Submission #3423: goofydylan8's NES Wolverine in 08:10.94

In this run Wolverine sacrifices almost all of his life, ignoring the attacks of most enemies all so that he could push Sabretooth off a cliff and celebrate by looking angry.

Health management is the most important aspect of this run. At the start of each level Wolverine has 48 hp that diminished when he is hit by enemies or their weapons. While these collisions cause Wolverine to lose health they do not actually slow his forward progression at all. Because of this the optimum run of this game would be simply to "run right for justice" and neither attack, which severely slows you down, nor trying to jump over enemies, which is also slowly. The problem is that there are more enemies than that would allow so optimization of the run was dependent on avoiding and ignoring the proper enemies so that Wolverine ends each level with the minimum life possible.

While running Wolverine has a constant velocity of 2 pixels per frame. Running speed is only affected by magnets which either slow you down or speed you up while running and moving platforms. These magnets and platforms only affect Wolverine while he is in contanct so these areas are optimized for maximum speed.

While jumping the x and y velocity are dependent on a random number generator and as such desyncs are common so fixing earlier portions of the run means redoing the rest over. While in the air the x-velocity alternates at random between 1 or 2 pixels per frame which is dependent on both the frame the jump starts and for how long you hold the jump button. The y-direction velocity follows a similar random pattern alternating between 1 or 2 pixels per frame until you reach near the peak of your jump and then alternates between 0 and 1 pixel per frame and then follows this pattern in reverse until you reach a top speed of alternating between 3 and 4 pixels per frame.

Physics for swimming is a mix between running and jumping with your x-speed being a constant 1 pixel per frame and the y-velocity based on random numbers following a similar pattern to jumping.

In addition to the randomness another aspect of movement that must be manipulated in interactions with corners. There are 3 options when jumping onto a platform and depending on the specific situation any of the 3 can be fastest.

1) The first choice is to jump over the corner and land in stride on the platform. Pros of this choice are that you always have x-velocity. Cons of this choice are that to avoid the corner you must be in the air longer and due to the randomness of jumping the extra time in the air may be slower than the other options.

2) The second choice is the collide with the corner and slide up and onto the platform. Pros of this choice is that it limits air time so the sometimes slow air travel is limited and you can land on the platform on the absolute earliest frame of all options. Cons of this choice are that you must collide with the wall so that for at least one frame your x-velocity is 0.

3) The final choice is a glitch in that on certain platforms you can get through the wall and land within the platform. When this occurs a wall ejection occurs moving you as fast as 8 pixels in a single frame. The pros of this choice are obviously that it is the fastest option to move up as it saves around 4 frames. The cons of this option is that these platforms are not that frequent.

In this game Wolverine has three attack options. You can punch while standing, punch in the air or kick while standing. For both punches you have the choice to extend your claws which deals twice the damage to the enemies but costs Wolverine 1 hp. You cannot move while kicking and it is both weaker and slower than punching so it is not used at all in this run. If you punch while standing you also cannot move so this technique is used only twice, while fighting Magneto and Sabretooth on the last levels as there is no destination that must be moved towards. Punching in the air is used many times in the run as it can allow for a loss of only 1 hp when any other option would cost 3 or more but has the trade-off of being slightly slower than simply running through.

Thanks for watching.

feos: Encoded the latest movie from author.

Mukki: Judging...

Mukki: Hmm...it seems that this submission has not been updated yet. Anyway, updating the file with the small improvement and accepting. A fast paced run with some nice health management and good response.

Brandon: Publication underway.