Submission #9630: MUGG's GB The Smurfs "no B presses" in 10:50.54

This completes The Smurfs on the Game Boy without pressing B at all.

Yes, this is a very serious April Fools run.

It was hard to complete this in time because I kept finding new improvements every day. Now I present to you what I think is a very polished version of this run, about 13 seconds faster than my original attempt. This category uses some new approaches and strategies not present in the normal category.

GBC mode is used to start off the game faster than other modes.

I will explain the most important bits:

The normal TAS uses B+Up+Start when selecting the difficulty, but this input couldn't be used because we can't press B. So 1 frame was lost...

When your character has no velocity and you are inputting Left+Right before taking damage, then the "take damage" animation is skipped. As usual, this is used throughout the entire run to save a bit of time.

The glitch warp is used as always, holding Up when entering the bonus room.

The normal TAS' input couldn't be re-used here because it presses B to speed up in many places. So I decided to play this level from scratch.

This level is pretty straight-forward. By not stepping on all of the dropping platforms, the game doesn't create any lag.

RNG is advanced every frame when a mosquito is on screen. This knowledge can be used to manipulate the best spawn point for the upcoming Snake boss.

I played through the level as fast as possible and then redid the middle part (mosquito and mushroom) until I found the best outcome.

Damage had to be taken to advance in a few places. I found that - instead of taking damage - you could jump over the first hedgehog in the last hedgehog area at no time loss.

Perhaps the most interesting level. In my original attempt I dismissed some timesavers the normal TAS uses since I believed they were not possible. But after looking at this level again closely, I managed to actually do the timesavers, jumping on a bee to skip the bonus room in the first section and then take damage and jump on a bee to get to the goal faster.

At the end of the first section, you could take damage and reach the left side to finish the room faster (by about 15 frames) but health needed to be preserved.

This was mostly copied over from the normal TAS. Only very few unnoticeable changes in order to make it sync correctly.

This is unchanged from the normal TAS. Pressing B doesn't serve a purpose here.

Since we can't move horizontally fast, the left part of the level is used to ascend.

Since we can't kick presents by pressing B, I needed to get closer and drop them by pressing Down. Unlike the normal TAS, no lag was created here.

Unchanged, similarly to Act 8.

Birds disturbed this level but I simply take damage and move on. I start into Act 12 with 2 health points instead of 3 like the normal category TAS, which means one less tomato jump in Act 12's staircase section.

Azrael will walk back and forth at your position, but if you manage to get behind him and walk on, he will simply walk on in front of you. Playing this level without letting him get in front didn't work out.

Some lag that happened before the hot pot was reduced as much as was possible. I found that bonking your head up into the books (when letting Azrael get in front) at different frame counts could influence how subsequent lag could be reduced.

The staircase wasn't that well done in my original attempt which was the biggest reason why I took a closer look at this category again and indeed, I managed to pull off some better tomato jumps.

The first nut would drop in a useless place when going into this fight, which is what happened in my original attempt. But I found that if you advance far enough and then turn around for a frame, you would get ejected into the room and the nut could drop perfectly onto the catapult.