Kid Chameleon is a platformer released for the Sega Genesis in 1992. The story is that a new virtual reality arcade game comes to town, equipped with a sentient AI which captures all the kids who couldn't beat it. The protagonist, some badass with a leather jacket, is the only kid in town who is "too tough to beat", and sets out to free the kids by beating the game. Kid Chameleon is infamous for its difficulty, sheer length, and lack of a save feature. To quote an advertisement, "There's over 100 rounds to slam your head against, 1800 screens with eye-popping graphics, and so many secret passages you'll be whacking your brain to find 'em."

This TAS completes the game using what is known as the "Plethora Cheat", which as the name suggests, warps you straight to the final boss, Plethora. Many cheat guides will tell you it's done by standing on the last P block of the 2nd level, Blue Lake Woods 2, and holding Down + Right + B + C. However, all you technically need to do is press Down, followed by B on the next frame, at X/Y coordinates 2515/95 in Blue Lake Woods 2.

This saves almost 6.5 seconds over my previous submission for this category. 3 frames were lost due to emulation differences, 192 frames were saved in the second level thanks to a new route found by Favini01 (now CaseyTAS) and showcased in their latest TAS, and 198 frames were saved on the final boss as I (Winslinator) completely reworked that fight.

Some highly technical explanation in here so skip reading this section if you don't care. Speed values mentioned henceforth will be reported in a pixels:subpixels format, where I'm assuming 256 subpixels = 1 pixel.

Airwalking is performed by repeatedly crouching and standing every other frame. This saves the horizontal speed and vertical position of both you and the platform from when you entered airwalking state, which will be reapplied when the "airwalking chain" is broken. This is very useful for preserving horizontal momentum, and teleporting with vertically-moving platforms. While in the airwalking state, your de facto speed is calculated by taking your speed from when you entered the "airwalking chain", truncating any subspeed component, and then halving that. So a speed of 3:128 when entering an airwalk would translate to 1:128 speed during the airwalk.

Air drag reduction If Kid's horizontal speed while in air is above 2:95 and you are holding the d-pad in the same direction as your speed, an air drag factor of -0:1 speed per frame will be applied. This increases to -0:4 if there is no d-pad input, and to -0:43 if the input is in the opposite direction from your speed. For Kid, if your speed goes below 2:95 due to air drag, it will wrap back to 2:160 the next frame. Manipulating these rules to our advantage is the reason you often see Kid turn around for single frames while jumping in the TAS. The ideal way to handle air drag in theory is once Kid's air speed reaches 2:150, we hold the d-pad neutral for 3 frames till speed reaches 2:138. We then turn around for one frame, which decreases our speed to 2:95, and wraps back to 2:160 the next. This air drag reduction technique allows for a higher average air speed, around 2:149 as opposed to 2:128. It is a very tedious process, that could be dampened with the help of an automated script, though I've thus far been unsuccessful in my attempts to make one.

The values above are slightly different for Red Stealth (the Samurai guy in the TAS). Namely, Red Stealth's air speed must reach 2:64 instead of 2:95 before wrapping back to 2:160. Also, holding the d-pad in the direction opposite your current speed will lose 0:64 speed instead of 0:43 speed. As such, the theoretical best air drag reduction for Red Stealth goes as follows: at 2:144 speed, hold the d-pad neutral for 4 frames till speed reaches 2:128, then turn around for one frame to decrease speed to 2:64, which will wrap back to 2:160 the next frame. Average air speed with drag reduction is 2:146 versus 2:112 without.

No change from the last submission. At the very beginning of the level, we collect a diamond and take damage to suppress the "No Prize" and "No Hit" bonuses, reducing our score by 10,000 points—something that will be very important (and referenced again) at the end of Blue Lake Woods 2. The remainder of Blue Lake Woods 1 is mostly TheRandomPie_IV's input from this publication, integrating two additional 1-frame timesaves I found around 9 years ago: one frame is saved at the level's second upwards incline, and the other is saved through better momentum preservation near the end of the level.

I also looked at CaseyTAS's current publication to see if any additional frames could be saved in the level, but it takes a slightly slower route to avoid damage and save HP for later.

This level features a completely new route compared to my last submission for this category. It involves grabbing the Red Stealth helmet at the start of the level and proceeding to pick up a whole bunch of speed throughout the level via a chain of enemy bounces. Each enemy bounce increases your speed by up to 1.5x. Normally, this speed is lost as soon as you touch the ground while holding right, which would trigger the speed cap of 3:128/frame (Kid and Red Stealth's top running speed). However, we can preserve speed with Red Stealth's downslashes (only loses 0:1 speed per frame from air drag), airwalking (no horizontal speed loss but slow de facto speed), or frame perfect jumps (only loses 1:209 speed with each jump). The highest speed we reached was 7:251/frame, attained at the final enemy bounce.

As this new route was found by CaseyTAS and implemented with Kid in the latest 100K Trip TAS, their inputs were used as a template which I meticulously reworked to account for Red Stealth's different physics and abilities.

At the end of the level, our total score is: 10,000 + 2,440 + 10,000 + 25,000 + 2,490 = 49,930. Every 50,000 points, you are awarded an extra life, which if earned on the score tally screen, plays an extra unnecessary 3-second animation. In both Blue Lake Woods 1 & 2, we purposely failed to get the "No Hit" and "No Prize" Bonuses, each worth 5000 points. Notice how we barely miss getting this extra life due to the suppression of these bonuses.

In the prior submission, we defeat Heady Metal by doing two passes on him: 17 hits on the first pass, and the remaining 20 hits on the second. Here, the passes are much more lopsided: 4 hits on the first pass, and 33 on the second. One of the reasons for this is that Heady Metal will not begin to seek out the player laterally until 4 hits are delivered—something we would like to instigate as fast as possible because we need to lure the boss above where the flag will be, allowing us to end input much earlier.

Airwalking off a vertically-moving platform will place you at its current Y-coordinate when you break the ducking chain. The first instance of this is purely for entertainment to make it look like we vertically snapped down to some blocks! But the second is unexpectedly advantageous. This second platform I airwalk off of rises up once you touch it till it despawns off-screen. The height and timing of the airwalk break is perfectly calculated to give us just enough time to inflict 4 hits on Heady Metal without taking damage ourselves, and now he will follow us around the stage. So why was the whole fancy teleportation thing with the platform necessary? Why not simply jump up to the boss? Well, whether Kid is above or below the boss's midpoint determines whether Heady Metal will move up or down. When jumping up to him, there is a very small period of time during which Heady Metal will move up before you even get a chance to inflict a hit. Simply teleporting up to him effectively minimizes this.

After the first 4 hits, we immediately set up for another airwalk teleport with the left-most slowly oscillating platform. Teleporting up to Heady Metal this time, we wedge ourselves between him and an iron block ceiling for 7 quick hits, followed by another ceiling wedge to the left at 5 quick hits. After this, we slingshot right back into the iron blocks we got pinned between earlier, and end input just 8 frames later after inflicting only 16 of 37 total hits! For reference, input ended on the 22nd hit in the prior TAS. Here though, the ending is pretty tricky as you must meticulously thread your movements around Heady Metal's onslaught of satellite heads; touching any of them in even the slightest wrong way can phase you through the boss to the bottom of the level. I therefore used BizHawk's Basic Bot tool extensively for this part to make sure I was getting the earliest possible input end.

One interesting thing to note is that we actually complete this level 40 frames slower in real time compared to the prior TAS. This is because we lost a lot of time after input end with Red Stealth's detransformation animation, some of Heady Metal's satellite heads getting in the way before delivering the final 3 hits, and touching the flag later after it spawns.

CaseyTAS of course for bringing a plethora (:P) of new ideas into this game's TASing scene, and RandomPie_IV whose efforts from 2010 are still holding up!

nymx: Claiming for judging.

nymx: Since the previous submission was classified as "Playground", I figured an update to that submission would have been the proper thing to do. Well, this one exists now....so with #9080: Winslinator & TheRandomPie_IV's Genesis Kid Chameleon "warp code" in 01:22.04, I'm forced to follow the same reasoning as feos made. Still great job on the improvements.

Accepting over #9080: Winslinator & TheRandomPie_IV's Genesis Kid Chameleon "warp code" in 01:22.04, but not really?? Setting to "Playground".