Human Rat Race (Compute's Gazette)
You're racing through a maze with a sack of gold..running, twisting, turning. Oh no! Another dead end. You retrace your steps and hear the clock ticking...six, five, four....You see a deadly drone on your left. Can you get past it? Barely. Three, two...You see the xist and your path is clear, or is it? You make a mad dash and escape with your gold just as time runs out. Is this is a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark? No, it's "Human Rat Race", and exciting maze game.
The article for this game can be found on page 46 of Compute's Gazette Issue 57 (March 1988)
Why TAS This Game?
The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 70th TAS from this series.
Very clear memory of typing this in. I always loved typing in "Machine Language" games, but there was one problem with this one...it was meant for two players. Even though it is a two player game, there way a mode you can play to race to the other side with a challenge. Adding drones to spice it up!
Game Difficulty and Ending
At the beginning of the game, there is a menu that you can select different modes of play and how many drones are in your way. Here, I choose the maximum number of drones, 15. The ending is clear, as you must race to the other side...where you will hear a sound and a message, declaring "Blue" winner. Why didn't I play "Red's" side? Doing so slows up the game.
Effort In TASing (Not BOTed)
Surprising enough, this game wasn't just a simple maze solve...it also contained the common TASing techniques I've used in so many other C64 Compute's Gazette games. Some of those details are:
- RNG Manipulation: With all machine language written games, RNG is changed by typing keys or pressing a direction. This can immediately affect the reaction of non-AI enemies. This only works, because ML written games can call a ML Kernel routing that supplies a random value. This value can be changed, when interrupting the "tick" counter.
- Not Hold the Input: Unlike most ML games, this is the first one that I've seen where holding an input direction, actually slows up the game. So here, I found the optimal frame span to allow the cutting of a frame or two over one block of movement.
- Maze Manipulation: Most mazes drawn, almost follow the same patterns; however, there are variation in the left and right side that can help out. Before the maze shows, I can randomly type in characters or press a direction on the joystick to give me variations to test.
Human Comparison
Couldn't find one for this game mode. There are two, but I could only find "Grab the Gold"
DrD2k9: Claiming for judging.
nymx: Updated with a 7 frame improvement.