Disc Blitz (Compute's Gazette)
Do you believe in flying saucers? If you don't, you will soon. "Disc Blitz" pits you against endless hordes of alien flying saucers.
You only have a few short lives. Use them well.
The article for this game can be found on page 46 of Compute's Gazette Issue 67 (January 1989)
Why TAS This Game?
The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 27th TAS from this series.
I remember this issue, but I was more interested in typing in the other two games that were published. Shockingly, I never typed or touched this game until now.
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
- Balloon Blitz
- Bowling Champ
- Circuits
- Going Up?
- Space Dock
- Saloon Shootout
- Sno-Cat
- Queens' Quarrel
- Stronghold
- Lincoln Green
Game Ending
This is a game where game play continues forever. In the article, Level 5 is the highest level the game has to offer. Because each level requires the destruction of 4 waves, I stop after destroying 4 waves on Level 5.
Effort In TASing
TASing makes this game easy. The effort was very minimal, yet it required the experimentation of shooting in different orders to determine the fastest solution. RNG wasn't a factor, since the waves were pre-programmed patterns...which the magazine states can be altered.
Human Comparison
This video proves how a human suffers in trying to get to the end destination.
DrD2k9: Claiming for judging.
DrD2k9: I found a way to improve things in Level 1, so NYMX and I are going to work together to redo the other 4 Levels for (hopefully) more improvements.
Because of the way the game determines collisions, the order in which you shoot the discs matters. Basically, when a bullet makes contact with any disc, the game has to check each disc in sequence until it finds the one that was hit. Because of this, it's not always fastest to shoot the disc closet to the ship. Sometimes shooting farther discs actually saves time by minimizing the time it takes to check though collision sequence.
Because of the way the game determines collisions, the order in which you shoot the discs matters. Basically, when a bullet makes contact with any disc, the game has to check each disc in sequence until it finds the one that was hit. Because of this, it's not always fastest to shoot the disc closet to the ship. Sometimes shooting farther discs actually saves time by minimizing the time it takes to check though collision sequence.
Setting to delayed until we can get this finished; shouldn't take too long.
DrD2k9: Took longer than I would have liked due to real life stuff taking up my time. Anyway, file updated with a 74 frame improvement. Setting to New so another judge can do so.
ThunderAxe31: Claiming for judging.
ThunderAxe31: All right, the movie is optimized and it reaches the intended end. Accepting.
despoa: Processing...