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ChuChu Rocket! is a simple 2D game where you have to place arrows on the floor to lead mice and cats to complete the goal.
This movie completes the Challenge mode or Stage Challenge as fast as possible. There are 25 stages which have to be completed under a time limit of 30 seconds.
They can have one of five different goals which are explained later:
  • Get mice
  • Run away
  • Lunch time
  • 100 mice
  • Cat soccer

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: VBA-RR v24 svn422
  • Completes Stage Challenge
  • Aims for the fastest time
  • Luck manipulation (in the last stage)

Comments

If a cat or a mouse runs into a wall it goes right. If then right is a wall they go left. If then left is a wall they go backwards.
In the Challenge mode you can place a maximum of three arrows and as soon as you want to place a third one, the one you placed first disappears.
Cats eat mice once they are touching.
A player can't overwrite an arrow of the other player

Goals

Get mice

Get the mice into the rocket without losing a single one.

Run away

Basically the same as Get mice except that there are cats which you have to avoid.

Lunch time

Let the cat eat all the mice. And with all I mean all, because if a single mouse falls into a pit you failed the stage.

100 mice

You have to lead 100 mice into the rocket to finish the stage

Cat soccer

You play against a (red) computer which can also place arrows. The goal is to lead 20 cats into the rocket of the opponent.

Stage by stage comments

A1 (05.65)

Nothing special

B1 (03.70)

The cats weren't even in the way

C1 (03.68)

Leading the mice into the cats as fast as possible

D1 (09.08)

The limitation of three arrows is a bad thing here

E1 (11.41)

The AI is confused if I place my arrow where he wants to... :)

A2 (11.71)

THREE ARROWS AAH

B2 (09.11)

I'm basically trying to exchange the positions of cats and mice

C2 (03.85)

Nothing special, just fast eating

D2 (11.00)

I was surprised because letting the cat go through the mice parade a bit was actually faster (also some strange graphic glitch at the end :>)

E2 (16.80)

Cats move soo slowly...

A3 (05.00)

Suddenly everyone is going towards the rocket :D

B3 (07.81)

The cats were a bit of a problem here

C3 (08.20)

Hmm, yeah, nothing special

D3 (18.93)

Oh, this stage... I tested many possible strategies, but I ended up filling the first row with 100 mice (which is the maximum there can be on the screen), because it is the fastest way

E3 (30.00)

The rockets are really unfairly placed (where in E4, it is unfair for the computer). As you can see, the last two cats are almost there when the time ends ._.

A4 (08.68)

This was an easy level :>

B4 (09.33)

Nothing special

C4 (07.20)

Turned out to be really fast

D4 (13.98)

Same strategy as in D3, filling up a loop and then leading them to the rocket

E4 (21.23)

Unfair placement of the rockets for the computer :>, easy win for me

A5 (16.70)

I had to test several lengths of the mice team to get the fastest, there are also some problems with the THREE ARROWS

B5 (06.30)

Fast and easy stage

C5 (11.31)

Leading mice and cat together as fast as possible

D5 (24.43)

Completing this stage in realtime is hard as hell because you have to hope that there is no cat spawning in your mice collection

End (08.08)

The Final Stage is a special stage, because the goal here is to have 100 more points than your opponent. There are 50-mice which give you 50 points. There are also ?-mice which can do different things, for example Mouse Mania, which spawns many mice, or Cat Mania, which spawns cats. It is random what is chosen, but it is time based so that is what was the best I could do.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3817: Masterjun's GBA ChuChu Rocket! "Challenge mode" in 07:01.06
Joined: 6/6/2004
Posts: 223
This run fails to beat the unassisted records, some by significant margins.
Masterjun
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Site Developer, Skilled player (1968)
Joined: 10/12/2010
Posts: 1179
Location: Germany
I see no proof. Beat my movie and then I'm going to cancel this.
Warning: Might glitch to credits I will finish this ACE soon as possible (or will I?)
Joined: 3/9/2009
Posts: 530
Masterjun wrote:
I see no proof. Beat my movie and then I'm going to cancel this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NReJhD_OEtg Beats your times on a number of them.
Masterjun
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Site Developer, Skilled player (1968)
Joined: 10/12/2010
Posts: 1179
Location: Germany
Tangent wrote:
Masterjun wrote:
I see no proof. Beat my movie and then I'm going to cancel this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NReJhD_OEtg Beats your times on a number of them.
Yep, that movie is faster in exactly one room. I'm going to cancel this, fix that, and then submit again.
Warning: Might glitch to credits I will finish this ACE soon as possible (or will I?)
TASVideosGrue
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om, nom, nom... sweet!
Joined: 3/9/2009
Posts: 530
Masterjun wrote:
Tangent wrote:
Masterjun wrote:
I see no proof. Beat my movie and then I'm going to cancel this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NReJhD_OEtg Beats your times on a number of them.
Yep, that movie is faster in exactly one room. I'm going to cancel this, fix that, and then submit again.
A lot more than just one.
Masterjun
He/Him
Site Developer, Skilled player (1968)
Joined: 10/12/2010
Posts: 1179
Location: Germany
Tangent wrote:
Masterjun wrote:
Tangent wrote:
Masterjun wrote:
I see no proof. Beat my movie and then I'm going to cancel this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NReJhD_OEtg Beats your times on a number of them.
Yep, that movie is faster in exactly one room. I'm going to cancel this, fix that, and then submit again.
A lot more than just one.
You can't count all the RNG based things, because this movie doesn't aim for the fastest times, but for the fastest credits!
Warning: Might glitch to credits I will finish this ACE soon as possible (or will I?)
Joined: 6/6/2004
Posts: 223
If a TAS on this game is to have any purpose whatsoever, it's pretty much required to manipulate luck to the fullest in the D and Final stages, as A/B/C/E stages are completely deterministic and even the unassisted records treat them as practically turn-based puzzles from which they're easy to analyze. I'd assume that by now, the records for every luck-based stage can only be set with the most favorable 0.1% of random seeds, if not less. The fact that the final stage here takes four times as long as the unassisted record, and in fact ranks behind all but two of the submissions on Cyberscore, is a fundamentally disqualifying flaw. It's not particularly fast, nor does it offset that with any kind of style points. Now, in the previous discussion topic (see the link to unassisted records in a prior post), it was found that the RNG manipulation available in this game is minimal, and consists exclusively of waiting and brute-force restarts. This seems to imply, if anything, that the game makes a poor candidate for TASing, at least for a single-segment stage challenge run (and the other modes aren't going to be any better). Either that, or the run needs to focus on cracking the RNG directly, as has been the focus of many RPG titles recently.
Masterjun
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Joined: 10/12/2010
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The good thing is, that my submission is not going to be rejected because of the "records on Cyberscore" because there is still a chance that times could be faked. There is no video proof of any of the times. To RNG manipulation: I found out that the address for the RNG is 030001F8 (4 byte) and the next RNG is calculated like this: newRNG=RNG*0x41C64E6D+0x00003039 So in the worst case you would have to wait 4294967295 RNG changes to get the best time on one stage. So if the RNG would change 6 times per frame, it would take about 138 days to get the best time...
Warning: Might glitch to credits I will finish this ACE soon as possible (or will I?)
Joined: 3/9/2009
Posts: 530
Masterjun wrote:
The good thing is, that my submission is not going to be rejected because of the "records on Cyberscore" because there is still a chance that times could be faked. There is no video proof of any of the times. To RNG manipulation: I found out that the address for the RNG is 030001F8 (4 byte) and the next RNG is calculated like this: newRNG=RNG*0x41C64E6D+0x00003039 So in the worst case you would have to wait 4294967295 RNG changes to get the best time on one stage. So if the RNG would change 6 times per frame, it would take about 138 days to get the best time...
That's... uh... not how math works.
Masterjun
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Site Developer, Skilled player (1968)
Joined: 10/12/2010
Posts: 1179
Location: Germany
Tangent wrote:
That's... uh... not how math works.
Tell me where I'm wrong
Warning: Might glitch to credits I will finish this ACE soon as possible (or will I?)