Submission #9982: Rno5951's A2600 Raiders of the Lost Ark "RTA Timing" in 01:55.148

This is the second game developed by Howard Scott Warshaw. In Raiders, Indy needs to collect several items on his way to collect the lost ark.

On boot, the game starts its own internal stopwatch. This is responsible for spawning certain items in the treasure room at any given time as well as making the sun shine in the map room.

The following shows treasure room items relative to the position on the timepiece:

N - hourglass
NE - ankh
E - chai
SE - hourglas
S - ankh
SW - hourglass
W - chai
NW - ankh

For every 2050 frames that pass, not only does the headpiece spawn in one of the Marketplace baskets for 126 frames, but the timepiece also changes positions.

The 00x0C address (00x8C in Stella) stores the ark’s location. For every frame that Indy stands on the forklift elevator, the hex value changes. When the player sends an input to one of the controllers, the value stays frozen throughout the game. The ark location system can be thought of like a slot machine with a predetermined pattern.

This TAS was created in pursuit of the fastest possible time starting on first input. Unlike previous runs, we save time waiting for certain items when we're at the opening screen rather than during gameplay. I need to wait for the chai to spawn, so to find the best start time I multiply 2050 by 2 (ticks on the timepiece), then subtract that by the shortest length of time it takes for Indy to walk to the closest headpiece basket (188 frames), resulting in a start time of 3912 frames. At 3912, the ark will be located at the 11th mesa (00x0C hex value 08). For reasons I will touch on shortly, I want for the ark to be at the 18th mesa, instead (hex 0F). According to the RAM address ark location diagram below, we need to wait 7 more frames (frame 3919).

We should be good collecting the headpiece since we’re still well within the 126 frame window before it despawns. In total, we don't move for approximately 1 minute and 5 seconds.

I collect the whip, headpiece, gold, and chai. While walking to and from the Temple Entrance and Room of the Shining Light, I perform some small tech to save a few frames. Then, I bribe the Black Sheik with the chai to teleport to the Black Market. It’s impossible to avoid death from the Raving Lunatic without bribing him with another set of gold.

Now it’s time for more technical info!!!

The hex values and mesa locations for address 00x0B (00x8B in Stella) remain the same as 00x0C. 00x0B changes when Indy teleports to different mesas using the hourglass or ankh. When leaving the mesa field or other rooms, its value resets to 00 (the 10th mesa). The ark will never be located here during normal gameplay. The only condition for winning is that Indy must dig into the Well of Souls located under the same mesa assigned during the player’s first registered input on the controller (when 00x0B matches 00x0C).

The game only executes inventory management inputs (item selection, dropping, and usage) on every other frame. In the Room of the Shining Light, when Indy uses the whip on one of the dungeon walls and then again after exactly 4 frames (2 framerules), the game immediately sends him falling off the 10th mesa. Though unusual, I didn’t think this bug could be taken advantage of to complete the game faster because it doesn't allow you to start on hex 00. One week later, a breakthrough occurred. I discovered that if this bug is performed on virtually any wall or interactive element, such as parts of the nest in the Spider Room (excluding both dungeons in the Room of the Shining Light), Indy gets sucked into the wall, and his whip transforms into a grappling hook as if standing directly in the mesa field. Not only that, but the value of 00x0B starts changing!

After collecting the shovel, I travel back to the Marketplace, purchase a parachute, then walk to the left wall to perform the glitch. The game thinks I’m standing on the 18th mesa (0F). Then I teleport off, deploy the parachute, and finish the game like normal. We bypass the ankh and mesa field completely!

From when Indy first starts moving to when he finds the Ark, it takes 2605 frames or 00:43.473.

nymx: Claiming for judging.

nymx: I'm going to leave this for someone else to judge.

eien86: Claiming for judging.

eien86: I am delaying the judgement of this movie in wait for the upcoming changes to PG rules and possibly to supporting alternative methods of timing. I kindly request the author to be patient until we can resolve these situations.

eien86: Much has been discussed and analyzed about this submission so I am not going to add much further. This submission beats the current RTA WR by a huge margin thanks to manipulating the initial game RNG by waiting in the title screen after reboot. This wait makes it much slower than [3559] A2600 Raiders of the Lost Ark by adelikat & Alyosha in 01:34.56 in terms of TAS timing, so this movie cannot obsolete it. However, we can nevertheless accept this one in its own category, which makes it clear the target is to minimize RTA timing.

Accepting to Alternative, "RTA Timing"

despoa: Processing...

eien86: delaying per author request