Submission #9048: Sam_Underscore's GBA Original Memory Game "20 Cards" in 00:19.89

(Link to video)
Game Boy Advance
Original Memory Game
20 Cards
Bizhawk 2.9
1188
59.7275005696058
332
PowerOn
3 Game Pack - Candy Land + Chutes and Ladders + Original Memory Game (USA).gba
Submitted by Sam_Underscore on 5/4/2024 1:54:47 PM
Submission Comments

Goal

Within the three game pack, there is Candy land, chutes and ladders, and Memory. Unlike the others, Memory has three difficulties, each with different numbers of cards. This is the lowest difficulty, with only 20 cards.

Movement

You can move to another square and select that square on the same frame. You can wrap around the map to reach cards on the other side. You cannot move diagonally. You would have to move left one frame and then up the next. A is the only action button that really does anything unless the game tells you to press start.

RNG and optimization

So, clearly there is rng at play here. The layout of the cards gets changed every frame you wait on the main menu. So, I tested several frames on the main menu, starting with pressing Start on the first frame possible. To see what the best outcome would be, I counted the frames off of a theoretical perfect outcome, which doesn’t exist in this case. That would be when getting past the menu on frame one, every card being right next to each other, because you can go straight to it and press A on the same frame. On a frame 1 menu, there are 0 frames lost to waiting in the menu and 11 frames lost to movement in the game due to less than perfect rng. The next frame has 1 frame lost to waiting in the menu and >10 frames lost to movement in the game. Once the lost frames exceed the leader (frame one), I move on to the next starting frame, aka the next memory layout. As it turns out, a frame one menu is the fastest outcome.

Other stuff

I decided to have the last input be pressing A after the last “Match!” shows up. Even though I’ve technically beaten the game at that point, it's best to have the last input bring me to the results screen, which is more clearly an ending.
Last Edited by Sam_Underscore 13 days ago
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