This is the Intellivision port of Zaxxon. The Zaxxon arcade game was well known for being the first videogame to employ an isometric perspective. However, this innovative and iconic feature was not implemented in the Intellivision port due to technical limitations, which was a let-down for many.
Objectives
- Uses hardest difficulty
- Secondary Goals:
- Minimum button presses
- Pacifist
- Genre: Shooter
Primary Goal
This TAS starts out playing at skill level 4, which is the highest difficulty and does not get harder when completing any loops thereafter. The skill level (Main RAM Address 0x93) normally increments after defeating the Zaxxon boss.
Why Pacifist?
Destroying things generates lag at a very slow (or random?) rate. The total time saved between no kills and maximum kills was a mere 5 frames.
Zaxxon Robot Boss Fight
There is a random delay between when the Zaxxon robot spawns and when he is first targetable. I have seen this delay vary from 60 to 396 frames. The duration of the optimal fight (time between Zaxxon targetability and last input) I have noted to last between 73 and 81 frames, probably due to both luck and lag factors. Since there is no other way to speed up or slow down (besides dying which is very time-costly), we don't have a lot of options for RNG manipulation with the boss other than when we start the game and the few discrete lag frames we can generate. Well... there is another way. I noticed that how I fly around the level on my way to the boss can also yield different boss patterns.
In this movie, I trigger the main menu on frame 15, start the game on frame 29 (only 10 frames greater than fastest possible), and flew around in a pretty simple point-A-to-point-B manner. The final result does not lose any lag frames from destroying things and gets the quickest boss pattern I've observed of 60 frames from spawn till targetability AND a 73-frame fight.
Why also minimize button presses?
The flight path through the level that got me the boss pattern I wanted was very boring. I tried to see if there were ways I could spice it up a bit such as wacky flight patterns or narrowly dodging enemy shots. Every one of these attempts at entertainment resulted in a suboptimal boss pattern. In the end, I just decided to double down on a boring flight scheme and was able to rework the flight to one that minimizes button presses and retain the optimal boss pattern. The final product only executes 19 button presses! At the very least, it highlights just how easy it is to dodge the cacophony of obstacles the game throws at you.
Samsara: Claiming for judging.
Samsara: Patashu put it best in the thread: "Presses 19 buttons, kills the boss, puts the controller down, immediately crashes, refuses to elaborate." I found it strangely engaging because of that. There's something about the act of brazenly flying straight ahead through a field of enemies and walls only to kill the boss in a small handful of seconds that really tickles the ol' Samsara funnybone.
Accepting!
Spikestuff: Processing...