Submission #4726: jlun2's NES Jurassic Park in 23:52.87

Nintendo Entertainment System
baseline
(Submitted: JURASSIC.NES USA)
FCEUX 2.2.2
86114
60.0988138974405
37264
Unknown
Submitted by jlun2 on 6/15/2015 1:49 PM
Submission Comments
Dinosaurs went and hid the keys inside Easter eggs. It is your goal to find or destroy all the eggs, and leave the island.

Game objectives

  • Any%
  • Collects eggs
  • Destroys dinosaurs
  • Acts like a bunny

Comments

This movie went onto development hell before I finally finished it.

Stage by stage comments

Stage 1

Since I'll be using up all the ammo on the boss of stage 2 for more free ammo, conservation wasn't a large concern. I spent a tiny bit of time getting the first silver ammo so that I could hit through multiple chompies (the small numerous dinos) and OHK larger dinos.
The 10th egg (behind the right building) could've been destroyed ~2 frames sooner, saving 4 frames due to less walking, but it messed up the spawn of the chompies near the last 2 eggs when I tried.
The rampaging triceratops is fixed, so I tried doing something other than standing around. You are unable to shoot nor jump here. Sorry.

Stage 2

The main potential improvement would either be a better order of eggs obtained or improving the turning. Also somehow manipulating the log at the first rowing section.
The row boat section eggs are completely optional, and if you got them all it gives a 1 UP. I skipped them due to this.

Stage 3

The overworld eggs are scattered all over the stage. I won't be surprised if an improvement was found here, but this was the fastest I managed. Also because ammo is mostly out of the way from now on, a new version should attempt to not use too much silver/green bullets for destroying eggs unless absolutely needed. That also means better manipulation of NPC spawns by killing them in a different order to "move" future spawns away, like those 2 chompies I had to turn around and destroy when heading to the far right building. This manipulation also works for inside the building.

Stage 4

I had to slow down a bit after the first plateau due to the volcano, and I don't even think that's manipulate-able. It was quite fortunate that the far right building ended devoid of chompies without wasting time.
In the caves, using red ammo saves time because I need to walk or turn less due to its movement. At the last cave, leaving seemed to pause the timer, so I decided to stay inside to kill things and obtain the silver ammo. This reduces me to 1HP, but the time saved along with the ammo appears to make this worth it.

Stage 5

I managed to dupe the 2nd egg and broke ports. The 4th egg was curiously the last one to be obtainable by walking to it without wasting time, so I got the key card from there.
I was forced to heal inside the ship or else die from electrocution, but even if I left the last cave from stage 4 and somehow preserved silver bullets it's still a challenge seeing if this is truly slower due to this game being non-splice-friendly.

Stage 6

A very boring stage.

Tricks

Egg dupe

Can only be done on the pier. feos helped a lot trying to figure out if this could be applied elsewhere, but sadly it seems exclusive to that area. He also made that wonderful lua script that made looking through walls much easier.

Landing

Landing after a jump boosts you by 1 pixel, and also doubles any action such as ammo swapping or firing. I do this a lot in the run. Btw, since it takes 17 frames before the next jump, and at the same time you cannot enter doors in midair, that means if for some reason you end up less than 17 frames before a door, those frames could be used to turn around without wasting time.

Lag

Lag is oddly helpful at times. Lag doesn't affect your movement, but it still doubles actions like landing. This allowed me to fire rapidly in midair in certain instances. Still, because it also doubles the length of "A" presses, lag should be avoided right after jumping or before landing.

Spawning

The game can only have 3 bullets, and 7 dinosaurs on the screen at a time. By not killing a dino, spawns from later on can be manipulated to an extent.

Turning

Pressing Left/Right allows moving right without turning, and Up/Down moves up without turning. The game also has this frame rule where every other frame allows turning, and the frames between allows movement.
Turn > Move > Turn > Move
This allowed me to move left and right while still aiming at the T Rex.

Health

Monsters:
  • Player/Escort - 255 HP (Shared)
  • Chompy - 2 HP
  • Raptor - 4 HP
  • Shooter - 4 HP
  • T-Rex - 31/60 HP (All ammo does 1 damage)
  • Spined dino - 100 HP (Kills you in one hit; Killing them gives 0 points.
Ammo:
  • Yellow - 1 HP
  • Orange - 2 HP x3 (Laggy)
  • Green - 2 HP
  • Grey - 6 HP

Addresses

Other comments

Possible improvements

The first stage could've been slightly faster at obtaining the egg at the back of the building, but attempting to splice that in ruined NPC spawn behaviour.
I messed up with the ammo planning after the 2nd stage, and only realized it at the last stage. That made the last parts less action packed than the previous areas.
If someone finds another way to dupe eggs, it would save a ton of time, especially the last stage.

Thanks

  • feos for his lua script and finding the cause of the dupe
  • kylelyk for pointing out an improvement on the first stage, even though I failed to splice it in
  • solarplex for the temp encodes of the WIPs
  • Everyone who saw or posted on the thread

Noxxa: Judging.
Noxxa: Interesting game - a bit slow, but the rocket launcher action and the music keep the run interesting. Good viewer response. Accepting for Moons.
fsvgm777: Processing.
Last Edited by adelikat on 10/14/2023 1:15 PM
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