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I will often use the term "game B" in this submission text. "Game B" is "hard mode" on Circus Charlie. Just so you know what it is.
There is no english version of this game, only a japanese version.
And I know that some of you are thinking "Hey, he didn't beat the game, after stage 5 he's back at stage 1 again!". That's correct, but the thing is that after you beat stage 5 all stages start all over again. That's why the completion of stage 5 is accepted as the end of the game.
  • Emulator used: FCEU Ultra 0.98.12-blip
  • Length if movie: 12262 frames (~3m 24,37s)
  • Plays at NTSC speed. Don't use PAL emulation!
  • Takes no damage and doesn't die.
  • Does not abuse any glitches, since I haven't found any :)
The goals of this movie:
  • Complete the game on game B ("hard" mode) as fast as possible
  • Get an as high score as possible without wasting any time
I will not compare this movie to Phil and Genisto's run simply because that movie plays on another difficulty, which makes it hard to compare the two movies. The stages in this run looks somewhat different than in Phil and Genisto's run.
I tried to find out how to manipulate luck in this game, like making the obstacles appear on different places, but couldn't find out how to do that. Perhaps it's simply not possible to manipulate luck in this game, I don't know. If I could have manipulated luck in this run I could've shaved of at least 3 seconds I think.
I will now comment each individual stage briefly:
Stage 1: On this stage you ride a really cool lion with purlpe eyes. This is a very easy stage, even on game B. Some notes though:
Note #1: Around frame 1200 you will see that I miss a goldbag. Believe me, I tried to take it, but even with frame advance and savestates I found it impossible to do without hitting the burning pot behind it.
Note #2: Around frame 2500 you will notice that I suddenly stop for a few frames. This was done in order to avoid jumping into the firering that's coming towards me. I really tried to prevent this but wasn't able to.
Stage 2: On this stage some monkeys are trying to kill you by walking right into you. This stage is really easy, so I try to be entertaining by being really close to hitting the monkeys. This stage was probably completed as fast as theoretically possible, because the only thing I do in this stage is running forward and jump, and since jumping is exactly as fast as running in this game, I don't see how you can complete this stage any faster.
Stage 3: On this stage you are to jump on balls to the other side. This stage is really easy, and once again I try to do it as entertaining as possible by making very precise jumps and being close to fall off the balls and die. Whenever you jump over a ball, you get 500 points. I try to do this as often as possible.
Stage 4: I... hate... this... stage...This movie has 2027 rerecords, and I can surely say that at least 1000 of those were used on this stage. On game B, this stage is crazy hard. I don't have time to do tricks and get points and stuff, all I focus on in this stage is surviving, since it's extremely easy to fall off the horse.
Note #1: I slow down once on this stage, this was necessary to stay on the horse. I know, it bugs me too, I really tried to avoid it. Really, really.
Stage 5: This is the last stage. This is the stage that I improved the most. While Phil and Genisto falls down three times to catch the new rope, I only fall down once. This saved me quite some time. This stage was generally easy.
This run was done in just one day, to be exact it took me about 4-5 hours to complete it. This run was quite easy to do, except for stage 4 which was crazy hard. I used frame advance with frame counter on for most of the run. Between stages i ran the game on normal speed.
Here are the times for each stage. With "time" I mean from the first frame on the stage that Charlie appears on to the frame with the first "wave animation" (after you finished a stage, Charlie waves his hand) on each stage. The time is measured in frames.
  • Stage 1: 2519
  • Stage 2: 2305
  • Stage 3: 2003
  • Stage 4: 1806
  • Stage 5: 1105
Fun fact: Did you know that Circus Charlie (the character) doesn't have any eyes? If you look carefully, you'll see that Charlie's eyes are always the same colour as the background. Doing all those crazy tricks without having any eyes is really impressive!
I hope you enjoy this run.
/ Randil

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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #802: Randil's NES Circus Charlie in 03:24.37
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Randil wrote:
Fun fact: Did you know that Circus Charlie (the character) doesn't have any eyes? If you look carefully, you'll see that Charlie's eyes are always the same colour as the background. Doing all those crazy tricks without having any eyes is really impressive!
He must have two tunnels straight through his head! The original Bomberman had the same problem. The buttons on Mario's overalls in Super Mario Land were also holes to make them look shinier.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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I think that the guys who programmed this game was just lazy and thought "Eyes??? Who needs 'em!?!" or something like that. Perhaps there is conspiracy behind all this if both Bombermans eyes AND Super Mario's buttons are transparent? Anyway, I think it looks kind of sloppy if they didn't even take the time to put two black pixels as eyes on the character.
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It's just because of color limitations. You can only have three colors for one sprite, so if the background's mostly the same color, they can get away with having the background color being the imaginary fourth color.
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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You should not compare this movie to a Game mode A movie. Game mode B wasn't made because it was judged to be pointless as well as Kung Fu and Donkey Kong.
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Well... I guess that's true, but do we need two played versions of this game published?
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Which game mode is preferable?
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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I think that's hard to judge now... B might have been preferable to play this game with in the first place, but since the published movie is played on A, this movie should have been on A to make it comparable. This movie is probably played a little more accurate due to FCEU... but I think it would be unfair if the A movie gets obsoleted, when you can't really compair the two. You also don't know about slight timing differences in Famtasia/FCEU. I don't really know what to do, I just don't think this game deserves two movies published.
nesrocks
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you must obsolete movie A simply because its easy mode vs hard mode.
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Allright, I've decided that I'll cancel this submission and make a run of this game on Game A instead. It should be done within a day or two. Wish me luck!
nesrocks
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this is being discussed a lot on the IRC channel, and i'd like to make my opinion clear here: I'd rather see it played on mode B than mode A. I don't care if mode B requires two stops against only 1 of mode A, or if the competition started on mode A. Should the mistake live on? just fix the system right now and switch to mode B competition.
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I changed this to NEW again, bacause some people (I will not mention who) wanted me to to so. I have changed the submission text now, so it does not compare this movie to the previous. Let's see what kind of votes this movie gets and let the majority decide whether it should be published or not. And I want to apoligize to Phil and Genisto if they were offended that I compared this movie to their movie. I realize now that you can't do that since they play on different difficulties and therefor the stages are somewhat different. Because the stages are somewhat different you have to use different strategies depending on what difficulty you're playing. However, I hope that you understand my choise of playing this game on game B instead of game A. because the guidelines says: "Play at the hardest difficulty." And personally, I'd be interested in a run that is both faster than the previous run and plays at a harder difficulty class.
nesrocks
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And mode B is not pointless not in this game and not in donkey kong (i dont know about kung fu). Its a harder game mode because of different obstacles set up. Its not like hard mode of kickmaster where the enemies simply have more HP (there are infinite harder modes on kickmaster). The hard mode here as well as in donkey kong have significant changes. What is wrong is that people started timeattacking them on easy mode, so thats what should be fixed.
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Maybe the fact that hard mode is faster than easy mode is because of less time left at the end of each stage, resulting in less bonus count time. But the higher score is because of higher time left bonus multiplier? make double avi to check that :)
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Here's how it is: On game B you get 1,5 points for every timeunit, that means you get 15 point for every 10 timeunits. On game A you get 1 point for every timeunit, that means you get 10 point for every 10 timeunits. So you get 50% more points per timeunit on game B.
nesrocks
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But do you start each level with same time left on both modes?
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FODA wrote:
But do you start each level with same time left on both modes?
Yes, you do. On both game A and game B you start with 5000 timeunits left, however, in the game it is referred to as "BONUS".
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Voting 'No' because I can do a faster run of this game. The reason I won't submit it: I tried both mode A and mode B, my mode B run is faster than Randils mode B run. My mode A run is played equally accurate as my mode B run. My mode A run is about a second slower than the published mode A run. Therefor, the faster mode B run I have is of lower quality as the run currently published. This is why I think if someone gives this game another try, he should do it on mode A. If it's faster than the run currently published, I'll vote yes. I'll only vote yes to a mode B run, if the author includes an fmc of a mode A run that's faster than the published run, proving that his mode B run is actually better played than the published run. (I hope what I said isn't too confusing :P)
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I'm actually working on a game A run too, just to find out how fast it would be. Did you have trouble at the very end of stage 1 too Baxter? I'm having big troubles jumping through the last firering and onto the white object (I don't know what the english word for it is, but you know what I mean). I always end up crashing into the burning pot. I have been able to beat stage 1 on game A though, but it's slower than Phil's version...
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Randil wrote:
I'm actually working on a game A run too, just to find out how fast it would be. Did you have trouble at the very end of stage 1 too Baxter? I'm having big troubles jumping through the last firering and onto the white object (I don't know what the english word for it is, but you know what I mean). I always end up crashing into the burning pot. I have been able to beat stage 1 on game A though, but it's slower than Phil's version...
Phil did this in an incredible skilled way. I too tried to have the same time as him at level 1 when I was beaten but I never succeded ;) Gj Phil!
/Walker Boh
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Walker Boh wrote:
Phil did this in an incredible skilled way. I too tried to have the same time as him at level 1 when I was beaten but I never succeded ;) Gj Phil!
Yes, it was truly amazingly done... I'll keep trying to find out how to make that last jump without dying. If someone knows how to do this please let me know.
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I think Phil will not reveal his secrets because he is a COMPETITIVE GAMER Competitive gamers don't let competitive gamers drive drunkenly
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
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I think Phil's version is very close to perfection in that game. In mode A that is.
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I agree with FODA. I don't see why a new run should only be published if it's played on Easy better than the current Easy run. If the guideline for submission is to play at the hardest difficulty, the competition should be for Mode B. Unless there's something wrong with this Mode B run, I don't see the problem. It even happens to be faster than the Mode A run.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
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I'm going to try to improve this run some more by fixing these things: 1. Beat stage 1 without having to stop around frame 2500. This could save around 15-20 frames. 2. Try not to slow down on stage 4. This could save around 25-40 frames. I'm pretty sure that stage 2, 3 and 5 can't be improved much, perhaps 5 frames each. And perhaps you could post your .fcm where you beat this game on game B, Baxter, since you said that it was faster than this version. I'd very much like to see it, to see what it does different to beat the game faster. And a general question too, perhaps Baxter or Phil knows this: Is it possible to manipulate where objects, such as firerings, appear on the screen? For example, if I could get the last firering on stage 1 to appear a little sooner, I could probably make that last jump on game A. I'll keep you updated on this, and let you know if I manage to improve my current time.