Demonstration and Commentary
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/841353043
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Preliminary text, additional details to follow:
Stage 1
-Avoid destroying the tower to reduce lag
-P1 gets double spread since he is in front
-Killing off P2 reduces lag for the fire section
-Using the tank for extra damage on the second base wall
-P2 respawns to collect a spread which is needed for the boss fight
-Brute force script used on stage 1 boss
-Killing off P2 at the end of the boss fight reduces lag
Stage 2
-Diagonal walking/strafing for faster movement
-To avoid lag players don't destroy targets at the same time, P2 has enough time to wait
-Improved path through the stage for P1
-Boss rotates toward you, this can be manipulated to lock it in place for more crush damage
-Crush spread is preferrable to double crush due to reduced lag, also it is useful in stage 3
-Heaving scripting was used to identify best inputs for the boss
Stage 3
-The first midboss (with the spinning pole) has a tiny hitbox so spread is better for dealing damage
-Autoscroller - ugggghhh
-Killing off P2 again is necessary for the autoscroller, leaving P2 alive is >15 seconds of extra lag
-Where possible the missiles the boss fires are destroyed to reduce lag, crush also generates lag so this is a tradeoff
-The second phase of this boss is also extremely laggy so P2 is brough back and killed off again for a faster cycle
-Heavy scripting is used to optimize this fight
-P2 is able to come back and get a laser
-scripting is used to optimize the "UFO" fight and opening the door/wall, the inputs came out quite wacky
-Scroll Glitch: After you die the game looks for a valid location to respawn you. The spinning poles in this stage are not considered valid locations and the platforms on screen are too far to the edges of the screen to be valid so P1 respawns in a junk location which causes the level position of the players to go backwards. Pressing left as P1 deactivates the glitch and allows the screen to start scrolling forward. Increasing the level position past a certain point activates an event and the next eligible event is the skeleton spawn - or at least that's what I think is happening
-Since additional assets seem to be loaded the game is a little more laggy in this state. We try and minimize this by shooting the homing weapon drop and destroy turrets but that's as much as we can do
-Blue skeleton is vulnerable and inbounds. Red skeleton is out of bounds until it does the jump up and hang from the ceiling attack. Some time is lost for P1 missing a crush, but all in all 6 seconds are saved
-Large skeleton boss fight is relatively uninteresting
Stage 4
-P1 gets the C back and we're back to full strength
-Tank is scripted, acrobat fight is scripted
-Walker fight is extremely laggy, P2 is killed off and recollects crush
-Jetpack fight - as long as you defeat this enemy before the screen scrolls all the way up you don't lose time
-Turrets are destroyed in two reaches thanks to heavy scripting
-Both players dying reduces lag
Stage 5
-Death abuse by P1 at the top left to skip the long narrow section
-Both players collect laser for the boss
-The claw on the boss needs to be destroyed to reduce lag
-With proper positioning laser can hit both the claw and the eye of the boss at the same time
-The weapon pickup from destroying the claw needs to be collected to reduce lag
-Double laser with the claw destroyed allows damage to be done to the boss without lag
-Double laser is not enough to kill the boss before the eye closes so some crush shots are mixed in
-The second phase of the fight prevents crush shots from lining up properly so we do one salvo just before it starts
-We unfortunately couldn't manipulate better drops on the boss (RNG in top view stages is frame based and can't be influenced)
Stage 6
-Scripted first fight
-scripted heart
-scripted Gargoyle
-took out left head for alien queen fight to reduce lag
-heavy scripting on queen fight
-Boss has 30000 health and is halved at the end of each attack cycle. While grey orb is best for damage it's actually optimal to get the red brain orb at the beginning of each cycle as these cycles are much shorter.
ThunderAxe31: Judging.
ThunderAxe31: This is a game where the introducing improvements is very hard. Great job!
Accepting as improvement over [787] SNES Contra III: The Alien Wars "2 players" by hero of the day in 13:03.32.
fsvgm777: Processing.