Zapper: One Wicked Cricket! for the GBA is a platformer game developed by Atomic Planet Entertainment and published by Infogrames Interactive.
In it, you play as Zapper, a cricket, and play 15 levels in order to save his younger brother Zipper, from the game's antagonist Maggie. In each level, 6 eggs must be collected in order to end the level, if you reach the end of a level without all eggs the level doesn't end.
In it, you play as Zapper, a cricket, and play 15 levels in order to save his younger brother Zipper, from the game's antagonist Maggie. In each level, 6 eggs must be collected in order to end the level, if you reach the end of a level without all eggs the level doesn't end.
Zapper can move 1 tile, leap 2 tiles, turn around, and zap, in every level there's certain tiles that, after unlocking them with some number of orbs, it charges the zap, increasing the reach and power, and then being able to break metal boxes, kill enemies, turn the mirrors in the Laser Maze level, and activate the glass balls in the Maggie bossfight, the charge is one time use, and in most levels, there's a speed power-up, that increases Zapper's speed by quite a bit.
Game Objectives
- Emulator used: BizHawk 2.10
- Aims for fastest time
- Takes an intentional death (A death warp at 07:24.586)
Tech and glitches
- Basic movement: Using the leap as much as possible is the fastest way to move, one leap saves 8 frames over two basic moves. The leap can't be used to jump over certain hazards, like lava plumes or lasers.
- Leap over enemies: When landing on tiles with stationary enemies, Zapper is supposed to die, but by leaping in the first possible frame it can be avoided, for moving enemies you also have to leap into the tile to prevent dying.
- Sideways leap: Pressing two directional buttons and leap in the same frame makes Zapper leap in one direction while looking in a different one. This allows Zapper to leap over hazards that would otherwise kill Zapper with a normal leap.
It's also possible to do if you move or leap in some direction and hold a different direction while Zapper is airborne, if you then leap, the leap will happen if the direction Zapper was looking, and Zapper will look in the direction you were holding. This method is the only way to get a left-moving sideways leap. - Tile displacement: If you move and zap at the same frame, Zapper will zap and visually move instantly, tho Zapper doesn't actually move. This can be useful for breaking a box while there's an enemy in front of it.
A similar effect happens if you turn around and move at the same frame, then Zapper will visually glide to the tile you move to while he doesn't actually move. - Double leap: In the Oil Slick Slide level specifically, there's these slippery tiles, if leaping at the last possible frame before falling in a hole or landing on a non-slippery tile, then leaping again, Zapper will do a leap that covers twice the distance, which is somewhat faster.
Notes
In the Laser Maze level, there's some moments where Zapper waits around for a bit for seemingly no reason, that's because in that level there's lasers that go on a cycle, so waiting doesn't lose time, and saves some frames from lag reduction.
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: Replacing with an updated movie of a 126 frames.
nymx: I've been looking at this for a bit and it just seems that no speed-run can compare to this. This either means that the game is not seriously ran, or it is just that difficult, even for a seasoned runner. I did notice that there are many places where speed-runners have to wait...probably leaving this TAS to take advantage of, leaving us with a big difference. The only thing that I thought looked suspicious, was some backtracking...which seems now to be a necessary for unlocking stuff. This looks really good and I don't see anything that should be called out for optimizing.
Accepting to Standard.
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