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General info

As one of the authors of some previous runs and knowing our, me and Genisto, run was improvable, I've decided that I must improve it. Then, Randil had decided to work on it and submitted his improved version. It didn't change my mind. On the contrary, it encourages me to start it sooner than expected. My run is 24 frames faster than Randil's movie. 
   * Emulator used: FCEU 0.98.16
   * Aims for fastest time.
   * Takes damage to save time.
   * Uses death as a shortcut.
   * Manipulates luck.
The goal of this game is to rescue all 6 goonies. You cannot finish the game with 4 goonies as the game will restart at level 1, with 0 goonie, when finishing level 5.

Tricks

"The pass through gate" glitch, which was discovered by Genisto, is done by pressing start in 30hz (turbo). You cannot pass through solid wall.
Like Randil did mentionned, this game is extremely random. Making the goonie appear at correct safe is easy as it's frame based. But manipulating enemies is complicated. Especially, there are 2 important places where luck manipulation was needed for enemies.
The first one is at beginning of level 3. You must make sure no enemy is appearing till the bomb has exploded and make one enemy appear at correct time. In my version, one enemy did appear before laying down the bomb but I did make sure it disappears as soon as possible.
Why is it so imporant!? It's for letting the counter, at memory address $11c, go down at 1. And when it reaches 0, a ghost is appearing which saves time later by letting dying the hero. Randil found it easy to do so, I think he was just lucky but trust me, it is REALLY HARD. With many possibilities I have tested, only one got the desired result.
In other words, when $112 = 0, $11c goes down.
The second place is even worse as I was forced to lose, 60 frames. :S. It is at beginning of level 5, a fish MUST appear when the bomb is laying down to explode. This one, I did tested so many things, I even restarted the whole game several times in hope to get the desired result, but didn't even managed to get the 1st one, the one where I must manipulate the ghost, to even rework, so I lay down my hands, at least, for now. If I take the shorcut at level 3 to reach level 5 as optimally as possible, a mouse appear, in the secret room, so soon that he moves right and that saves lot of time but with that randomness, no fish appears at beginning of level 5. So, to make it appear, I was forced to kill an extra mouse at end of level 3 which changes, of course, the randomness at secret room and the mouse doesn't appear so soon. So, in other words... THAT SUCKS!
Also, in level 3, I was forced to lose some time because of some Fratelli brother appearing at wrong time which cancels the mouse to appear there which was needed to collect a bomb and also manipulating randomness. If it's possible to get the desired randomness without losing time, I think the level could be improved by 8 frames but I did try hard to solve the problem but I failed.
The RAM addresses that I found useful are:
  • $11C Countdown for Ghost
  • $5E8 Randomness result for enemies
  • $441 Number of steps on ground or climbing. 1 step = 52 And for climbing, 40.
  • $112 Number of enemies on screen. 0-3
Those that are ± useful are:
  • $114 Number of Fratelli bros. appearing during a game.
  • $119 Number of mice appearing during a game.
  • $11b Number of bats appearing during a game.
  • $11d Number of skeleton appearing during a game.
I think those ones may be useful if someone make a bot for that game. Also, I did noticed that a mouse always appear at x frames. There is probably some counter for them too and probably for some other enemies too but I didn't searched for the RAM address as I am lazy. :P

Extras

So, the improvements are in level 2 and the passageway, I did gain sufficient frames to reach the 8 frames rule to make the goonie appear at right place in level 3.
And gained 16 frames at level 3.
Didn't improved level 1, 5 and 6. They seem to be as optimal as possible. Well, I couldn't do better.

Final Score

Well, like in my other runs, I always, or mostly, try to get as much points as possible. I did finished the game with 5400 more points than Randil's version.
I did kill one less enemy, -100 pts, than Randil but killed a ghost which worths 500 pts. Obtained the "Twin bee" which worths 5000 pts.
As an extra, I did make appear "Konami Man" but couldn't get it.
I couldn't make appear other bonuses without costing time. Sorry.

In conclusion

Like Randil, I am not really optimist that this run is perfect. I feel that it is improvable. However, it is another one extra step closer to perfection. :)
Thanks to Randil for his discoveries, especially the one for the ghost. Also thank to my former partner, Genisto and former competitor, Walker_Boh.
My niece, 4 years old, thought it was a Mario game as the hero is similar to Mario. ;)
NesVideoAgent: Hi! I am a robot. I took a few screenshots of this movie and placed them here. Here goes! Feel free to clean up the list.
adelikat: Accepting for publication as an improvement to the published movie.

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Posted: 1/4/2008 7:41 AM
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TASVideoAgent
They/Them
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #1825: Phil's NES The Goonies in 02:33.63
Posted: 1/4/2008 10:07 AM
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Randil
Skilled player (1827)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Nice, I didn't expect this coming. The run looks very solid. The thing that surprised me the most was your strategy in room 2, I never thought of that myself... I think this run also looks "cleaner" than my run, in the sense that it's not as obvoius that you lose time here and there to manipulate luck. And too bad that you lost 60 frames to make the fish appear. I had troubles with this myself, but managed to make it appear by killing both rats in room 4. Anyway, this is another good push towards the edge of perfection, and I'm glad my movie helped out. :) I think that the only way to improve this game now is to completely dissect the game and analyze exactly how RNG works, at least that's what I think. Anyway, easy yes vote on this, good job! EDIT: In the author's comments it states that " In other words, when $112 = 0, $11c goes down." When I TASed this game, I got the impression that when $5E8 = 2, $11c goes down. That's how I made sure the ghost counter started counting in the next room. Perhaps if $5E8 = 2 then $112 = 0 automatically?
My own page on this site.
Posted: 1/4/2008 5:30 PM
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Phil
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
No, it's $112. Also, I did noticed that when it is at 0 at passageway between 2 and 3, $11c doesn't go down. It's the only place that it does that, in my run. It's probably because there is no ghost from level 1 to this passageway. That enemy start appearing at level 3.
Posted: 1/7/2008 8:38 PM
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AngerFist
Active player (437)
Joined: 4/21/2004
Posts: 3517
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
First edition TAS of 2015 Innovative TAS of 2007
Im not a fan of this game but congrats improving the former run. Yes vote.
Nitrogenesis wrote:
Guys I come from the DidyKnogRacist communite, and you are all wrong, tihs is the run of the mileniun and everyone who says otherwise dosnt know any bater! I found this run vary ease to masturbate too!!!! Don't fuck with me, I know this game so that mean I'm always right!StupedfackincommunityTASVideoz!!!!!!
Arc wrote:
I enjoyed this movie in which hands firmly gripping a shaft lead to balls deep in multiple holes.
natt wrote:
I don't want to get involved in this discussion, but as a point of fact C# is literally the first goddamn thing on that fucking page you linked did you even fucking read it
Cooljay wrote:
Mayor Haggar and Cody are such nice people for the community. Metro City's hospitals reached an all time new record of incoming patients due to their great efforts :P
Posted: 1/8/2008 8:00 AM
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Mr._Kelly_R._Flewin
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757
Phil, I tip my hat to you for this one. I wonder if you and Randil work on this together if you both would end up getting this down even lower then 2:30? Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Posted: 1/8/2008 11:10 AM
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Randil
Skilled player (1827)
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:
I wonder if you and Randil work on this together if you both would end up getting this down even lower then 2:30?
Hehe, perhaps. :) I have some other stuff I want to finish at the moment, and I guess Phil has some stuff too, but perhaps sometime later on, if Phil feels up for it, we might make a co-operative run. It's not out of the question for me, anyway.
My own page on this site.
Posted: 1/8/2008 7:00 PM
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Phil
Active player (411)
Joined: 3/16/2004
Posts: 2623
Location: America, Québec
Yes, that would be cool. I am already working on some games but maybe later. Making this run under 2:30 won't be easy. I think the solution would be to find a useful bug. I found some bugs but they didn't look useful. I did made a movie of them. In future, when my site will be set-up, I will put all the bugs that I found plus those already known ones. If I work with Randil, I doubt it will be that game.
Posted: 2/6/2008 5:58 PM
Post subject: Movie published
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TASVideoAgent
They/Them
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Joined: 8/3/2004
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [1051] NES The Goonies by Phil in 02:33.63
Posted: 2/8/2008 9:50 AM
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Xipo
Banned User
Joined: 12/26/2006
Posts: 231
Location: Lonely City
I wonder how can they find how to pass the gate without key.It is too magical.
work hard
Posted: 2/8/2008 10:08 AM
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Bisqwit
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Xipo wrote:
I wonder how can they find how to pass the gate without key.It is too magical.
Theory: Gate is an object (like the mice), not a map structure (like a brick). Choice 1: Collision detection with objects is done at every second frame (not every frame). Choice 2: Ejection from collisions is done 1 frame after collision check. Hitting pause stops the game before it can do the results of the collision check, and when resuming, you have another new frame where to move before a collision check is run.