Introduction

A Boy and His Blob (NES) was released in Janurary of 1989, developed by David Crane. The game features the boy, and his trusty blob friend. The blob transforms into different things when you gibe it different flavoured jelly beans. These transformations help you progress through the game in a normal playthrough...but of course, this is not a normal playthrough.

Game Objectives

  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.1.5
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Uses game-breaking glitches

Comments

This run was started when we decided to take a look at this game because it was short and we wanted something to try. Lets just say, we found something big.
This is an improvement of 14.94 seconds (898 frames) over the previously published movie by Aglar. All of the improvements come from the new route that we used, I won't spoil anything here though, watch and see for yourself! :)

Special Thanks

We would like to thank Aglar for his previous run, and all other TASers of this game for their past efforts.
Enjoy the run!
(Glitchy TAS of the year?)

Flygon: Added the full HD encode.
klmz: Claimed for judging.
sgrunt: Replaced the submission file as detailed here.
Flygon: I remember the days where I could set this to "Published" inside the movie status and call it a day, despite not filling in the Publication form. It's no wonder I'm reduced to introducing sexy looking YouTube encodes instead. Improved sexiness pending 60fps support.
Flygon: Updated the YouTube module with the even faster TAS that, at the time of writing, is still pending for either Grunt or DarkKobold to shove into the submission. Get a hurry on you two!
mmbossman: Updated the submission file because of Aglar's improvements, and added him as an author as requested.
Flygon: YouTube video is now accurate.
klmz: Accepted as an improvement to the published movie.

TASVideoAgent
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sgrunt
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Congratulations - you've broken the game even further. I appreciate there being considerably less running around here - the run flows much faster despite only being shorter by ten and a half seconds. Yes vote and well done.
Joined: 11/4/2007
Posts: 1772
Location: Australia, Victoria
That was incredibly crazy awesome. I be prompted to become active once more thanks for this. I send a Yes vote, good sir.
Brandon
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I think I might encode this after DKC2 finishes.
All the best, Brandon Evans
Joined: 11/4/2007
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Joined: 5/14/2007
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Location: Pisces-Cetus filament
^Mr. Crane should be proud! Good job making this game's designers look like a bunch incompetent coders, guys.
AzumaK wrote: I swear my 1 year old daughter's favorite TASVideo is your R4MI run :3 xxNKxx wrote: ok thanks handsome feos :D Help improving TASVideos!
Expert player (3556)
Joined: 11/9/2007
Posts: 375
Location: Varberg, Sweden
I somehow knew that route could be used to beat the game faster. Great job finding it, it definitely makes the run MUCH more enjoyable! However... this run is improvable by some seconds, because you don't use the trick to accelerate faster nor reach the maximum speed as seen in the current published run. Here's a run, which originally was intended to be an April Fools' submission but never made it (it was meant to show how to get to one of the endng screen as fast as possible), that you can compare to your run: http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1759034654/Boy%20and%20His%20Blob%20-%20Trouble%20on%20Blobolonia%2C%20A%20%28U%29april.fm2
feos wrote:
Only Aglar can improve this now.
Active player (308)
Joined: 8/25/2006
Posts: 287
Thanks we'll remake it with that then, Aglar. We only first played this game today, so we're pretty new to it. Can you please explain a little bit more about this acceleration and max speed that we didn't use? Thanks!
Warepire
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Using parts of the credits and intro screens as a map ... Now that is glitched. Yes vote. I second Zeupar's screenshot suggestion.
Expert player (3556)
Joined: 11/9/2007
Posts: 375
Location: Varberg, Sweden
Silent_Slayers wrote:
Thanks we'll remake it with that then, Aglar. We only first played this game today, so we're pretty new to it. Can you please explain a little bit more about this acceleration and max speed that we didn't use? Thanks!
Watch the speed, address 2a, if you aren't already. Then go to the scenario just as you've landed on with the rocket and look at how the values differs between the run in my earlier post and your. I don't fully remember the logic in how timers work that decides whether its ok to accelerate at a certain frame or not, but it should be obvious after some comparison and trying. The logic behind the max speed trick is this, as I remember it: when your speed is 24 or higher each acceleration step increases the speed value by 8 as long as the value is below 48, which means that once you reach 48 you can't go faster unless you decrease your speed. By decreasing it to 47 you can thus get your speed to 55.
feos wrote:
Only Aglar can improve this now.
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Thanks Aglar, you're the man. <3 We'll probably just edit in the .fcm2 later.
mklip2001
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Just... wow. That's really funny. What is that first screen with words, an easter egg? (I'm curious how you'd find it in the normal game...) I'm happy to give this a Yes vote even without the acceleration improvements, but I hope you can make them. Hopefully it shouldn't be too hard, given how short the movie is.
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically. Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.) Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html) Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature! Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:
Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.
ALAKTORN
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what
Editor, Experienced player (851)
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break, blob, broken YES vote.
Joined: 4/3/2006
Posts: 269
Wow! Definitely yes vote! I hope the acceleration improvement will thru eventually. But you get my yes vote even without it. Keep up with the excellent work!
Editor, Experienced player (607)
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Wow, you ran past the intro screen and the first screen of the credits. This is really glitchy and cool. Yes vote! And I also agree with Zeupar's suggested screenshot.
sgrunt
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In light of Aglar's suggested improvement and SilentSlayers' assertion that the improvement is going to be added, I suggest this be delayed until the improvement is added.
Skilled player (1669)
Joined: 6/11/2006
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Well then, this run clearly meets the second requirement of "The movie must be complete" before the first one...
Movie Rules wrote:
    It must beat the game. It must be able to reach the credits or end screen without the viewer needing to do anything; all input must come solely from the input file (e.g. configuring the emulator to autofire after the end of playback is not allowed). An exception has been allowed for Rygar.
Warp wrote:
omg lol this is so fake!!!1 the nes cant produce music like this!
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Silent_Slayers wrote:
Thanks Aglar, you're the man. <3 We'll probably just edit in the .fcm2 later.
.fm2 you noob ;) Anyways yeah thank you very much Aglar! Redoing now. :) Should be done today.
Joined: 3/10/2011
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Nice improvement. Yes vote.
Kyman wrote:
Silent_Slayers wrote:
Thanks Aglar, you're the man. <3 We'll probably just edit in the .fcm2 later.
.fm2 you noob ;) Anyways yeah thank you very much Aglar! Redoing now. :) Should be done today.
Good luck making an improvement!
Blah Blah Blah... Why I'm writing this?
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I suppose it makes sense from a technical point of view that the end text is actually part of the world map, but it's still quite funny. It's a bit like a preview. "You'll get here eventually, but just not yet. You'll have to go left and trigger the ending first."
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Warp wrote:
I suppose it makes sense from a technical point of view that the end text is actually part of the world map, but it's still quite funny. It's a bit like a preview. "You'll get here eventually, but just not yet. You'll have to go left and trigger the ending first."
Yeah it really is an odd thing, the all blue screen is actually part of the start menu, so that would mean that the part of the start menu is part of the map. :D
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Btw, I PMed a moderator, I forget who a long time ago to change my name, and he didn't answer, so I'm just going to say here... Please change my name to "SilentSlayers", not "Silent_Slayers" on the forums. Thanks. ♥
Joined: 11/15/2004
Posts: 804
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Holy crap! The previous run was weird, but now this game is outright broken. So, can you open a hole at the bottom of the map at any point and then run out of bounds like that? Super weird that they even put the credits and story boards on the map.
TASing or playing back a DOS game? Make sure your files match the archive at RGB Classic Games.
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hopper wrote:
Holy crap! The previous run was weird, but now this game is outright broken. So, can you open a hole at the bottom of the map at any point and then run out of bounds like that? Super weird that they even put the credits and story boards on the map.
Yup, you can only start going through walls when you're in a bonus area below pretty much. You can be halfway in the ground at anytime with the hole glitch, but it's really only useful to go through walls at the specific places we do it. Cheers!