Happy Halloween
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 2.8
So this is a pretty huge improvement for this game. Originally the improvements came from better optimization here and there, but then I discovered a huge time save regarding the red poles you might have seen in some levels. if you swing off of the poles, you can set your movement speed to be slightly faster than normal horizontal speed, almost the same speed as taking a speed potion. There's only one level where doing this doesn't seem to save time, but it really cuts a ton of frames in some horizontal levels.
Abdomainland
we start off the stage grabbing the skull, which we can use to throw at enemies. Which fun fact, this same game mechanic is also in Kid Kool for NES and Psycho Fox for SMS, including the weird pole thing.
anyways Chuck D Head's movement can affect how high he jumps, his acceleration is pretty unbearably slow at times, but if he's at full speed he can jump higher. He also has a hover mechanic which in a TAS setting is way more exploitative.
in 1-3 we pick up an item to use later.
The trick with the red pole that we'll use in later stages isn't done here because I couldn't figure out a way to preserve speed long enough to save any time.
For the bosses, it's optimal to have the head and Chuck's face attacking on the same frame as that does 100 points of damage, otherwise both attacks do 50 at once. The previous publication fought this boss but did one hit with just the head on the ground, so through some VERY CAREFUL movements, I was able to get the head to stay on the ground to keep the attacks at 100 damage.
EL Beau Island
Stages don't expect you to reach an exit, but rather if you go off the left or right of the screen depending on where the exit is, this means if we can get out of bounds and walk on the top of the screen, the level will just end, and we don't have to move around the level to reach it.
The boss in this world can be skipped by just not letting the screen show the ground before the exit is visible. A Casual player might even accidentally skip the boss this way.
Tibuland
First of 2 auto scrollers in the game, not much to really do here optimization wise, but since we have time, we can use it to pick up some other powerups such as one that extends your face while attacking and increasing attack power and one that makes Chuck run faster. these powerups will be very useful for bosses or to skip them.
So like I said, the momentium of Chuck is very key in this game, and especially for the vertical stages you need to make sure he can jump to reach certain places.
Oh right I forgot to mention, in the 3rd stages of every world, you need to grab a certain item before you can leave, which is why we sometimes take detours.
The brown dirt slows down Chuck when he walks on it.
This is the first stage where we use a powerup, I use it after I jump out of the water because otherwise his jump would be to high for us to control, we use the speed powerup to let us run fast out of the level, then do a glitch where we bounce off of an enemy and a projectile to get out of bounds, and skip the boss of the stage. We can also preserve the speed we have by continuously floating.
Armington
This is the first stage where you'll see use of the red pole thing that was in Kid Kool and Psycho Fox. for some reason it sets Chuck's speed higher than his normal running speed, so we preserve the movement all the way to the end.
I love vertical swimming levels where you just dont do anything to go faster.
after grabbing the required item, we then jump over a wall using a pretty tight jump, then eventually reach the red pole and use that to reach the end stage boss.
Since this boss floats in the air, we can't use the skull to double damage it, so we instead make use of a powerup that increases our punch damage and extends our face longer, we can use this to do two hits on the boss on every punch.
Pumpington
Another use of the red pole thingy trick thingy, in the first and 3rd stage. not much else to say here.
Last Leg Land
everyone loves a good ice stage right?
Unfortunately you won't see the red pole anymore sorry, the level layout is not build to withstand that glorious stuff
Just some more vertical levels and stuff
I saved a ton of time by changing where we use the speed potion, a bit farther back in the level so that when we do the leap of faith, the potion will have worn out and we can just float to the end. That way we can use the speed for much longer than before.
Eyeland
So just like before, the first level ends by doing a ceiling walk off
the 2nd level is just vertical falling
3rd level is the big guy. I managed to save some time off of him by doing the double attack trick I mentioned earlier, making sure I'm doing at least two hits per ahooga.
Samsara:
Can't wait for that detailed submission text! oh hey there it is
Samsara: A beautiful TAS for a game that isn't exactly easy on the eyes. Accepting as an improvement to the
published run!
