Elevator Action was originally an arcade game before being ported to the NES. Your goal is to descend each office building while collecting secret files hidden behind red doors. Enemies will try to stop you by shooting you, and they do so more aggressively with each level. This run completes the first 4 levels ~10 seconds faster then Brushy's previous run.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.2
- Beats first 4 levels (game is endless)
- opens all red doors
Comments
This is one of those games that I just look at on and off over an extended period of time. I had long wondered whether or not I could eliminate some of the longer waiting sections in Brushy's run, and it turns out I could by studying the rules that elevators follow and abusing them to my advantage. Elevators follow these rules:
1. Elevators always spawn at the top of their shaft, unless you die in which case they spawn at the floor you are spawned on.
2. Elevators are on something like a global timer, and if you don't spawn them until a cycle of the timer goes by, they won't start their route until the next one starts.
3. An elevator will not go more then 2 stories below where the player is. If the bottom of the shaft is further down then this, the elevator will not go all the way down but instead turn around and come back up.
It's a bit hard to describe what I actually did to change the route, but you can compare my level 2 in the video to the original to easily see what I mean. Levels 1 and 3 had no significant waiting periods so I wasn't able to improve those. Level 4 was improved as well using the same ideas.
Other comments
Well despite the fact that the end result here is rather boring to watch, it was actually a kind of fun little challenge to work out what was going on here that I could improve. This run developed over many, many months, and like a lot of things I would get stuck and then after an extended break I would return to it only to have a solution magically become obvious.
I'm not sure what can be further improved, maybe a slightly faster route can be found somewhere but I'm not sure where to look.
One final note here is that there is actually an unseen enemy behavior that I noticed during some of my tests and research. Apparently enemies can also lay prone and shoot you, thereby avoiding both high and low shots. I'm not entirely sure at what level this appears at, or if it's worth playing up to that level to see it. I'll leave that decision up to the judges/audience.
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