(Link to video)

Put on a lizard and go for an adventure!

Lizard is a new homebrew game by Brad Smith, released for NES and Windows/OSX/Linux in 2018. In this game, you literally wear lizard suits which grant you different abilities, some of which are required to reach the end of the game. It is as much exploration as it is platforming, similar to what the original Metroid was.
  • Emulator used: FCEUX 2.2.3 (default settings)
  • Aims for fastest completion (any%)
  • Deathless / pacifist (you'd have to go out of your way not to achieve these though)

Comments

Hello! I'm juef and this is my first TAS. The ending is reached in 75354 frames (a tad under 20 minutes, 54 seconds), which is about 102 seconds faster than the current record by 0garrison. The route is very similar, except for a different boss order (strictly to get better positions for critters) and a handful of new strategies.
There isn't much to say about this, as the game is pretty straightforward once you know where the lizards and bosses are. Most of my time was spent on entertainment during wait times, and movement optimization. Should improvements come up (and I hope they will), I suspect they will mostly be from a different route and better critter/boss manipulation. Although I have done my very best to optimize movement, I suspect veteran TASers will find ways to shave frames here and there as well. While the choices made for this movie is pretty self-explanatory in my opinion, I will gladly provide explanations and comments in the submission forum.
Edit (2018-03-17): Forgot to mention something important! I applied the following suggestion from the game's author: The starting seed of the random number generator will not be deterministic on hardware after power-on. If you wish to record a TAS that can be played back reliably, hold LEFT + RIGHT when pressing START to begin the game, which will initialize the random seed to a consistent starting value. To verify this worked correctly, you can check the password, which will be set to 11111.

Suggested screenshot (frame 10894):


GoddessMaria: Judging...
GoddessMaria: On the grounds of optimization, it looks fine. On console, it plays reliably from start to finish so that's also good. Entertainment wise, it doesn't drag on for too long and the audience response has been positive, overall.
Accepting.
fsvgm777: Processing.

TASVideoAgent
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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5846: juef's NES Lizard in 20:53.85
MESHUGGAH
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Didn't watched it, but wanted to inform you (or future TASers) that the source code is unreleased because of not reaching kickstarter goal. However many code parts are revealed on it's kickstarter update posts.
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Good job! I liked the improvements, they seem worth doing for realtime players, so that's cool. Also a bit of a relief to know my routing wasn't completely atrocious. The only improvements I really noticed based off of the first view is that some of the SMB1 looking platforms don't look like they had the best spawns they could have. No idea how you would manipulate that though, I just know I've seen better in realtime runs. I voted yes, obviously. Good job for you first TAS.
juef
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Thank you! Those platforms seem to be on some sort of global timer that may or may not be reset whenever you beat a boss. I couldn't get them positioned perfectly, but I still expected more waiting time so I'm not complaining. I'm looking forward to see an owl jump in your next run ;)
Post subject: Re: #5846: juef's NES Lizard in 20:53.85
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I was going to post that no way is this well-known and notable enough, but then I did some checks and turns out it totally is. Also, very good game by NES standards; I'll put this on my Steam wishlist immediately. Well done, yes vote.
mklip2001
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Solid run. Seems like a fairly interesting game in theory, but some parts of the game really dragged on with long waits (the frog boss, surfing boss, final boss). I'm still a bit creeped out from the animation of you sliding out of one lizard costume into another. It's a good run, but I couldn't quite give it a Yes vote with all the downtime.
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.
juef
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Sorry I'm late, but I forgot to mention something important! I applied the following suggestion from the game's author:
Brad Smith wrote:
The starting seed of the random number generator will not be deterministic on hardware after power-on. If you wish to record a TAS that can be played back reliably, hold LEFT + RIGHT when pressing START to begin the game, which will initialize the random seed to a consistent starting value. To verify this worked correctly, you can check the password, which will be set to 11111.
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. ---- [3679] NES Lizard by juef in 20:53.85
Joined: 11/15/2004
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WTF? That was almost A Boy and His Blob weird. This looks like an amazing game! A huge world to explore, and really interesting boss fights. I particularly enjoy watching the guy get barfed out of one lizard and then climb into the mouth of another. I just love this movie.
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