This may be the fastest that one can possibly complete this game (or any SNES game for that matter). It is kind of an odd choice for a speed run, and rather confusing to watch because it goes by so fast, but conceptually it is pretty interesting (and quite amusing to see the game engine get totally trampled by TAS). Enjoy!
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Snes9x 1.43+ v15.3 rerecording
- Aims for fastest time.
Comments
In this case, Clue has little to do with detective work and much to do with menu navigation. There is literally nothing to this game except navigating menus and stepping through cut-scenes. This might possibly be the shortest completion time of any SNES game. 1624 frames (roughly 27 seconds).
There is no luck manipulation involved in this video. All button presses happen at their earliest possible moment, and there are no extra frames inserted (intentionally or otherwise).
We discovered a crucial fact about the menu system of this game. The game will accept cursor-motion input one frame earlier than it will accept input from the action button. So when navigating through a list of menu items or a palette of person/weapon/room choices, you get one free move in any direction. This allows us to do the following without spending any extra frames:
- Choose "Detective" difficulty level.
- Make players 2 and 3 into computer characters.
- Choose characters other than Mustard and White as the computer characters.
- Accuse a person/weapon/room other than Mustard/Knife/Hall. This is crucial. A previous attempt used luck manipulation to force a scenario wherein the answer is Mustard/Knife/Hall, because these are the items at the cursor's default position (thus saving the extra frames needed to move the cursor). However with the ability to make 1 free cursor move, there is no additional cost to choosing any of the items adjacent to Mustard/Knife/Hall.
The scenario (person/weapon/room) is chosen when you select "Start Game" after choosing characters. The outcome depends on the exact frame at which you press the action button at the "Start Game" screen. If you provide input at the earliest possible moment in all menus (up to and including this one), the outcome scenario is "Plum/Knife/Conservatory". Knife is the default selection (no time cost). Plum is within 1 step of the default selection (no time cost -- the first step is free). But Conservatory is 2 steps away from the default selection, so it costs 1 extra frame to reach it. Any attempt to use luck manipulation to get a better scenario would require the insertion of 1 or more frames. Therefore a faster solution can not be found using luck manipulation.
Unless someone discovers something about the game mechanics that we've missed, this is the absolute fastest time in which the game can be completed. Even in TAS, how often can you say that?