- Recorded with FCEUX 2.1.3, old PPU (syncs in 2.1.5)
- Fastest time to 999999
- Luck manipulation
- Glitch abuse
1054 frames (17.54 seconds) faster than Baxter's published run, largely from using a new trick:
When the top row is cleared, the game seems to get confused and also clears the bottom row, counting another line (but tetrises don't clear 5 lines, it keeps a full line instead). So I score tetrises by doing triples at the top, and at the same time set up the rest for more tetrises (as leftover rows fall to the bottom). I actually found this glitch back in 2006 while doing a playaround, and had this run in mind for a long time, but it wasn't until recently that I figured out how to do it.
Placing blocks this high sadly isn't possible at level 19, but barely works at 18, so I start at 18 instead (and had to score 2 more tetrises). It's still hard to fit (and manipulate) the blocks up there, since I had to repeatedly fill the top few rows ... so I made this easier by bruteforcing again!
Overall, it went like this:
- Find all possible ways to fit blocks into each side (or as many as I can, I got a few dozen)
- Get the player input for each of them (and how many frames it takes to place each block)
- Also get the input to delay the next block by any amount of frames (up to about 10, and pausing when left+right+down isn't enough)
- Using the above, code the bruteforcer in C, and use it for a (mostly) easy ride to level 19 and above
And the bruteforcing: (instant, too)
- Go through each left/right block sequence (for a single tetris), and each way to alternate sides
- For each of them, find how long it'd take to manipulate and place all blocks
- Keep the shortest one, display it and generate .fm2 data to copy-paste into the run
I only ran into a minor problem at some point, when the cleared bottom rows overflowed past the bottom (due to the glitch) and started blocking the way above the top row ... this sometimes forced me to use other/slower combinations, but probably cost less than 1 second.
Since this is no longer possible once I reach level 19, the last few tetrises were done like before.
adelikat: Claiming for judging. And Accepting of course!