Balloon Blitz (Compute's Gazette)
Alone in your anti-lank hot-air balloon, you're drifting along and enjoying the tranquility of a beautiful summer morning. And hoping the enemy stays out of sight-but you know they won't. They're sending their best tanks (which are wily and evasive) to get to your troop's southern flank, and your job is to destroy them. If you're skillful enough to stop the first wave, you're ready (or the next game level.
The article for this game can be found on page 56 of Issue 14 (August 1984)
Why TAS This Game?
The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 17th TAS from this series.
This was not a favorite of mine, but I was a little annoyed that I could never play this game on the hardest difficulty. Well, this seems to be a repeating issue with most of them and a good reason to make a TAS of it!
Previous Compute's Gazette submissions include (In order of submission):
- Astro-Panic!
- Royal Rescue
- Miami Ice
- Chopper 1
- Spike
- Heat Seeker
- Omicron
- Alien Armada
- Star Dragon
- White Water
- Space Gallery
- Bagdad
- Race Ace
- Quolerus
- Trap
- Maze-Mania
Game Ending
Here is another game that has a true ending, with a congratulations screen.
Effort In TASing
Even though I had TASed this games a few months ago, I wasn't satisfied with the outcome. Why? I was not able to control the RNG, as I have with the Machine Language (ML) games. After figuring some details out, with Maze-Mania, I decided to come back to this and apply my new understanding. This time, it wouldn't pay off...as any pre-loaded RND commands made the situation far worse. This was a rare situation, but the unmodified RNG ended up being the best solution here.
If you would like to know more about the new method of RNG control, please visit the Maze-Mania submission for details.
Information about the operation of the RND command can be found via here.
Human Comparison
This runner played the game on the easiest level, but shows how the game is even somewhat difficult for humans. The RND is extremely unpredictable.
Darkman425: Claiming for judging.
Darkman425: Input file replaced with one that removes 365 frames of blank input at the end.
Darkman425: This looks good to me. Accepting to Standard.
despoa: Processing...