Cameltry(On the Ball in US/EU) is a labyrinth game where you tilt a maze to navigate a marble to the goal. This is an arcade port, although there are some pretty significant changes to how the game plays, such as 70 extra mazes, as well as more significant speed up and the ability to tilt the maze much faster. The last goal is hit in 36:21.403, which is 18:24 faster than wr, although some of the courses are quit out of earlier, so accounting for that this run is probably about 16 minutes faster than the RTA all worlds WR. This improvement mainly comes from being able to optimize moving the maze as quickly as possible and avoiding hitting walls while doing it, which is unfeasible to do RTA.
WARNING
This game has a lot of sudden camera movement and very disorienting visuals; so be aware if you're prone to motion sickness.
Objectives
- This run plays on the JP version, as you can skip the title screen animation by pressing Start in that one, and there's also a different final level that's faster.
- Beats all of the mazes as quickly as possible; 'beating' a maze is defined by a time appearing on the time records screen, which you can reach with the password DATA. The encode verifies this by using the password after the run, although the verification is not in the movie file.
- Reaches the credits, which requires greying out all of the courses on the final plane.
- Doesn't go out of bounds, or clip through any walls
- Takes damage to save time
- No passwords other than the passwords to switch between planes
Level Structure
The game is split up into 16 courses which are divided into 4 planes, and you move between each of these planes with passwords that the game tells you after clearing the courses of the previous plane. Each of the courses has anywhere from 4 to 10 mazes, for a total of 100 mazes.
Basic Moves
Left, L, and Y tilt the maze clockwise(cw), and Right, R, X, and A tilt the maze counterclockwise(ccw).
By pressing B or down, you can increase the gravity of the maze to move the marble around more quickly
If you press B or down when the marble is on a surface the marble will jump off of it.
Items and Obstacles
Yellow X's will decrease the time remaining by 2 seconds, and Red X's will decrease the time remaining by 5 seconds.
If the text says "Stop" it acts as a wall, and if it says "Go" you can go through it, and it alternates between these every 89 frames, with the first stop happening at 1.5 seconds in the maze, and the cycles start at the beginning of the maze it's on, which makes some mazes have tricky cycles.
If you hit this you will be bounced and get 500 points.
If you hit a brick with enough force, it will break, but if you don't have enough force it won't. It also stops your momentum, which makes it so in most cases, its faster to bounce off a wall or brick near it to regain speed quickly, instead of waiting for gravity to move the marble down.
There are some rows of red lines that will affect your gravity to go a certain way, however, unlike in the arcade version, it isn't that hard to bypass them generally by having enough force. Some have arrows indicating the direction they push the marble.
Advanced movement and glitches
If you hold multiple of the cw or ccw tilt keys at the same time, the maze will be tilted faster, which helps in several cases.
If you jump, you will get a burst of speed, independent of the gravity, and if you keep bouncing on the walls in this state, you will get to a point where the marble isn't in the usual gravity state, and controlling this optimally is a lot faster than the conventional way in a lot of cases; mainly if there are a lot of bricks that need to be hit or you start right on a wall, as you can get and regain speed instantly.
- reverse gravity wallbounce
bouncing off walls while also holding the other increase gravity button lets you bounce around the level much more quickly than the fastest movement otherwise
Bouncing off slopes in reverse gravity levels gives you a big burst of speed
By pressing the key to jump into a wall every other frame, you can clip through walls and most other other obstacles(including the Stop/Go fields). This is not allowed in this TAS, however.
By repedately pausing the in game time will progress more slowly. This doesn't affect the cycles, however, so this isn't of any use in the run.
Types of Levels
Generally, these mazes involve tilting the stage to reach the goal as quickly as possible. There are several stages, though, where it is faster to bounce off the walls to the goal even in these stages, as jumping gives you a burst of speed.
Introduced in the second plane, these mazes have the gravity in the opposite direction, which is helpful in a lot of cases, as you move to the walls, instead of falling to the walls.
Introduced in the second plane, these mazes only let you tilt 45 degrees cw and ccw, which makes the movement a lot more complicated. These stages are a lot more dependent on using level geometry to affect the marble's gravity.
Course Notes and notable mazes
First Plane - Training
This has several tutorials that introduce the various mechanics. After finishing all of the mazes I reset after the second 'e' is displayed in the Complete screen after beating the 6th maze, as that's when the record is saved to the time records screen.
- Maze 4: Super Sonic Break
This is the first level that introduces breaking bricks, and you have to destroy a few of them to progress, so bouncing through the level allows me to break them while losing as little speed as possible.
First Plane - Beginner
There is a big shortcut by bouncing through the tile-wide corridor at the end of the level, and it's a lot faster to traverse it while bouncing through it. The path I took seems about .1 seconds faster from testing.
This introduces the first Stop/Go field, which makes me stall a bit so I can enter right as it's saying Go, with as much speed as possible
First Plane - Expert
- Maze 6: Ancient Battleship
A pretty cool level; this features precise movement through pegs to not bounce on one, and looks cool when done well.
Lots of Stop/Go cycles; I don't imagine this level could be improved by a lot, as I enter the stop/go field at the very end right as it says go
This level has a lot of alternate routes, and due to the walls being closely together, it's faster to bounce between them, and go inside the small corridor with the -time bricks. The cycle is pretty tight, so it required a lot of experimentation to figure out how to make the cycle.
First Plane - Special
- Maze 4: Magician's Escape
This has tight corridors that I need to bounce through. It is possible to clip through the pegs at the end to get to the goal, but due to that working similarly to the wall clips, I am not allowing that in this run
This level loses time to world record, as the peg clip is RTA-viable, but due to how it works, is not used in this run.
This level introduces directional fields, which I can generally get through easily, but do affect the marble's gravity slightly.
Password to second plane: BIRTH
That's right! This is a component to this run as well! The passwords in this game are... interesting. The way they work is that you need to tilt the password entry left and right, and at max speed it will change the character every 4 frames, so these can be a tricky part of speedruns to do well, and it's very easy to misenter a password. I did some math to ensure this was optimal. The password is normally given after greying out all 4 of the courses, and is the same every time.
Second Plane - Training
Starting on this plane, some of the mazes have different movement mechanics, and I will state below each course which maze of the course they appear on.
Limited angle mazes: 1, 2, 4
Reverse Gravity mazes: 3
This is the first limited gravity maze, which means I need to use the level geometry a lot more to get through it efficently, since I can't just rely on the gravity of having the marble go forward.
This is the first reverse gravity maze. Here I want to bounce along the edges of the walls and slopes when possible while holding the other speedup button, because that gives the marble a big burst of speed.
Second Plane - Beginner
Mazes 1 and 4 lose time to world record for this course, due to not peg clipping.
Limited angle mazes: 3
Reverse Gravity mazes: 4
It feels counterintuitive to me, but the route that goes around the tight corridor is faster in this case even though it is more distance, as tight corridors take awhile to get through with limited gravity.
Second Plane - Expert
Limited angle mazes: 6
Reverse Gravity mazes: 1
This level loses some time to cycles.
Second Plane - Special
Reverse Gravity mazes: 1, 4, 7
The cycle here is really tight to make, so it requires pretty optimal bouncing around the level and getting the speed boosts, while not wasting too much time on the walls.
Third Plane - Beginner
Limited angle mazes: 4
From third plane on, Beginner is the first course instead of training, and the final course of this plane is labeled "Master" instead of Special, which is the 3rd course instead.
Another tight cycle, Here I need to make sure to avoid the directional fields, because they make me go very slightly slower, which here is the difference between making the cycle and not. It is really tricky to bounce off the bricks toward the end without breaking the bricks to the side, which would kill my momentum.
Third Plane - Expert
Limited angle mazes: 4
Reverse Gravity mazes: 5
Third Plane - Special
Limited angle mazes: 3
Reverse Gravity mazes: 6
There are a lot of bricks to break in this level, and when you break too many in a row, you have to wait a bit to break more, likely due to too many brick particles being on screen.
Third Plane - Master
Limited angle mazes: 4, 8
Reverse Gravity mazes: 2, 6
This is the longest level in the name. It turns out to be faster to not bounce the marble here, and it is way faster to go through the - time bricks
Cycles are really mean here, unfortunately
Fourth Plane - Beginner
Starting in this plane, I need to grey out the courses to accomplish the goal of receiving the credits, so after finishing a course i reset after the end of course text has stopped advancing, which takes a little longer.
Reverse Gravity mazes: 3
You are intended to be pushed by the gravity to the part of the maze farthest from the goal, however with good gravity and force manipulation you can get to the final part of the maze.
Fourth Plane - Expert
Limited angle mazes: 1
Reverse Gravity mazes: 2
This is the first level in a series of adventure levels, they are all limited gravity levels, and this one has some pretty tricky cycles
This has a lot of + and - bricks that give or take time. Normally you would let the directional field push you into the -/+ bricks, however bouncing around instead helps prevent losing speed from repeatedly hitting the bricks.
Fourth Plane - Special
Limited angle mazes: 3
Reverse Gravity mazes: 6
from testing, bouncing around seemed to save 7 frames vs. letting gravity push the marble, due to starting right near a wall and getting momentum more quickly
There's a major shortcut if you jump through the route outside the X blocks.
The routes seem to be almost exactly the same length, but I think the one I took is faster.
- Maze 5: Another Dimension
Some of the geometry is narrow enough that you can clip through it more easily than most walls, but I am not allowing that here. For the 2nd half of the level, bouncing around the narrow corridors is faster than trying to navigate via gravity, as even with tilting the maze at top speed you can't avoid hitting the walls.
Fourth Plane - Master
Limited angle mazes: 3, 7, 8
Reverse Gravity mazes: 1, 10
Getting hit by the bumper at the beginning is faster, although it doesn't save any time in the run, as I still make the same cycle, but I decide to play around a bit.
This is probably one of the hardest levels in the game; there's limited gravity and you have to control the marble's gravity in a very particular way to even progress through the level.
The directional fields push the marble forward and help a bit, but it's sometimes better to move in the path with the least distance.
The directional fields are really tricky to navigate through at the end, as it's optimal to just use momentum to go the opposite way through them instead of hitting the bricks on the other side.
There are 3 paths you can take depending on how far down you go, and the middle one is the most straightforward.
Another Adventure level that is really tricky. This one has a cool skip with the bumpers to skip moving through the directional field that is to the right.
This was changed in the US version to a longer and more challenging level called "Last Battle". This level has a cycle and you have to move in the right way not to get caught in alcoves, and there is a cycle, and a lot of bricks after the stop/go cycle, and only so many brick particles can be shown at once, so I stop occasionally.
Possible Improvements
- I would imagine that, due to the complex nature of how you gain speed by bouncing on walls, slight optimizations throughout are possible.
- It's possible that I could save another cycle on Hyper, which would save a second and a half, as I get pretty close to making the cycle.
Challenges
- Most of the time I could sync the TAS per level after redoing a maze, but occasionally if I ended the level at a different angle, the marble would react differently to surfaces on the following level, and I would have to resync that level as well.
Thanks and shoutouts
- Ankou for making a really neat Cameltry level editor, that also comes with level maps when you view a level, which helped with figuring out routing when there were multiple paths
- Picante, a friend who also ran this game awhile back.
Samsara: I looooooooove them balls. Judging!
Samsara: Dropping. We still need a discussion on where to accept "in-bounds" runs, which may further delay processing of this run. Whoever picks it up should be aware of that.
feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: I think reaching the credits counts as a fastest completion goal for this game. You have to enter passwords to advance to the next plane, so you can see the credits even if you only play the Final Plane. But we don't allow using passwords to simply skip ahead. So I'm removing the "all levels" label from this run, and I added labels to rejected submissions to tell which plane they are playing.
feos: Forgot it's a Moons branch.
