ThunderAxe31: This is an extremely plain game, however it features enough room for optimization in order to warrant a publication. This could be done mainly by jumping as often as possible while moving, since it makes the player slightly faster. I estimate that this trick would save from 10% to 15% of the time, that is at least half minute over this run. While the difference would not be noticeable while watching the movie, it would be an unacceptable flaw since it has an impact on the final time, while on the other hand there are almost no other means to speed up the gameplay. Read here for more information.
Joined: 1/24/2018
Posts: 303
Location: Stafford, NY
Umm... I think we need some more information about what's going on here (whether walking really is faster than jumping, what is meant by "horrible desync issues", etc.) before anyone can make a good judgement about this one.
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
Turns out that jumping is faster. During each jump, the horizontal speed doubles for 4 frames in total. While this can't be caught by naked eye, it does save about 15% of the time during walking.
Since the game uses many different addresses for the X and Y position of the player, I've decided to write a quick lua script that automatically tracks the addresses and shows them on screen: User movie #46843624007839304
With some tweaks, the same code could be used for other games that feature the same problem.
Additionally, I want to point out a couple of other improvements, however there would save an extremely little amount of time compared to the one I just mentioned above.
I want to point out a little trick I've found: during level 4-2, these is a place where you can skip jumping on a branch, if you use the correct timing and keeping the jumping button for the maximum height.
(the submitted run does jump on the branch on the left first.)
Also, I want to note that a very small amount of frames could be saved by jumping at the end of the slopes, since these make your speed a little slower at the end.
I hope Jigwally redoes this, it's so short and the improvements will be easily implemented.
I want all good TAS inside TASvideos, it's my motto.
TAS i'm interested:
Megaman series, specially the RPGs! Where is the mmbn1 all chips TAS we deserve? Where is the Command Mission TAS?
i'm slowly moving away from TASing fighting games for speed, maybe it's time to start finding some entertainment value in TASing.