Joined: 10/28/2007
Posts: 1360
Location: The dark horror in the back of your mind
Might as well complete the set of threads for the newer games, especially since this is the most widely known.
Anyway, I found an any% speedrun which completes the game in about 13 minutes: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2209029215006847575
There are clearly improvements there (also, we'd want to see a run on Hard instead of easy) but it should be useful for basic route ideas.
Also, an all levels run may be desirable.
Been messing around with this game since I got my hands on jpc-rr.
I've tried finding some interesting new glitches, but nothing came of it. You can zip around in walls, but I couldn't find anyway to clip into them (besides the no-clip cheat of course).
I made an amateurish lua script to automate saving/loading games and played around with the save glitch too. It's too bad you can't interact with oracles when you're dead, because it'd save a lot of time on some levels (in the pyramid of shadows for example, you can save glitch 2 floors down into the oracle).
At first I was thinking about doing an unpolished all levels run, just to see how things went. After finding out about the save glitch though, I'm not sure it would be that entertaining. At this point I'm thinking about 3 runs:
-an oracle run
-an all levels run with save glitching
-an all levels run without save glitching
If an all levels run was done would it be more acceptable/entertaining to use the save glitch? It allows some levels to be finished extremely quickly (the second level, slug village can be done in a few seconds) but it can also make things look repetitive.
EDIT: I'm also unsure what exactly is the fastest method for movement. I tried finding some relevant memory addresses for x/y coords and speed but came up empty handed. On flat surfaces walking seems like the fastest method, and also down moderate slopes. Pogoing without jumping seems to be a good way to go up steep slopes. Any wisdom for some more knowledgeable players?
Ugg. You're really going to want to find those addresses, given the awkwardness of pogoing. If I recall, Impossible Pogo Jump(Jump and Pogo in rapid succession + Left or Right) gives you a boost to X momentum, though given it sends you flying, not useful for spamming. As for uphill, I don't recall entirely, but I think hitting an uphill with the pogo slows you, so you'd want to start pogoing up the hill, then land on your feet and pogo launch again until you reach the top.
Just noticed that the run linked in first post is mine from like 4 years ago which someone has kindly uploaded without credit :)
Some more notes:
- One might want to manipulate travelling in desired direction standing on those red bouncy things as it's faster than walking
- Playing on Hard might be more entertaining as there's more stuff to dodge and so on but also a bit more limiting since your max jump height is significantly slower, an odd feature I've never seen in any other games
- Use of save glitching is debatable... Lowers entertainment value imo.
- A 100% (all levels) run could be fun.
This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit
I've started working on an any% run. Expect completition in a week or two; if I haven't submitted by then, please come and slap me silly. I'm not using the save glitch because that'd be no fun. This is an unsorted list of random notes.
*The optimal order for the three major northern level clusters seems to be Miragia/Oasis -> Pyramids -> Crystalus/CotD. This is because Miragia appereance is nonrandom and massive delays will occur due to it if any other route is used.
*Each jump costs you approximately three frames of horizontal travel. Using the pogo stick counts as jumping.
*Delaying entering the level, and shooting the handgun are the only methods of manipulating luck that I've found.
*In Crystalus, a shortcut that allows skipping the green keystone is used.
*Entering a door that's not on a surface transports you out of boundaries, completing the level instantly. This saves gobs of time in CotD.
*JPC-RR is slow. Don't forget to use savestates properly, kids!
*Riding the Bounder is faster than running on a flat surface. Unfortunately, manipulating luck in order to make the balls behave nicely is often impossible - I've only managed to perfectly manipulate one on the first level.
*The Hard difficulty greatly lowers maximum jump height; when in doubt, use IPT.
*The Keen Wiki is a very useful resource.
*The pyramids have tons of mandatory backtracking and very little room for maneuvering; they will look extremely ugly unless radical findings happen. Manipulation snail poop in the Pyramid of Darkness will be true suffering.
*Running down slopes is faster. Running up slopes is slower. Both IPT and normal jumps have the 3-frame penalty, so use IPT whenever possible to minimize the amount of jumps you need to traverse slopes.
Edit: now with 120% more notes!
*Doing unnecessary jumps to collect extra ammo most likely won't be worth the 3-frame penalty.
*If you're sliding down really short dancing poles, jumping off at the earliest possible opportunity is usually a bad idea.
*Falling off cliffs is slower than jumping off them in every way imaginable; never do it unless extraordinary circumstances prevent jumping (an example of this would be the narrow corridor with Killer Thingies on the roof in the Pyramid of Darkness)
*Sprites are often extremely misleading. Floor spikes and Killer Roof Thingies have much larger hitboxes than their spritee would suggest while Blue Birds can be railed in every way imaginable.
*Blue Flaming Bastards can't touch you - only their flames can. With luck manipulation, this often means you can walk right through them.
*Poop Snails can seldom be bypassed without losing time. That's terrible.
*TODO: KeenTricks
*The keenmodding.org forums are an useful resource.
*The ETA might seem short. Rest assured, this does not mean the quality will be lacking; NEETdom allows me to work on the run ~10 hours per day.
*http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/File:Ck4lv??.png
*http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Keen_4_Bugs
*Keen is a terrible role model for children. It's inconceiveable that indignities like this could happen in America.
Hi turska
Some things:
I think normal is the fastest way to beat the game unless the shortcut in crystalus can be done on Hard mode.
On Slug Village the harder the difficulty is, the faster you can die at the start to skip the stage. On easy there's no enemy. On normal there's a slug but he most move over first. On hard there's a blue fucker who can kill you really fast. If that shortcut does work on Hard in crystalus then Hard is probably the way to go.
Also you said the midair door glitch can save time on CotD but you don't get the Oracle for beating the stage that way, so there's no way to complete the game anymore I think??
P.S. thanks for the frame information on jumps/pogoing. I do real time runs of this game and I was curious about a couple bits of that.
But if you do that in CotD, then you haven't rescued the Council Member in that level and the game is now unwinnable.
That is indeed the case. I hadn't done adequate testing at the time of writing the post.
I don't have strong enough insults to convey how I feel about the The Perilous Pit.
I would love to see the encode but I was not able to play that movie back. I only get sound and a green image
hegyak wrote:
I can't even get the Disk Image to load in JPCRR. The MKV crashes VLC.
Read the news item about it on the front page. Then get the second WIP, now with 120% more Crystalus. If you desire the movie file, come slap me on #tasvideos.
Also, I'll be attempting to hex out the trainwreck at around 4:30 when I recover from post-slowdown stress disorder.
Thank you, that helped a lot. Im on Mac OS X and it stopped playing at 5 min for me as well. The sound goes on for a bit but judgjing from what I hear he is just standing where he left the eye pyramid, so no input missed.
The current draft now completes Miragia, Oasis, PoD and PoGA.
It is almost 15 seconds faster than the old WIP because of a new shortcut in PoGA discovered by Cosmo, superior optimization, reduced rampant stupidity, and greater :effort:.
Grab the encode here. Poke me on #tasvideos for the most recent draft.
A few hours ago I was doing some runs of this game and tjp mentioned he was able to skip grabbing that ledge in Lifewater Oasis. I managed to do it in my new best run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CjGkIzZxA8#t=1m13s
I think this would save some time by activating the elevator earlier
the TAS is still on Hard? did you find a way to do Isle of Fire?
Lifewater Oasis has now been redone. The Isle of Fire jump turned out to be possible — I don't know what I was smoking.
Pyramids should be redone Soon™ with PoGA optimization being all but useless thanks to the shortcut. Maybe I'll try to find something entertaining to do in the upper part of the level.
Edit: The Pyramid of Darkness has now been redone.
Another edit: it appears that oracle positioning is random. As such, we're now redoing everything.
Yet another edit: Miragia improvements implemented, Oasis redone with very good oracle positioning rolls. EDIT: The improvements save around a second.
The pyramids have now been redone. In the slower run, I had an optimal oracle positioning roll in the Pyramid of Darkness — no such luck this time around.
PoGA is slightly faster and PoD is more than slightly slower, both due to oracle positioning which I manipulated to the best of my ability. As such, I'm now a little less than a second ahead of the old run.
Edit: Crystalus is now done. Due to the Continuous Vertical Pogo (which is also used in the new Miragia) being figured out, gobs of time are saved and everything looks extremely fabulous. Unfortunately, the trick only seems to work on static platforms. Oracle positioning is less than ideal, but delaying level entry for superior oracle positioning resulted in horrible enemy positioning that prevented several cornerboosts.
Final Edit: The Cave of the Descendents and the The Perilous Pit are now done. Both look extremely fabulous with good and near-optimal oracle positioning, respectively. The The Perilous Pit features a new shortcut that enables reaching the Oracle door within a single elevator cycle.
Rejoice, for the moment of rebirth is at hand.
