Hi,
I have made a console speedrun (actually two, one no-death and one with death abuse) that got posted at speeddemosarchive earlier this week. In the planning process, I got many, many useful ideas from Ventuz' tas. During my attemps, I got quite familiar with the game and came up with a couple of ideas that could improve the tas. I have no ambition whatsoever to improve the tas myself, so just see my post as a "returning a favor". Most ideas are just ideas and I don't claim that all of them would be faster than what the tas already does.
- In the bone rooms, before you jump on the two bones above you, you can manipulate the upper one to be more to the left by first making a small jump on the ledge below. I have a feeling that the manipulation would be faster than not.
- In the crypt, I believe it's faster to go to the left first. The reason is the time it takes to pick up the front key. In the tas, when you bounce on the skeleton's head for the third time, you need to land to pick up the key and then jump up on the ledge above. If you come from the left, you don't have to make that last jump back up, but instead enter the red bone room.
- In Pugsley's room, don't pick up the money to the right from walking on the bed. Instead fall to the ground from the door and pick up the money from below. Your last fall will be a bit shorter then.
- Inside the tree, just below the spikes halfway up, it's possible to bounce off a bat and jump on the ledge below directly. You have to take a slightly different route, so I'm not sure it's faster overall, but could be worth a try. (one problem is that I run on the pal-version, so it's difficult to compare which route that is actually the fastest)
- In the pond, the wall next to the spanner is a fake one. It helps you to avoid some damage and also allows you to move left while ascending. You need to first go down to the bottom though. The asceding is done pretty quickly in tas, so not sure how this actually turns out timewise.
- In the pond, you can enter the walls by squeezing in above the seaweed (can be done without taking damage). This wasn't useful for a console run, but could have some potential in a tas by allowing a straighter route. I leave it to someone more knowledgeable than me in tasing if this can be exploited or not. It's pretty neat anyways.
- In the attic, I can't help but think that the use of thing was a bit of a waste. Alternative places to use it would have been in the freezer (thus changing the overall route a bit) or for the first part of the roof (allowing you not to stop for the first three bricks).
- In the attic, I'm sure it would have been possible to manipulate the 2nd to last bat to trigger and thus avoiding having to jump down to the ground.
That's what I can think of having come across while speedrunning. I do have two more points I'd like to comment on though.
- "Capcomistle" (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hMBugFxC9k&feature=channel_page) has found (at least the first one I'm aware of to publish) some out of bounds tricks for Addams Family. In case his clip is taken down, I'll explain the idea here. There is one out of bound entrance close to each corner in the two secret rooms with dollar bags. There are also two out of bound entrances on the bottom of the chimney. All warp you to one of the rooms in the crypt (bone room or pit). The graphic gets glitched up, but at least some of the warps allow you to get back in the game again. However, I think you need to be prepared to death abuse then. There might very well be other out of bound entrances as well (I haven't tried the last two secret rooms for example).
- Regarding the alternative route suggested by Ventuz above, I see a few problems. The five first instructions are feasible, but if you pick up thing and money, Lurch will stop playing before you have the chance to enter the wood. The same thing prevents you from walking out of the house and doing the tree after having summoned Lurch the second time. The secret passage will simply close before you come back to the library again. By omitting these instructions, I think the suggested route becomes longer. The current tas route actually looks pretty optimized to me. The only change I would like to see would be to take the freezer and the conservatory at the same time. This should be done after entering the mansion the second time (after the tree).
I hope the above will be of use to whomever decides to go for an improvement of the current tas (which is already very good if I may say so). Maybe even a tas with death abuse ?