Lode Runner "Small World" level set cleared even faster with more tricks and excavating a buried secret enemy.
The re-recording count is low because most of testing was done outside the run, and then the optimal implementation of the strategy worked out is just straight-forward.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: VBA-rr v24m
- Completes the 24 levels in "Small World" to achieve an ending
- Aims for fastest input time
- Abuses programming errors in the game
Note: the previous run on VBA-rr v19.3 had to change the initial game settings to enable "Fast Speed" and "Mark Traps" due to wrong initialization of the SRAM, which should have been actually enabled by default, and got fixed in later versions of VBA-rr. Thus there is no need to change the game settings ie. trade off speed/entertainment anymore in this run.
On-going pit timer during pause
By pausing and digging at the same time, the timer of the pit will be erroneously going on during the game pause, which allows to dig pits where it should be impossible due to lack of time, and even to make the pits re-materialize in reversed order.
Defiladed lodes
The game checks whether all lodes in a level are collected whenever the Lode Runner collect one or an enemy is buried. However this check ignores any lodes defiladed by boulder blocks. So it's possible to complete a level without collecting those lodes.
Skipping fanfares
Pausing right before the fanfare is played when you complete a level will results in skipping the fanfare, which saves some frames.
Avoiding the no-kills bonus
An old trick, but in this run I avoid all of them thanks to the pit timer glitch.
Two enemies in a pit
Two enemies can fall into the same one pit if the first one hasn't reach the bottom of the pit when the second one steps into to it. This can be done with the pit timer glitch explained above.
Pushing an enemy in a pit outside
If you push a boulder block towards an enemy fallen into a dug pit, the enemy and the boulder can both be pushed forward for one block's width as long as there are enough room for them, and the fallen enemy will stay the same. This trick is abused in Round 23 to implement an unintended solution.
The Buried Guy
It's a special enemy that doesn't carry lodes or respawn in a level, but otherwise identical to regular enemies in behaviors. I use it as an extra platform in some levels. It doesn't register a kill count if it gets buried.
All levels (except Round 16 if you don't count the fanfare skip glitch) are improved. Some remarkable are:
Round 1
Route change results in slightly faster time.
Round 4
Small change in the route. Nothing too special.
Round 5
The first time to implement the Defiladed Lode glitch to skip collecting the lode on the bottom-left corner of the stage. The pushing scheme is changed too.
Round 6
I use enemies to collect lodes on the middle "floating platform". The pit timer glitch further saves time so I don't need to wait long for the enemies to walk far.
Round 8
Since I need to avoid the no-kills bonus, I have to bury one enemy here. I use the pit timer glitch instead of just plain waiting to control the re-materialization of a pit, so that the enemy in the bottom-left corner can be in an ideal postion.
Round 10
Again to skip collecting the bottom-left lode with the Defiladed Lode glitch.
Round 11
I bury an enemy earlier to get the last lode faster.
Round 13
To avoid the no-kills bonus, I use the pit timer glitch to bury the enemy in the bottom-uh-left corner.
Round 15
Route changed. I like how the enemy is fooled around.
Round 18
Better enemy manipulations. In case you are wondering, enemy will only drop carried lode on their own if they are moving to the right. So I have to dig the last pit to get the last lode out.
Round 19
The Defiladed Lode glitch to skip collecting the, uh, lode in the bottom-left corner, and the Buried Guy as a supporting platform are utilized. I somehow miss the cool stylish "midair bridge" in the published run, though.
Round 20
I overlooked the shortcut last time and even made a mistake to unecessarily dig one extra block further delaying the progress, but now I have fixed them.
Round 21
The Buried Guy instead of the regular enemy on the left side is used as the moving platform to collect the massive load of lodes in the middle part of the stage. I had a cooler solution but unfortunately it was slower than what you see now.
Round 22
Just better and fluenter enemy manipulations.
Round 23
The biggest improvement in this run. By using the Buried Guy as a temporary platform, I can skip the long and slow work to push the boulders block across the whole level. This is barely possible as the timing is very strict via multiple pit timer glitches, just to collect, you guess, the Lode in the Bottom-Left Corner (TM).
The noticeable waiting right before I complete the level is to manipulate the frame-rule-based randomness of the enemy's dropping of the lode in Round 24, which is faster than not to.
Round 24
The enemy is manipulated to drop the lode so I don't need to wait for it to climb up again as in the currently published movie.
ThunderAxe31: File replaced for a minor entertainment improvement in stage 23, as requested by the author.
