Link to video
I'm not patient enough to do a proper TAS but here's a game that's guaranteed to go direct-to-Vault. It's a tame Donkey Kong-style game with essentially no opportunity to save time outside of optimizing movement.
Here's some notes (also in the Youtube video description):
- This game has TONS of frame rules. It seems very hard to do significantly better than this run even if you optimize inputs, because of all the slow-moving objects that need to be dodged. There are a few cases where I barely miss the chance to pass an object that could probably be improved on in a real TAS.
- I tried everything that looked like it could remotely be a shortcut. You just die. Seriously - the programmers _deliberately_ programmed in a death if you try to take any different route from the one depicted. Want to jump from one platform to another? You die. There's no clear indication in the game as to the intended route, so it's very possible for a new player to attempt a jump and die without any real clues as to why.
- Jumping is obviously significantly faster than walking. So I jump as often as possible. You need to already be walking in a direction or else you'll just jump vertically.
- When you leave a rope, the location where you end up depends on if you were on the left or right side of the rope. But it takes a few frames to switch the side of the rope you're on. It's probably not worth it unless you're waiting on a frame rule.
the longest possible route with no backtracking is the route. i was able to spot the right path at a glance.
Might be more entertaining at the hardest difficulty level. i believe the action is faster at higher difficulty levels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvK0G-oVtkc c64 version. even played at wrong video standard, its' still pretty fast (it's an NTSC game) and it's less optimized.
i'm not sure how the apple version works, and if it plays faster at level 6. i know for a fact the c64 version does play faster, so playing level 6 follows guideline for play at hardest level.
