Submission #7745: Le Hulk's SNES Goof Troop ST "2 players" in 14:20.38

This is a 2-player TAS of Goof Troop ST (Space Treasure), a Goof Troop ROM hack made by LucasMegaStriker. With some heavy graphical changes, this is Goof Troop... in space!

The game's mechanics are the same as in the original Goof Troop, so I'll cover the basics briefly. Goofy is the stronger/slower character, while Max is the weaker/faster character. In most rooms of the game, the general strategy is to let Max run to the exit while Goofy assists him by clearing obstacles and fending off enemies. In this game, the heroes can't attack directly; they can only throw items at enemies. Goofy does 5 damage while Max only does 4, that's why attacking bosses (and some strong enemies like cannons) with Goofy is preferred when possible. Each character can only keep one item in his inventory, except if the other character has lost all his lives; in that case, his item is transferred to the other character who can now keep two items. This situation can be useful at times for item management. Just like in some other Disney/Capcom games, RNG is only call-based: it is only changed whenever something in the game is making a random decision. Wandering enemies will typically call RNG frequently. RNG can also be changed by picking up objects (pots, barrels, etc).

This movie took me about a month to make. Most of my attention was focused on optimizing the pathing, but not too much on searching ideal RNG seeds for bosses. I think some boss fights can be improved a bit with a more careful research of good RNG seeds.

At some point, I have Goofy pass a barrel to Max so he can throw it at an enemy on his way. I tried to look a bit for an RNG seed where this wouldn't be needed, but I couldn't find one. Letting Goofy get the hookshot instead of Max makes the later parts actually faster. The boss is pretty quick, not sure how much quicker it could be with a different approach or a different starting seed.

In the second room, taking the hit with Max was the fastest option after some testing. Unfortunately, I can't easily manipulate a fruit drop whenever it would be convenient due to how RNG works, but maybe it could be improved with more careful testing. Getting a heart in the dark room might have enabled Max to take a hit from a spike log and save some frames... In the later parts of the level, I deplete Goofy's lives so he can pass all his items to Max and save some time. The boss is almost entirely luck-based because it only depends on his movements and the barrel throwing guys who can either do a short or a long throw. I did the best I could with the RNG seed I got at the boss, but didn't try to seek for better RNG seeds. I'm sure this boss could be improved significantly.

This is where the graphical hacking starts kicking in! This is another level where I couldn't get hearts everywhere I needed to so I had to make a few choices. Taking the hit at the underground block puzzle in the dark is probably the best option since manipulating the ghost is very slow. In the room with the two Jesters throwing bombs, I'm happy I found a solution which defeats all three enemies with only two bombs by using the explosion blast to my advantage. In the gold key room, the hedgehog moved upwards which unfortunately delayed Max a bit. It couldn't be fixed in the room itself, and there was no easy way to change RNG without redoing some tough parts so... The boss is pretty fun with the extra skeletons who provide a lot of bones!

I really like how this level looks, it's too bad that the vanilla cave music isn't very fitting. This is probably the best level of the TAS because of the few clever solutions I found for the rooms where you must defeat all the enemies, or the one with the four switches. The room with the minecarts isn't too great unfortunately; I had a hard time pushing all the enemies fast, but again, getting there with a different RNG seed would have made me redo the previous room which was already tough to optimize, so I just kept going. Sometimes, I have Goofy hookshot a star on Max's path; this is faster than having Max pick up and throw the star. The boss is very autoscroller-y so I tried to make it fun to watch.

There are two instances where I dodge a UFO with Max. The original plan was to take the hits, but I later realized I needed to keep Max's hearts for a later room where he has to take a cannon shot (or lose a lot of time avoiding it). The ice physics make the pathing harder to optimize but it wasn't too bad: they basically delay your speed in every cardinal direction. The block puzzles are more complex and required more testing than in the other levels, and I'm not sure my solutions are the best possible. I take an intended game over with Goofy so he can transfer his hookshot to Max. I'm pretty happy that I managed to do the room where you must kill four Jacks with only four cannon shots, that wasn't easy! My Pete fight is not too bad since you need at least 12 bombs to defeat him. Technically, getting only short tornadoes would be faster but that would require much heavier RNG manipulation.

The Goof Troop ROM hacking scene is quite recent so I hope this is a good showcase of its potential. Huge shoutouts to Zarby89 who made the Goof Troop editor and to LucasMegaStriker for making this hack.

Enjoy the TAS!

Samsara: Claiming for judging.

Samsara: One frame of blank input was cut from the end of the movie.

This hack is so well made and professional looking that I actually had to check the published Goof Troop run to make sure there were actually changes made, i.e it's so good that I couldn't tell the difference between the original and the hack. Needless to say, this is definitely a solid enough hack for publication. The TAS itself is as good as the hack, with crisp movement, lots of well thought out block kicking, and playaround hijinks that are precisely my kind of humor. Every screen had playaround potential and every screen delivered a unique spin on it. Heck, the simple action of raising your arms at opportune moments carries an outstanding variety of humorous impact all throughout the run.

Absolutely loved it. Accepting for sure!

EZGames69: Processing...