- Aims for Fastest Time
- Manipulates Luck to Save Time
- Takes Damage to Save Time
- Uses Death to Save Time
- Abuses Programming Errors to Save Time
This run is 44 seconds and 37 frames faster than Mukki's 21:11.93.
Notes
One thing to note is that Bizhawk has slower load times, usually 1 frame per load, than Gens. But I chose to use Bizhawk as it is a much better emulator as well as I ran into issues with Gens. When I started this project Bizhawk would not run Toy Story so I had no option at that point. Eventually Gens stopped saving input into the main file so I thought I was going to have to start over again. Then I realized it was updating the backup file. So after each session I would have to copy the backup file and work from it which got rather annoying.
If anyone is interested in a comparison on a level basis of this TAS to Mukki's I have made a google spreadsheet for it that you can see here.
Improvements
The biggest improvement to this run came from turning the "Storyline" off. By the beginning of the second level I'm already saving time. On a level basis the main improvements came on Revenge of the Toys, Buzz Battle, Inside the Claw Machine, Really Inside the Claw Machine, and Battle of the Muntant Toys. The rest of the levels were mostly only a few frames with a few being a second or so. Mukki's Buzz Battle was horribly slow and this was the level where I saved the most time. Sid's Workbench and Battle of the Muntant Toys were the levels that took the most work in the whole run. I did each of those level several times testing all kinds of damage routes ranging from deathwarping and taking damage off certain enemies to not deathwarping at all and avoiding everything. Although dying and respawning in this game is very fast it is not always the faster.
Levels
That Old Army Game
- Goal: Free the soldiers, knock down the baby monitor, run to the end.
- Info: Pretty straight forward.
Red Alert
- Goal: Put away all the toys and end on the bed.
- Info: The main thing for this level is to free Rocky in time so that he can reach the end as fast as possible. Unfortunally he moves very slow so you end up having to wait at the end. The fastest you can complete this level is with 102 left on the clock so I don't lose time by sitting on the bed at the end.
Ego Check
- Goal: Reach the bed at the end.
- Info: For this level holding right the entire time is the fastest way to complete the level. Swinging on the hooks is slower than just normal running, however there is one section where this is needed to avoid taking damage. Part of this section has balls along the bottom that can be jumpped on but they are spaced too close together making it not possible for continous right movement. So in this case swinging on the hooks was faster.
Nightmare Buzz
- Goal: Defeat Buzz.
- Info: Not much to do on this level. Just hit the fireballs around Buzz then hit him 4 times. I decided to use Woody's tiptoe animation as much as possible here just for fun. The interesting thing about the tiptop animation is that it doesn't allow you to whip or crouch. However if you press down it will make the sound as if you crouched.
A Buzz Clip
- Goal: Take out all of the Buzz's and reach the end.
- Info: This level is interesting. By wiggling to the left or right you can maintain speed while moving in the given direction. This allows you to make slightly better turns by turning at 45 degrees which helps maintain speed rather than turning at 90 degrees. Turning at 90 degrees loses some speed and makes the car slide sideways a lot.
Revenge of the Toys
- Goal: Free Rex and get to the end with him.
- Info: Probably my favorite level in the game. This level involves climbing towers to get past obstacles and free Rex. This level makes use of a tech I call Whip Canceling. When falling from high up when Woody hits the ground he gets a stumble animation that slows you down for a bit. By using the whip as you hit the ground it cancels this animation and allows you maintain your speed and control of Woody. Towards the end of the level I turn around and face to the left for a few frames. This is to manipulate Hamm's coins to be in a good pattern as to allow me to run under them without having to duck and slow down for them.
Run Rex Run!
- Goal: Reach the end.
- Info: Autoscroller.
Buzz Battle
- Goal: Defeat Buzz again, but this time with a tire!
- Info: This level is very entertaining to watch. As Buzz moves left and right trying to attack you he drops bonus stars, all of which I avoid. To speed this level up you want to have Buzz far to the right so that he is close to his cooldown position where you can put the tire on him. But having him too close can be slow as you will take longer go hit the tire so a good midpoint is needed.
Food and Drink
- Goal: Avoid the falling food and kid's in the restaurant.
- Info: Pretty straight forward. The Kid's Legs that come through are random and I never really found a way to manipulate them. So I ended up doing the level several times until I got something that I considered optimal.
Inside the Claw Machine
- Goal: Reach the top of the Claw Machine.
- Info: This level is loaded with all kinds of damage sources. But I run by most of them and don't get hit. I was surprised I ended up making a good cycle on the fans at the end so I was able to take an additional hit of damage earlier in the level and avoid it there. This level has a new mechanic in it not in previous levels. Whether it was intended or not I do not know. But when standing on a platform that moves up there are a few frames where you can jump for one frame but you get a full jump out of it. This is not just an ordinary jump though, you get a lot of extra height out of it. This allows to skip waiting on the cog platform towards the beginning of the level as you can jump up to the top a cycle early.
Really Inside the Claw Machine
- Goal: Collect and drop off all 8 of the Aliens.
- Info: Creative level name given the previous. This level is the 3D Doom style level. Originally I did this level and used backwalking for portions to avoid having to turn around. Backwalking turned out to be slower than walking forward. The way this level works is that every third frame is an input frame. Aliens can only be picked up on input frames so it's possible to come out at a bad position and just walk through one and not pick it up.
The Claw!
- Goal: Defeat the Claw.
- Info: This is the level I probably has the most fun on. Just hitting Aliens everywhere and bouncing them off the Claw. I let the Claw initially take Buzz far to the right, but not too far. Each cycle the Claw comes in it will always move Buzz a little to the right so I let it take him over but not far enough that I wouldn't be able to complete the level. On the first few cycles the Claw moves all the way across the level, but on later cycles it only comes to Buzz then grabs him and tries to leave immediately. This is why letting it take him far to the right is faster as it will have to travel less to get to him later on.
Sid's Workbench
- Goal: Reach the end.
- Info: The beginning of this level was pretty straight forward. After the second deathwarp is where it started to get complicated. In order to figure out was faster I had to test all kinds of routes for damage as well as then test the next level to combine the two and see what all was faster. Avoiding damage and using the hit points for the yo-yo's ended up being the fastest. When normally moving Woody his velocity maxes at 4, but during the "Hot, hot, hot!" sections his velocity is 5. Meaning that by starting these sections early would save time. However the yo-yo's need to be close enough to start the cycles so that they are in good positions so starting too early would put them in bad ones.
Battle of the Muntant Toys
- Goal: Reach the end and fight off Sid's toys.
- Info: Combined with Sid's Workbench, avoiding all damage here ended up being the fastest. The deathwarp at the beginning of the level takes 99 frames and was rather slow. This level makes use of the one glitch used in this run. I call it the Hook Turn Around. Mukki found this for his run. When you are using the whip to swing on a hook if you switch the direction you are facing on the last frame before the hook Woody will flip around and swing the opposite way. This saves a good amount of time as it eliminates half the swings you would need to normally do to get up the hook sections. At the end with the big chain with yo-yo's I jump off and run along the bottom as this is much faster and allows to avoid damage than climbing across the chain.
Roller Bob
- Goal: Reach the end.
- Info: Autoscroller.
Day-Toy-Na
- Goal: Reach the end. Collect powercells to avoid running out of battery.
- Info: Pretty straight forward. Because of how the car turns it's not always possible to hug the walls round some turns.
Light My Fire
- Goal: Reach the end but don't run out of battery.
- Info: Another RC Car level. I use the wiggle again to maintain speed and get around obstacles.
Rocket Man
- Goal:
Fly, I mean fall with style to the end of the level and land in the car. - Info: Again pretty straight forward. I fly inbetween stars and almost hit cars just for fun. I collect my final star on this level putting me at 199 total. Every 200 stars that you collect you get a mini game that would waste time to play.
Thanks
- CerberusGuns - For being the reason I started speedrunning this game in the first place...and eventually made this TAS.
- YamiAmarillo - For also running this game and helping push the time down. As well as looking for, giving suggestions, and helping with improvements to this TAS.
- Joe Stanski - For his run on SpeedDemosArchive for which I used when first getting into the game.
- Mukki - For his TAS of this game to take notes from and compare to.
I hope everyone enjoy's the run.
Suggested Screenshots
ars4326: Judging!
ars4326: Hi, Jimmie1717. This was a well-made improvement over Mukki's TAS. Aside from the savings gained over turning off "Storyline" mode, the individual levels themselves contained a notable amount of improvements (especially Buzz Battle & Inside the Claw machine). Your diligence on this project certainly paid off. Congrats on your first published run!
Accepting as an improvement to the published run!
fsvgm777: Processing.