Multidude is a homebrew puzzle game released on NES in 2014. It's now available at http://www.retrosouls.net/?page_id=901.
The game lags for 1 frame every 6 frames in NTSC mode, and runs smoothly in PAL mode. This is possibly designed to make up for the timing difference in these two modes. This run uses the NTSC mode.
Comments
There are 20 levels in this game. The goal in each level is to control and take each robot to an activated exit that hasn't been occupied by other robots.
You can press A or B to switch the robot to control in predefined order. You may switch to a robot once and move it at the same time without losing any frames, but if you want to switch more twice in a row, 1 frame has to be lost.
Different kinds of robots have different abilities:
- Red Robot: can push blue blocks if no other blue blocks are stacked upon them.
- Robot with Glasses: can stomp on blue blocks to destroy them.
- Green Robot: can stomp on special pavement to destroy it.
- Blue Robot: can float freely in the air, and when it moves away from any inactive exits, it will turn them into solid blocks.
- Pink Robot: can activate inactive exits when it moves away from them.
All robots except Blue are affected by the gravity and unable to jump (except when the Green one or the one w/ Glasses uses the "stomp" ability, which can be regarded as a limited jump), but can use other robots as ladders to reach higher places. Robots used as lower part of ladders can't move. The Blue Robot just floats without using a ladder and thus can't use the "Climb-through" glitch described below.
In some levels, there are items that can transform a robot into a particular type depending on the type of the items. Each transformation item can only be used once.
Glitches
The game is generally easy compared to the "brain-teasing" puzzle games, but some levels could pose quite some challenge. Most levels can be solved in more than one way. With help of glitches, we are able to beat the game even more quickly.
- "Stomp" glitch: The "stomp" ability works in such a way that when a Green Robot or a Robot with Glasses uses the ability on the block to destroy, it first jumps up one-block high, then falls down back on the block, removes the block (by replacing it with a "blank" BG tile) and continues to fall through the blank space. This procedure however can be interrupted, by landing the robot on a ladder or solid floor. When this happens, the robot regains control and can move freely as usual, but the game still schedules "to replace a tile underneath a robot with blank" whenever any one robot moves down. This opens up some major shortcuts in some levels.
- "Climb-through" glitch: When a robot uses other robots as a ladder, it ignores collission-detection and can move through solid blocks. This opens up some minor shortcuts in some levels.
- "Push-in-place" glitch: The Red Robot usually moves along with the pushed block until the block stops or falls down in the air, even if the block was supporting other robots. However, if the Red Robot is supporting other robots as a ladder when pushing a blue block, the block will be pushed away while the Red Robot will be constrained in place. This can sometimes save time avoiding backtracking.
Memory: Judging
Memory: Optimization of this game looks very good, everything seems well planned out.
This movie had some fairly mixed reception from the audience. I personally feel the lack of music really hurts this run, and it's not quite that visually stunning compared to some other games that suffer from similar issues. I liked the amount of planning visible here, but it's not enough to overcome some serious flaws.
Accepting to Vault.
feos: Pub.