After the success of Nintendo's 1981 Donkey Kong, the Japanese developer launched two sequels a spinoff called Donkey Kong Junior which ended up having its own spinoff: Donkey Kong Junior Math. In the 'Calculate' mode (there's an A and a B with the latter being harder), Donkey Kong stands at the top of the tower holding a number which the two Juniors (I and II) must race each other to make using the numbers hanging on vines and operations on platforms. This TAS aims to beat Calculate B in record time by uniting the Juniors and maybe by manipulating the luck juuust a bit.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.8
- Aims for fastest completion
- Uses hardest difficulty
- 2 Players
- Manipulates luck
- Uses death for timesaves
- Allows L+R/U+D
This is my second attempt at creating a TAS of this game over the course of about 3 weeks after finding an unsubmitted one someone had previously made which was almost 3 seconds faster. Anyway, I finished it with a "better" understanding of RNG manip and it's 833 frames faster than my other and 663 faster than the former fastest.
RNG Manipulation
Before, I thought the boards and order of operations you got depended on the frame the level was loaded in. Wrong. It turns out that inputs determine this and so I put in many hours trying any and every combination I could just to get the absolute best RNG possible. Despite all this, I'm not all too happy with levels 3 and 4 in particular although I didn't manage to find a faster alternative.
Killing Junior II
Usually, the round will end and the loser will play out the death animation (see round 5). The game will then move on once it has ended. However, it doesn't actually check the reason behind why it played and so Junior II can be killed just before Junior I wins the round to end it sooner than expected. This saves about 57 frames on each level, meaning that around 228 frames (3.8 seconds) were saved just from this.
Possible Improvements
The main potential improvement is better RNG since there might be better boards that I didn't come across while experimenting. I wouldn't be all too surprised if someone managed to TAS a 50 or lower.
Possible screenshot: frame 3648
slamo: Claiming for judging.
slamo: Nice work on this one, and clever usage of the second player to save some time. "Calculate B" is the appropriate branch name because it's a separate game mode. Accepting.
despoa: Processing...