Since I've mostly gotten the route figured out, I started a TAS to figure out those crucial first areas of the game this week.
http://www.box.net/shared/x7n0g1x8qg What do you think?
Working on this led me to realize some other factors to worry about when going for minimal time moving that arrow around. There's the fact that if the item Linus needs next isn't in the three slots on screen, I'll need to go all the way over to the left in that lower section to hit the scroll arrows some number of times, costing 7 frames per press of it. This can be done without wasting any time when Linus has to run all the way to the left through a previous adventure area. When starting on the left such as I demonstrate in Old Lino Town, it only wastes a little time, so that must be the second-best option. The order in which you collect things matters because every time you receive an item, the inventory automatically scrolls so that the new item is on top. In this version of the game the inventory is always sorted into a predefined order, so if the new item is at the bottom of the list there'll be only the one item name on screen, or if it's second-from-bottom, there will be only two. So when possible, we want to get items so that the latest one is or is near one we want to Give or Use next; for instance, grabbing the surfboard after the driver's license is probably a good idea, since I plan to Use it on the water after traveling through Formica again. Items that get used up in conversations, you don't need to worry about, as Linus coughs those up instantly no matter where the inventory list is scrolled to.
Otherwise every press of A or B makes the pointer freeze for 2 frames after. So moving and tapping A every 4 frames, the pointer can only just keep up with Linus's steady 1-pixel-per-frame run. There turns out to be an advantage to selecting one of the actions in the on-screen list with A whenever the pointer needs to swoop past them, even if it's not the action you need, because you can press B starting from that point in the action list if you need to and save some of the earlier B button presses that would have delayed the pointer 2 frames each time. You can select things in the graphic area and actions on the action list with A at the same time as you move with the direction pad for one frame, but to select something from the inventory or scroll it up or down, you need to press A alone. I have noticed that many of the objects Linus uses cause him to move to one exact spot no matter which spot on the object I click on, so if Linus is about to use a machine but I need to pull out money first, I'll set him on that exact spot or as close as I can get before dipping down into the inventory. During conversations, a 1-frame press of A on either the frame Linus's speech appears or the frame before is normally enough to skip to the next line, but many of the responses require holding A for 2 frames, and the last line can take 2 or 3 frames of holding A and then another press of any button.
"Priming" the pointer arrow to move faster is another key to optimizing its time spent flying around. After you've held the pad to move the arrow in one direction for 16 frames, it changes speed from 1-pixel-per-frame to 2-pixels-per-frame (or maybe 3-pixels-per-frame in Cosmic Spacehead, since it's easier to overcompensate for PAL by adding 50% to speed values than to properly compensate by adding 20%). If you ever stop moving in that direction for more than 8 frames, then the pointer goes back to 1 pixel per frame, but it only takes maybe a frame or two per amount of time over 8 that you stopped before it bounces back up to 2 pixels per frame again. I have found that when you're "primed" for double speed like this going left, you're already primed for going right, and vice versa, but neither direction helps you prime for up or down. Similarly, having double speed upward is the same state as having double speed downward, but they have no bearing on left or right. Using diagonal directions a lot then can keep all directions primed at once, except you may want to watch out for when the double speed makes you overshoot your target by a pixel and waste a bit of walking time unnecessarily. I have been able to keep the high horizontal (left/right) speed primed across adventure areas, but for whatever reason I can't get the priming to transfer over for vertical directions at all.
In this movie, I buy gunpowder in the post office twice because I discovered it's a little faster than losing at the Luk-E-Day, and I also discovered it can save a bit more time to buy the gunpowder on the way to doing something else in the post office rather than just standing still and re-purchasing it continuously, so I plan to waste the other two dollars on gunpowder again while coming back for Linochev's letter. I
think it'll be fastest to get that letter and start the trip for the matchstick and more money after grabbing the Dodgey City Telekey but before using the Telekeys.
I just have to hope the "arcade" sections don't get too boring. Linus moves at the one speed and doesn't have any attacks, so all I can do is put in lots of near-misses and collect lots of candy. If you couldn't tell, I'm explaining every facet of TASing this game just in case I lose the will to finish and somebody else takes it up, or if somebody wants to beat the time of the work-in-progress to point out a flaw in my speed strategies!
Oh hey, I think I figured out the reason for Cosmic Spacehead's change in graphics at the Nearly Freezing Pool, and it's probably for the same reason as the camera sign.
Look what happened to the apostrophe!
