31/2005
Posts: 121
I like the little lovely chicks. So I vote yes. But... are there any glitches or bugs able to take as shotcut?
Editor, Active player (296)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
I'm sorry, it's just so boring. Well played, (but I think some of the water parts you could have cut a bit closer) but still mind-boggingly boring.
I agree completely with this assessment.
Editor, Active player (296)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
MahaTmA wrote:
If I find the guy who made only one music piece for that game, I'll give him a lesson in variety. With heavy objects.
The artists behind the soundtrack are the famous Geoff Follin and Tim Follin, who happen to be on the top side of my favourite NES music composers list. You can also hear their work in Solstice and Silver Surfer, among a couple of other games. It's just a shame that they didn't buy more songs from them for this game.
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3584)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4738
Location: Tennessee
scubed wrote: Frame 17000: Why do you swim all of the way around? That takes a very long time. Here's how I would do it: http://lingcog.iit.edu/~scubed/kiwikraz_1.zip (I'm not sure if you can trigger the upper cloud guy to appear so you can just directly jump on his cloud.) I had a long explanation here about how there's always hidden improvements in this level and I found all I could and that I didn't think blah blah blah. Then I watched your movie. You are a golden god. I didn't think jumping up there could avoid the water current...this throws my entire run into question.
Well I watched this run and voted yes. Then I read this, I highly recommend you improve this run and re-submit. Either way though, I think this is publishable. I was entertained. Towards the end I got a little bored but I can see how someone who has played would find it interesting as they are more familiar with difficulties and route-planning etc that would make the levels interesting. I thought overall the game had a lot of route planning possiblities and nice glitches (?) going through various walls. The run seems good with no obvious errors. Good job.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Former player
Joined: 1/27/2006
Posts: 19
Location: Chile
You could make de kiwi fly flapping his wings to save time in a lot of places. (my english sucks)
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
Yeah, Monthenor, did you ever try that "flapping wings" thing?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
One friend purchased recently a collection pack with "The New Zealand Story" and shown me some warps. I wonder if Heaven could save you time, though it is unlikely. I'm going to vote yes on this movie, though I agree it's not very fun if you haven't played the game.
No.
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden
This is up for judgement. What do you think? Some people were entertained, some were bored, myself, I'm not sure which one I was. In any case it's improveable.
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3584)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4738
Location: Tennessee
I was specifically entertained because despite knowing the game I could see that it was expertly played. I saw that the author was taking crazy shortcuts and abusing the game to its fullest.
In any case it's improveable.
In most cases, rejected runs where improvable because they made errors (missed shots, sub-optimal jumps). In this case a shortcut was discovered after the author made the run. It seems that runs are submitted in this case, with anticipation of a further improvement sometime in the future. I would like to emphasize that there are no mistakes made in this run. Also if it is rejected, I hope it is clear whether or not an improved version would get accepted or not. We can assume the author (or someone else) would be waiting for such a decision before attempting the improved version.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Active player (277)
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 5712
I think there is not enough music in this game to get it published!
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3584)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4738
Location: Tennessee
Is music really ever a deciding factor on publication?
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Editor, Reviewer, Experienced player (968)
Joined: 4/17/2004
Posts: 3107
Location: Sweden
If it was there is no way Lolo would have gotten published. I'm still trying to get that tune out of my head.
Joined: 8/13/2005
Posts: 356
Location: Canada
Does anyone else find games like this kind of trippy? Instead of a ninja or a robot (or, to a lesser extent, a pizza mascot), the thing that every bad guy in the world is trying to kill is a small bird with sneakers and what seems to be some type of energy gun. Anyways, it was okay for a while, but after the first boss I got bored and watched the rest in fast forward. Strangely, I was able to follow the gameplay perfectly in that state. That should be taken as a bad sign. I'm voting no on this.
Player (101)
Joined: 3/25/2004
Posts: 189
Location: Austin
I made a NZS speedrun video just for fun in the past, but even then, my general impression of the game was that it was slow, slow, slow... The kiwi walks slow, jumps slow, falls down slow, and swims REALLY slow. Slowwwwwwwww... But then, slower games have been published. And with the fast-forward button, it's not too bad. Maybe it should be encoded in fast-forward.
http://girlyyy.com/ The El Viento TAS is the only decent thing I submitted here.