Batman: The Caped Crusader on Commodore 64...yeah.

Goals

There are 2 parts to this game. The penguin and the joker. Both are independent from each other and either can be picked from the start. This TAS completes the penguin version.

Rom choice

I picked the disk version of this game instead of the tape version. Mostly because the tape version load times are several minutes slower (and the disk is already several minutes of load times). I used a cracked version of this game because, well, that's what you do with Commodore 64. Uncracked versions aren't easily used because of copy protections, and are hard to find. The common disks out in the wild seem to be cracked ones. The only effect this has on this TAS is that you see a bit of black screen where I skip the cracked game screen.

Strategies

I get the minimum items necessary to beat the game. The most annoying to skip is the flashlight since Penguins Mansion is completely black without it. In addition to route planning, the main consideration is luck manipulation. The one main enemy that keeps chasing you (sadly I don't know his name, I just call him the asshole) randomly shows up in rooms and in random places. Frames are the only way to manipulate this it seems. Often you spend more frames waiting than you do simply taking damage and moving on. Also, punching him can be faster than taking a hit in the right circumstances.
Yeah, that's all I have to say really about this one.

Masterjun: Judging.
Masterjun: This run uses the cracked version of the ROM. For the Commodore 64, we allow this, since it's not easy to acquire an uncracked version. The game and goal look good for Vault. Accepting to Vault as a fastest completion.
Spikestuff: Nana, nana, nana, nana. Nana, nana, nana, nana. Publishing!


TASVideoAgent
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morningpee
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I was entertained. I'm a fan of the ending.
TASVideoAgent wrote:
The one main enemy that keeps chasing you (sadly I don't know his name, I just call him the asshole) randomly shows up in rooms and in random places.
page 7 of the manual wrote:
Watch out for the thugs that roam the streets—they may try to shoot at you.
The asshole it is.
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Spikestuff
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I'll be taking care of this for publication. Still haven't decided on my vote however so I'll get back to you on that.
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Why don't those enemies hit you with the things they throw?
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The run itself isn't really that exciting. Haven't decided what to vote yet. But: For all the consoles around here, hacks are allowed, but cracked, patched or fan-translations are strictly forbidden. AFAIK there is exactly one game where a patched ROM was used, because the game was unwinnable otherwise. I strongly dislike the reasoning for using the cracked version. It would be a much much cleaner approach if the emulator is sufficiently accurate to be able to handle an uncracked original copy of the game. This would require a very sophisticated file format for the disk images to handle all the special cases (varying bitrates, "fat tracks", "half-tracks", non-conformant formatting of the disks, purposely corrupted sectors, track alignment...) and a device which can reliably read out the exact physical layout of the original disks. I guess no one owns such a device, or it is extremely expensive. Much work to do. So for the meantime, the "cracked" approach is a pragmatic decision, but it may set a bad precedent. With that reasoning, it would be totally ok to publish runs for cracked Windows games for example.
mklip2001
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The run was fairly Meh without any real combat, even at the ending. My favorite part is Batman's stride... when he goes by "Don't Pass Door" for the first time, I can imagine him going "Don't tell the Batman what to do."
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.
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It's curious than the enemies don't damages batman with the knives throw or then it don't stun all simply? Batman is a man of peace, he fight with his brain on C64, he fight only with a "asshole man"! On C64 games it's generally like it, you think play an action game but in reality it's simply an game of research. I think than it's preferable to read this in bizhawk for can vote correctly. Let's go!
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ok, I watched this run on Bizhawk and tried a little for done me an idea. I have a question for you, why don't take the trainies shoes when the game started? Indeed when i take and uses this item, speed increased considerably and I think than make a detour is more faster than walk slower! This item make you fast move and don't take damage in some situations. Not voted, I wait an answer.
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partyboy1a wrote:
I strongly dislike the reasoning for using the cracked version.
Me too. - While it would be possible to verify the patched code only skips the copy protection, you can't figure out what was the original values in those places. - As the FDS has the poopy situation (aging problem, bad dumps), I think this falls in the same category. And we shouldn't encourage cracked ROM choice. On the other (pro) side, - "some" games probably will be never attainable/preservable/playable, so the only way is finding an alternative. Is there any poll/discussion about this?
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adelikat
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zoboner wrote:
ok, I watched this run on Bizhawk and tried a little for done me an idea. I have a question for you, why don't take the trainies shoes when the game started? Indeed when i take and uses this item, speed increased considerably and I think than make a detour is more faster than walk slower! This item make you fast move and don't take damage in some situations. Not voted, I wait an answer.
I tested that strategy. The shoes don't last very long though. It ends up being some seconds slower overall.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
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adelikat wrote:
I tested that strategy. The shoes don't last very long though. It ends up being some seconds slower overall.
Ho, ok this item is time limited! After have made some tests, for me it's cool run and give you my yes vote. For question to the crack version, i think and it's just my opinion, when you havn't possibility to play original ROM, I find isn't problem.
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Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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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. ---- [3457] C64 Batman: The Caped Crusader "The Penguin: A Bird in the Hand" by adelikat in 07:21.84
Joined: 7/2/2007
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Man, I remember playing this game! Or one of the variants of it, anyway. I had no clue what I was doing (being at most 8 years old at the time). I think I just wandered around punching thugs for the most part. I found Robin tied up at one point but couldn't figure out what to do with him, maybe because I never figured out how to use items from the inventory.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.