Yes, it's only November but this 2011 SNES homebrew has been on my to-do list for a good while and when better to do it than now when Christmas adverts are finally being bombarded at everyone. The aim of the game is to collect all the Christmas gifts a bunch of aliens stole from the city and hid in the park. This TAS uses the 2 player game mode which differs from the 1 player mode because it's a PvP mode rather than following the main story for reasons that will be explained later.

When first looking at the game, the only category on the src boards is any% using 1 player and I found this hardly entertaining, both to watch and to actually play. I messed around trying to TAS something not quite as dull without success, likely because of the annoying ice-rink physics. Because of this, I turned my attention to the 2 player mode which, unfortunately, doesn't really include any story but I hoped the second player could add the entertainment value that the game was missing.

Frustratingly, it takes a long time for the player to reach max speed which is why a 1 player run wouldn't be quite as entertaining. However, when the two players bump into each other, their speed is instantly set to max as long as they start facing the opposite direction some time close to the bump. This is utilised throughout the movie to quickly gain speed instead of turning around and slowing building it up.

The only other bit worth mentioning on the topic of acceleration is that the player accelerates fastest while grounded which can be seen in round 2.

I think the majority of the TAS is as good as it will get, after all, there is only a limited amount of screen space and bumping the players together to achieve max speed instantly is used in every case possible. Round 2 is the main stage I think has some space for improvement. I wasn't able to get anything better than it and it seems like one player has to be sacrificed because the lower platform is so small, the player needs to jump off the edge to get to the upper platforms; jumping from the centre is barely too far. p2 can't seem to go much faster than they already do and they are forced to turn around to get the last present and they are grounded as soon as possible after each jump for the fastest acceleration. It'd be nice if this is improved because it does feel quite sluggish to watch but I found no way to do better.

Samsara: Claiming for judging.

Samsara: It's like Christmas Bugz! Though it's presented competitively, there is still a definitive endpoint and optimizable levels, looks perfectly fine for publication.

Signing off on yep2yel's review and accepting!

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