1001 Spikes is a platform game released in 2014, consisting of a series of levels with various traps and hazards. This TAS completes the whole game (both Ukampa and Antartica worlds) with four players, while collecting all skulls.

Game objectives

  • Emulator used: libTAS 1.3.5
  • Uses 4 Players
  • Uses a suboptimal character
  • Collect all skulls
  • Genre: Platform

Category choice

This run completes the whole game with four players controlling the main protagonist Aban, while collecting all skulls. There's an additional restriction, where we don't allow switching characters in the middle of the run (characters are unlocked progressively after stages or skulls). The reason is for entertainment, because some characters totally break the level design of the game.

Stab launch

Stabbing another character launches it at a high speed, but with a dizzy state. This state lasts 139 frames, but can be reduced by mashing jump/attack buttons. With a perfect mashing, it can be reduced to 47 frames, which is low enough to be worth using.

Knife climbing

Your characters are invulnerable during the one frame following the knife animation. If during that frame, a character is hit from a knife of another character, he gains a small hop without the dizzy state. These can be chained to slowly gain height and cross gaps.

Stab clipping

When stabbing, Aban's hitbox is slightly moved forward, so it's back enter inside a wall. If he turns around at that point, the game will push him toward the closest free space, which can be downward, upward or to the side. When performing a high jump and a stab against a three-tiles wall, we have just enough height so that we can clip upward, resulting in doing a three-tile jump. By superposition two or more characters, they can stab each other without hitting each other.

Offscreen mechanics

A character that is offscreen for several seconds is killed. The camera tries to follow as much characters as possible, but also follow objectives. Sometimes we had to wait a bit for the group that goes to the key.

Screenshot

29314

feos: There wasn't a lot of feedback, but this movie is much more interesting than the current run. The game shows how many skulls you've collected around 12:40, which is 30 out of 30 here. Accepting as an improvement.
fsvgm777: Processing.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15629
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #6663: keylie's Linux 1001 Spikes "4 players, all skulls" in 22:37.15
fsvgm777
She/Her
Senior Publisher, Player (226)
Joined: 5/28/2009
Posts: 1217
Location: Luxembourg
Hrm....I cannot get this TAS to sync at all, as it desyncs at complete random. Worst part is that I get a different desync almost every time. It's as if determinism is completely broken. Uncontrolled time and native events are both disabled. This is on my Kubuntu 18.04.3 VM running on kernel version 4.15.0.91-generic with everything updated, by the way. EDIT: Just tried with a build I compiled myself......still no dice.
Steam Community page - Bluesky profile Oh, I'm just a concerned observer.
keylie
He/Him
Editor, Emulator Coder, Expert player (2844)
Joined: 3/17/2013
Posts: 392
Oh, sorry, you need to check "Runtime > Asynchronous events > evdev". I thought it was inside the movie metadata, but it's not. It is required because controller events are handled in a separate thread (see libtas issue if interested)
fsvgm777
She/Her
Senior Publisher, Player (226)
Joined: 5/28/2009
Posts: 1217
Location: Luxembourg
Okay, I have confirmed sync with that setting checked.
Steam Community page - Bluesky profile Oh, I'm just a concerned observer.
Editor, Expert player (2080)
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3284
Just watched this. Co-op modes TASes are usually great, and this is no exception! In fact, a lot of these tricks wouldn't be possible in single-player. I noticed you didn't enter a couple of stages right away; I suppose this is for RNG reasons.
keylie
He/Him
Editor, Emulator Coder, Expert player (2844)
Joined: 3/17/2013
Posts: 392
FractalFusion wrote:
I noticed you didn't enter a couple of stages right away; I suppose this is for RNG reasons.
You cannot manipulate RNG like that, unfortunately. When you unlock a character at the end of the stage, you must wait a bit before being able to skip the message.
Joined: 6/4/2009
Posts: 893
that's the wrong day for a serious submition, sadly i'll have to vote yes for that, great job
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15629
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [4161] Linux 1001 Spikes "4 players, all skulls" by keylie in 22:37.15