In the wake of the Scribblenauts TAS that was just published yesterday, I have a couple reroutes and minor optimizations to contribute. Many chunks of the input are untouched from the previous submission (including the entire tutorial and most of the world 3 grind) as I believe it to be optimal and the touchscreen input is a bit tricky to work with in a TAS environment. Below are things I looked into, and timesaves for anything that actually saved time.
in these notes, the A and P before a level number stand for Action and Puzzle respectively
University
Most of tutorial was untouched by me, although after my initial submission Samsara saved 00:01.02 in 0-2 by skipping the last prompt and getting the Starite immediately after breaking the plank.
In 0-9, I summon a Classroom instead of OJ for reasons that will become apparent in the next section.
While it is ~00:00.57 faster to use Nothing instead of AFV in 0-10, this loses time later due to not being reused in the run (unlike AFV)
World 1 (The Gardens)
The way the grind in A1-1 has to be done to work is to use words that generate multiple objects, because they are bugged and don't increase the par. This ekes out some extra money each time you do the level.
My original idea for A1-1 grind was to use a Living Room (abbreviated to the two-letter LR), because it's very fast to type. However, two days after submitting, I realized that it's an unnecessary timeloss to get the Entertainer merit every time (this happens because the Living Room contains a TV and a Console, and the merit triggers when you summon two entertainment objects). Despite this, the route saved 00:09.54 over the previous submission. Some of this timesave is from not using the white OK button on the level and world select, as this loses a few frames (maybe like 4-8 each) in some cases, but the majority is just because both P1-1 and P1-2 are slower.
My second idea was to use Study (/Office/Agency), which contains Computer, Filing Cabinet, and Clock. I had to do a bunch of finagling to actually get Maxwell to reach the Starite, but it worked out in the end. This route saved 00:05.50 over route #1.
After seeing the whole 2nd route through, I tested the 3rd route, which you see in this revision of the movie. Classroom (/Schoolroom) is an object that contains Table, Chalkboard, and Apple. The apple is of particular interest because it can be used for the chef in the tutorial, bypassing the initial All New and New Object merits in A1-1. Unfortunately, this makes me lose out on 25 Ollars, just barely putting me below the required 4000, but I solve this by summoning Study during advanced mode where you're forced to get merits anyway. This route saved 00:00.62 over route #2.
Trying to calculate timesave between my own revisions, Samsara's addendum, and the previous submission gave me a headache and I may have gotten it wrong, but I think the combined timesave is 00:12.57 over the previous submission from world 1 alone.
World 3 (The Peaks)
World 3 was almost entirely untouched.
I attempted to grind on both A3-7 and A3-11 to see if it would be faster (A3-7 because you don't get merits after doing it except for advanced mode, and A3-11 because you get more money per completion). Unfortunately, neither of these were faster, although 7 was maybe a bit more promising than 11. It may still be faster to do 3-7 once, if you use Nothing during the tutorial, but it didn't seem like it from rough estimates (you still get a new object merit no matter what if you do it this way, since you'll get it on A10-1).
Below are the methods I used to grind 7 and 11, in case they are of interest:
World 10 (Mish-Mash)
A10-1: I tried saving time by touching the Starite as Maxwell is falling down. While I was able to touch the starite, this did not make him pick the star up faster and actually lost an extra frame
A10-2: saved 00:00.30 to doing the AFV clip from the start without moving Maxwell
A10-3: replaces A10-4 due to being 00:01.37 faster (I think 50/50 due to fewer merits and due to having a slightly faster solution). I did attempt to optimize A10-4 further with a freeze ray strategy but this lost time. A10-6 seems less laggy and could potentially be faster than A10-3 if not for the fact that the hat that Maxwell wears at the start of that level counts as a new object and gives merits. If there were some convenient way to summon a top hat earlier in the run, this would be another routing optimization to look into.
In my original submission, the combined timesave upon entering A10-11 was 00:11.33. I originally did a container glitch using Bilbo and Bag to save a few letters, and pulled ahead by 2 frames even with a slightly slower setup. However, a day after submitting, I realized that the jetpack might have just enough airtime to get above the gates and path to the Starite from there. I spent some time trying to get the earliest possible final input; this requires panning the camera left for the entire duration of the level and tapping the Starite in the corner as Maxwell lands on the gates, while giving him a good landing angle so that he can stay on top of the gates while in autopilot. With this revised strat, I save 00:01.14 in this level for a total of 00:12.47 saved over the previous submission.
As of the most recent revision, the timesave appears to have jumped to 00:20.23.
Further timesaves that could happen
- Faster 0-10
- Maybe a reroute in world 1, 3, or 10; see notes above
-
Faster container glitch in A10-11 (it's extremely difficult to get it to work) - Minor lag optimization
- Idk anything could happen at this point
Regarding Scribblenauts Collection
If the Scribblenauts Collection version is allowed to be submitted under the same branch, it might save time due to the double jump glitch (faster A1-1 grind) and slightly better movement optimization with button controls (most notably A3-2 grind would be slightly faster without having to work around the auto jump).
Collection does patch the advanced mode cheese (used here in A1-1), but this wouldn't matter with current route because of double jump being available.
The twoone big reason Collection might not save time is the different startup screen (00:02.29 slower) and the container glitch in A10-11 being patched. I found a faster strat for this run that doesn't use the container glitch, and it should theoretically be doable in a very similar way in Collection.
There is one further detractor that I forgot about until a day after the original writing: having button controls means that almost all actions now have a radial prompt (when there's multiple options for tapping an object), and this most prominently applies to exiting the tank, which can no longer be done with a single stylus tap. This loses ~5 (potentially more) frames each time it comes up, so this might amount to somewhere around 40 frames lost.
In the end, 180 frames is not a terrible amount to make up if I can save 10 on average for each level button controls can shine in.
DrD2k9: Claiming for judging.